[EXCLUSIVE] Safeguard Defenders offers to help South Korea probe China's secret police station

A paramilitary police officer stands guard outside the Great Hall of the People ahead of the opening ceremony of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing, in this March 4, 2021, file photo. A representative of the human rights group that released a bombshell report accusing China's government of operating more than 100 "secret police stations" around the world told The Korea Times that it is willing to work with the South Korean government to investigate the case. AFP-Yonhap

By Jung Min-ho

Safeguard Defenders, the Madrid-based human rights group that released a bombshell report accusing China's government of operating more than 100 "secret police stations" around the world, has offered to help South Korean authorities find them in their territory.

The offer comes two days after South Korean officials told reporters that an investigation had begun to confirm the allegations that the Chinese Communist Party is running at least one such police facility "at an unknown location" in the country.

"Safeguard Defenders is available to assist the relevant [South] Korean investigative authorities with any additional insights and information we might have at our disposal," Laura Harth, campaign director at the NGO, told The Korea Times.

"We are very pleased to see the [South] Korean authorities have opened an official investigation into the establishment of a 'Chinese overseas police service center' in the country," she added. "It is our sincere hope democratic nations will rally around this issue together to come up with joint efforts to effectively counter these blatant violations of the international rules-based order, which pose a threat to fundamental freedoms and democracy everywhere."

The report, first published in September, alleges that the United Front Work Department, a Chinese Communist Party body that coordinates influence operations in China and abroad, is behind the operations of secret police stations the NGO found in 53 countries. "The CCP's United Front Work Department (UFWD) is responsible for coordinating domestic and foreign influence operations, through propaganda and manipulation of susceptible audiences and individuals" for the interests of the party, according to the U.S. State Department.

The report says such police stations are operated out of four Chinese jurisdictions: Nantong, Wenzhou, Qingtian and Fuzhou. The one in South Korea is believed to be operated out of Nantong, a city in China's southeastern Jiangsu province.

Safeguard Defenders also accused the Chinese government agency of exploring a new model of using overseas Chinese residents to govern other Chinese people living in the same country and hiring Chinese students in South Korea and several other countries as "overseas liaison officers to cooperate with domestic officers both internally and externally."

According to the organization, more than 10 governments have launched investigations into what could be a violation of international law and an infringement of national sovereignty. Under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a treaty that defines a framework for consular relations between sovereign states, establishing "a vice-consular or a consular agency" without the host country's consent is a violation of the international pact adopted by the United Nations.

Speaking to The Korea Times, Lim Soo-suk, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said all governments, including China, should respect the rule of law in South Korea. But he refused to reveal any information about the investigation.

The existence of China's unauthorized police stations have been officially confirmed by government authorities in some countries. The Dutch government announced on Tuesday that two such facilities found in Amsterdam and Rotterdam have now been closed, local media reports say. Another one in Dublin has also been ordered to shut down by the Irish government.

Chinese authorities have reportedly claimed that the facilities are run "voluntarily" to offer services such as renewing documents for Chinese nationals overseas. But the NGO believes the main function of the facilities is to pressure some Chinese dissidents to return to China to face criminal charges. The tools they use to do so, including "denying the target's children in China the right to education," is "similar to the North Korean practice," the organization alleges.

Harth urged the South Korean government to "firmly denounce and investigate" all transnational repression efforts by the Chinese government and to impose "concrete costs on the entities and individuals involved."

If confirmed, the case is expected to damage South Korea's relations further with China, which has already been at the lowest point in decades following Beijing's "THAAD retaliation" ― its unofficial ban on importing South Korean cultural content among others. It was Beijing's response to Seoul's decision to deploy a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in its territory in 2017.