The revelations read like an overwrought spy thriller: secret foreign police stations in Manhattan, shady foreign security thugs hunting American residents in American neighborhoods. But they weren’t fiction: Following stories in The Post, last month The New York Times reported that the FBI raided a non-descript building in Chinatown where the innocent-looking community association on the third floor hid a nefarious surprise — an unauthorized “police service center” linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
That secret police station is a terrifying threat to Chinese-Americans, other CCP targets — and American sovereignty itself.
The Times speculated that these stations are linked to what the CCP calls “Operation Fox Hunt”: an allegedly anti-corruption campaign that more often veers into intimidation, harassment and, at times, even forced rendition of United States residents.
The Times speculated that these stations are linked to what the CCP calls “Operation Fox Hunt.”AFP via Getty Images
Not in Beijing or Hong Kong or some distant province. Right here. On American soil. And the Spain-based human-rights group Safeguard Defenders has identified such CCP secret-police stations across our country as well as in Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Japan.
The FBI calls it “transnational repression.” In practice, that means a gang of men sent by the CCP hunt down your location in the United States, “escort” your elderly father over from China in the company of a “doctor” and sit outside your house until you’re forced to listen to their blackmail. As Propublica reports, they surveil your daughter, taking video of her, harassing her online.
Then one day you find a note taped to your door: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right.”
If you are a US-based Uyghur journalist, transnational repression might mean having dozens of family members imprisoned in retaliation for reporting on atrocities in Xinjiang. If you’re a Han Chinese dissident, as Newsweek reported, it might mean having your car slammed into in a “pincer” strike on a dark road on the outskirts of Washington, DC.
Per a federal indictment last month, for a student activist it might mean receiving a chat message, “Post more, I will chop your bastard hands off,” from a fellow student after you posted pro-Chinese democracy fliers. Then, in a follow-up, being told state security forces in China had been informed about your family’s whereabouts and would “greet” them.
Another federal indictment last year outlined how a Chinese operative stalked and harassed “Victim 1,” whose pregnant daughter was held against her will in China for eight months despite being an American citizen.
Reportedly, the FBI has over 2,000 CCP-focused investigations open. Bloomberg via Getty Images
China’s Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Public Security and United Front Work Department are active all across our country and indeed the world, along with a dizzying number of other local entities tasked with malign activity. The threats are often hard to investigate because they are veiled and Mafia-esque: Nice family you’ve got there, be a shame if something happened to them. When CCP agents use the tactics of petty-racketeers, the party’s true colors shine through.
FBI Director Wray has testified that the FBI has over 2,000 CCP-focused investigations open. As of two years ago, the bureau was opening a new CCP investigation “every 10 hours.”
The problem has only gotten worse. Chinese Americans and other groups who have run afoul of the CCP are being hunted right now on American streets in American neighborhoods. The US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York has called these attempted forced repatriations “outrageous violations of national sovereignty.”
The CCP’s Orwellian model of totalitarian control is designed not just for the 12 million Uyghur Muslims now living in an open air prison, or for China’s near-1 ½ billion citizens, but increasingly, for all of us. The recipe is powerful: strong-arm intimidation tactics backed up by advanced technology and artificial intelligence.
The only thing standing in their way is our will to defend our values and our success in reducing their sources of leverage. We must stand up, push back and protect both our citizens and the many — reformers, freedom fighters and asylum seekers — who have taken refuge in our nation.
These people have fled horrific oppression, some of it (as with the Uyghurs) labeled genocide by both Republican and Democratic administrations. We cannot allow the threat they have so courageously fled to follow them to our shores.
Transnational repression might mean having dozens of family members imprisoned in retaliation for reporting on atrocities in Xinjiang. AFP via Getty Images
As chairman of the Select Committee on the CCP, I will work tirelessly to preserve American freedoms and counter foreign agents persecuting people here on American soil.
I am beginning that work Saturday, hosting a gathering in front of the secret police station in Chinatown, where I will highlight these abuses alongside other Select Committee members of both parties, followed by meetings with human-rights activists.
We want everyone in this country to know that if the CCP targets them, the US government and the American people will have their back. We will ensure that all levels of law enforcement have the training and resources to end this ugly affront to our sovereignty.
The United States must remain a haven from persecution, not a hunting ground for authoritarians.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
Source link: https://nypost.com/2023/02/24/chinas-secret-police-actively-hunting-people-on-us-soil/