The Chinese government has opened police stations in Nigeria and about 20 other countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa to tackle increasing criminal activities by its citizens abroad. In an investigative statement titled ‘110 Overseas Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild’, the report says that the police stations are meant to crack down on all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving Chinese. 

Countries like Lesotho and Tanzania are two countries in Africa with Chinese police stations, apart from Nigeria. 

The report by Safeguard Defender states that rather than cooperating with local authorities in respect of territorial sovereignty, China prefers to cooperate with overseas NGOs or civil society organisations across the five continents, setting up alternative policing and directly implicating those organisations in the illegal methods used to pursue fugitives.

The country’s official statement explained the use of depriving suspects’ dependents of the right to education in China and other actions against relatives and family members in a full-on guilt-by-association campaign. 

The NGO said that China chose the nine countries as having serious fraud and cybercrimes and that Chinese nationals were no longer allowed to stay in those countries without good reason. 

Safeguard said: “While establishing these operations to hunt down those accused of fraud and telecommunications fraud, China identified nine countries particularly prone to hosting Chinese nationals engaging in such criminal activities, the ‘nine forbidden countries”

But the setting up of overseas police service was a nationwide practice, with many being in Western democratic nations focused mainly on Europe and not in the nine forbidden countries. It is unknown if Chinese nationals would work in the police stations or if the stations would be subject to the laws of local policing in the host countries. The group said: “Whether the targets are dissidents, corrupt officials or low-level criminals, the problem remains the same: The use of irregular methods — often combining carrots with sticks — against the targeted individual or their family members in China undermines any due process and the most basic rights of suspects,” Safeguard Defender further stated.

Credit: Legit.