French MP’s Concerns Renewed by Intimidation Case in Beijing, Highlight Illicit Chinese Police Stations in Canada
Conservative MP Michael Chong is once again bringing attention to the existence of secret Chinese police stations operating in Canada, sparked by a recent incident in France involving the alleged coercion of a critic of the Beijing regime who narrowly avoided forced repatriation to China.
In a May 5 post on X, Mr. Chong described the incident as “a chilling, frightening account of PRC [People’s Republic of China] repression in France.” He added that “this is happening in Canada too—and why the RCMP are justified in shutting down these PRC ‘police stations.’”
Ling Huazhan, a 26-year-old man of Chinese origin, posted a video online criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the founder of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Mao Zedong. Subsequently, Mr. Ling received coercive messages summoning him to a suspected secret Chinese police station, as reported by French national television France 2 on May 1.
France 2 reporters, forewarned of the potential threats against Mr. Ling, recorded individuals alleged to be employees of the Chinese embassy in France and members of a Franco-Chinese association escorting him to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where he nearly faced forced repatriation to China. Despite escaping his guards before boarding the plane, Mr. Ling reported ongoing threats against him and his family.
The Chinese embassy in France dismissed the France 2 report. In a May 2 statement, the Chinese embassy suggested that Mr. Ling was mentally unstable and sought consular support to return to China.
Forced Repatriation
Beijing’s operation of clandestine police stations worldwide came to light in a September 2022 report by Spain-based human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders. The organization identified 102 secret Chinese police stations in 53 countries, including five in Toronto and Vancouver. Subsequently, the RCMP disclosed its investigation into two other organizations in the Montreal region, suspected of hosting such Chinese police outposts.
Safeguard Defenders cautioned that these overseas Chinese police stations engage in surveillance and manipulation of Chinese diaspora communities as part of efforts to advance Beijing’s interests. The NGO initially focused on studying the regime’s use of forced repatriation in campaigns known as Operation Fox Hunt and Sky Net. These campaigns initially aimed to curb online fraud crimes committed by Chinese nationals living abroad but were later extended to silence regime dissidents.
Starting in 2018 as a separate campaign, the overseas Chinese police stations later facilitated the forced repatriation efforts of the Fox Hunt and Sky Net campaigns, according to Safeguard Defenders. Targeting dissidents and persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, these Chinese police outposts adopted various intimidation tactics, including harassing the targets or their family members in China. The regime describes those who succumb to the pressure as being “persuaded to return” to China, the NGO said.
Citing Chinese officials and state media reports, the NGO noted that Chinese authorities have facilitated the involuntary return to China of 230,000 nationals between April 2021 and July 2022.
Mr. Chong, who is also a known target of Beijing’s intimidation campaign, highlighted that “the human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders [identified] the same PRC ‘police stations’ here [in Canada] as in France.”
In May 2023, Canada expelled Zhao Wei, a Chinese consular officer in Toronto, for being involved in threatening Mr. Chong’s family members in Hong Kong after the MP pushed for a parliamentary motion aimed at declaring China’s abuse of Uyghurs a genocide. Beijing denied the allegations and expelled Jennifer Lynn Lalonde, a consul at the Canadian consulate in Shanghai.
Chinese Police Stations in Canada
Addressing public concerns about the secret Chinese police stations, former Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told MPs at a House of Commons committee hearing last April that the RCMP had taken action to shut them down. Other senior RCMP officials, including former commissioner Brenda Lucki, have made similar testimonies in Parliament, saying that the alleged Chinese police stations have ceased to operate.
