Chinese Communist Party enforcers of their secret network of US police stations are ordered to harass dissidents, spy on plots to overthrow the regime, and monitor derisive remarks about President Xi Jinping’s resemblance to Winnie the Pooh.
China’s police stations – two of them in Recent York – are working with domestic diplomats to pressure dissidents, including pro-democracy protesters, to return to China, where they face reprisals and imprisonment.
On Monday, two agents were arrested by the FBI and charged with spying on Chinese residents in Recent York, allegedly working at a Chinese “overseas service station” in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, the existence of which was first revealed by The Post in October.
Along with the Chinese police station above the noodle restaurant in Chinatown, The Post revealed on Tuesday that there may be one other police station at an undisclosed address in Recent York City, in addition to outposts in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston, and cities in Nebraska and Minnesota, in accordance with a latest a report by the non-profit organization Safeguard Defenders.
Now, federal prosecutors are painting the most detailed picture of what is going on on in police stations to this point, including details of how Communist Party enforcers monitor social media for signs of disrespect to China’s president for all times.
Including the arrests, 44 alleged Chinese law enforcement officials were indicted this week, and the Department of Justice used the indictments to point out how they were attempting to instill fear amongst Chinese Americans, especially anti-CCP dissidents.
The CCP’s “unapproved” topics range from discussions about the overthrow of the CCP’s control over the PRC government and the status of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Republic of China – commonly known as Taiwan – to remarks about the decision of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s apparent resemblance to the fictional Winnie the Pooh cartoon character. says one in all the indictments, indicting ten suspects who allegedly used fake social media accounts to intimidate dissidents.
Xi has been notoriously touchy, comparing him to Disney’s version of the classic child character, banning Chinese social media from using memes about the character, in addition to banning a Disney Christopher Robin movie.
Monitoring Pooh references, nonetheless, is just the tip of the iceberg at work by Chinese spies, who spend most of their time on Operation Fox Hunt, a ruthless program designed to comb up dissidents and convey them back to China for revenge.
In one in all the indictments released Monday in federal court in Brooklyn, prosecutors describe an “elite task force” called the 912 Special Project Working Group, which operates under the auspices of the Department of Public Safety to target dissidents in the US.
The criticism alleges that members of the 912 Group created hundreds of faux social media accounts to harass dissidents.
Fake accounts also spread government propaganda to fight dissidents. Members of the 912 Group tracked the performance of their recruits and rewarded members who arrange multiple accounts without being detected by social media corporations, in accordance with court documents.
In the case of Company-1, a U.S. telecommunications company, Chinese agents were instructed by their superiors in China to finish online video chat meetings where dissidents were planning events to commemorate Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, court documents say.
Unnamed company that ABC news identified as Zoom, citing federal sources, did business in China and needed to abide by strict terms of service for online discussion of politically sensitive topics, court documents show.
But these terms were also utilized in the US because the agents “fabricated evidence of … violations [of the company’s terms of service] provide a pretextual justification for ending the meetings,” the court documents read. Accounts would even be suspended and cancelled, in accordance with the criticism.
The harassment is linked to the Operation Fox Hunt program, established in 2014 to forcibly return to China refugees accused of corruption abroad. The Chinese government took the initiative after the country faced resistance from foreign governments to repatriate its residents.
Amongst the agents named in one in all the federal indictments is Xinjiang Jin, the company’s head of security in China from 2016 to 2020. Also generally known as Julien Jin, he was ordered to censor statements “not favored by the PRC government and the Chinese Communist Party … appearing on the Company-1 communications platform,” in accordance with court documents.
In response to recent federal indictments in the US, to implement Operation Fox Hunt overseas, the Chinese government recruited private investigators in the US to assist them track down dissidents and others.
In some cases, private investigators offered wads of money to their contacts in federal agencies, but additionally they handled expensive cigars and a bottle of positive tequila, in accordance with a federal indictment against a former Homeland Security official who allegedly collaborated with Chinese officials.
In Recent York, unregistered Chinese agents allegedly tried to smear pro-democracy Tiananmen Square hero and Iraq War veteran Yan Xiong.
The pastor, a father of seven, ran in the Democratic congressional primaries in Brooklyn last 12 months and says Chinese agents prevented supporters from donating to his campaign and tried to discredit him by hiring a prostitute to damage his political profession. Additionally they threatened to beat him so badly that he would should withdraw from the race, in accordance with an indictment filed by the Department of Justice last 12 months.
The brand new federal indictments, coupled with reports from Safeguard Defenders, a human rights group that last 12 months uncovered the presence of greater than 100 Chinese police stations operating around the world, document a network of Chinese residents used to implement the CCP’s totalitarian agenda around the world.
Chinese students who’ve gone abroad to review are even employed by the country’s Ministry of Public Security to spy on and harass their fellow residents.
The Defenders of Containment speak their very own “Patrol and Persuasion” report that CCP agents use bilateral police agreements, corresponding to the one with Interpol, which allows police around the world to work together to trace fugitives, tracking dissidents for harassment around the world.
In response to the non-profit organization, China has signed bilateral police agreements with Romania, South Africa, Angola and Italy, amongst others. The Italian government is one in all the few European countries that has yet to publicly announce an investigation into Chinese police stations abroad. In response to Safeguard Defenders, there are seven Chinese overseas police stations in Italy.
“Countries which have agreed to allow them to arrange illegal police stations are completely afraid to say no to China,” a source who claimed China was being harassed in the US told The Post on Wednesday.
A Madrid-based Safeguard Defenders report says, “Some countries have explicitly agreed to their establishment, and native law enforcement in addition to Chinese embassies and/or consulates work closely with stations at these locations.
“Conservation advocates and other organizations have often denounced the ongoing abuses of international police cooperation mechanisms corresponding to Interpol and the United Nations Office for Police Cooperation to legitimize the PRC’s domestic judicial system despite flagrant violations of internationally recognized norms and standards,” the report reads.
Chinese agents working abroad also use a “combination of persuasion, intimidation and harassment” that focuses on warnings that relations can be arrested in China unless the fugitive returns. Additionally they engage in state-sanctioned kidnappings, “which also involve working covertly with host country forces to trick the target into going to a 3rd country where they could be extradited or just handed over to Chinese agents for deportation without due process,” in accordance with “Involuntary returns”, report by Safeguard Defenders.