Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

It unfortunately is not only nonsensical but also true and it is one of the worst violations of Dutch territorial integrity in a very long time. The whole idea that some far away country would subject its citizens here to their laws makes absolutely no sense and has no doubt interfered with many police cases over the years.

What is really mind blowing is that the Chinese society in NL is so closed off from the rest of the country that word of this did not reach the authorities for many years. And what it says to me is that if this could happen in Amsterdam, 300 meters away from a Dutch police station that it likely can happen anywhere in the world and that I would not be surprised at all if more of these turned up if people actively went looking for them.

View on HN

There were 2 in Czech republic, Prague. https://www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-domov/cinske-policejni-stanic...

There's one in Sydney, and apparently about 80 in total around the world: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-13/beijing-sets-up-overs...

So, what's being done about them?

Nothing particularly concrete. What do you expect can be done?

Kick out any Chinese that take part in these police stations on the side of the authorities.

Yes, that. But first raid the place, with no notice, in overwhelming force, and seize all the papers.

what if they have permanent residence permit or more?

Treat them as spy. What are sedition laws are for?

Then they'll find that it is our laws that matter.

A fair trial and (if there is evidence) a long time in jail.

Countries should enforce their sovereignty and write laws to make external countries unable to influence their citizens

The dutch ambassador in China sent to the Chinese government a weeechat message: "not cool :/". That should do it.

In all honesty, I don't think the Dutch (or Canadian or else) governments will really care since these are "ethnic Chinese" citizens. It's not their business. The image of dutch sovereignty has only to stand to the eye of its very "own" citizens and even so.

The only world power that is standing to that is the USA. And that's not because they care about these particular persons but because they are currently engaged in a feud with China.

This was in the news a while back, they're all over the place. https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/04/world/china-overseas-police-s...

It has been happening anywhere in the world, there have been reports from several countries of this. Including close neighbors of the Netherlands, such as Germany.

They’re in Canada too. Lots.

>far away country would subject its citizens here to their laws

...

>word of this did not reach the authorities for many years

The entire PRC "overseas Chinese service stations" are AKTUALLY ILLEGAL POLICE STATIONS VIOLATING TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY/SOVEREIGNTY is new propaganda framing to sell United Front threat. State intelligence in the west has known about United Front activities, from their actual (predominant) legitimate diaspora services to their grayscale tactics to "coerce" Chinese diaspora - some dissidents, most financial criminals - to return to PRC on their own accord for 10+ years. Dissidents have been whining about UF for even longer. Like no one's being illegally renditioned, they're being told of personal and extended consequences in PRC if they don't return and face justice. That kind of conversation is legal statecraft, and TBH a workable arrangement between PRC and the west who has no extradition treaty with (due to politics/optics) while actually shelters a fuckton of PRC criminals who should have the book thrown at them in PRC.

It makes perfect sense that ex/PRC nationals who committed crimes in PRC should be subject to PRC laws. That's why countries have extradition treatises, because it's bad form to shelter criminals across borders and expect smooth diplomatic relations. The funny side effect of PRC capital controls is that virtually every PRC ex-national with a decent amount of assets abroad didn't get it there legally. The West wants PRC diaspora wealth, knows it's misbegotten, and can't survive politics of formal extraditing to PRC, so we have this informal shenanigans.

Then they can make a regular extradition request. That's not what these police stations are used for, they are arms of the CCP into the Chinese communities in other countries, they are used for rendition and intimidation. They are incompatible with our legal system and should not exist.

To be fair Netherlands and many western countries don't have (yet anyway...) extradition treaties with China due to perfectly obvious reasons.

There doesn't have to be a treaty for you to make a request. You can then (1) see your request honored because in spite of the absence of a treaty there are good enough reasons to extradite or (2) be told to fuck off. A bit more politely than that of course.

Typically whenever there are diplomatic relationships extradition requests can be made and these are honored if there is reciprocity and there is sufficient evidence that the request to be have been made in good faith.

This is assuming PRC hasn't made formal requests - been asking for extradition rights / treaties since mid 2000s (before Xi) to host of western countries where big grafters were fleeing. And been given the cold shoulder. Naive to believe polite or none polite fuck off is end of story to west harbouring PRC criminals consquence free, leading to these grayzone methods. "Typical" is reserved for "like minded" relationships, reality is it is political suicide in west to send even criminals to PRC, hence it won't happen no better how sufficient the evidence and faith.

It is a good lesson for 1 person, or a whole government: when you look around you and the entire world are assholes it is time to look in the mirror and ask, "Am I the asshole?"

If no one will make deals to help your government then maybe you need a new one.

Countries are not people. Your worldview becomes more shifted from reality and full of holes the more you think of an entire country as one person.

True, government is an ecosystem. If you kill the sparrow but spare the locust you may do more harm than good.

There's no extradition treaty. Nor are there any illegal renditions. If there were then media wouldn't be screeching over nonsense "intimiation" angle, because person of interest would just get nabbed and it actually be a massive sovereignty violation / diplomatic incident. And it's generally completely compatible with western legal systems, that's how they've operated for so long with awareness from western govs / security. United Front agents passing a note that if person doesn't return to PRC to face justice out of their own acccord is just having a "conversation", frequently delivered by other naturalized citizens. The reason there's so much reeeing about this in western reporting is that there's nothing functionally inappropriate about what PRC is doing since it's just words and actual consquences are happening on PRC soil.

It's a bit of a stretch to go from 'intimidiation' to 'extralegal rendition'. Though to be fair there is some evidence that these 'police stations' were used to get people critical of the party to go back 'home' by applying undue pressure. And that's one more reason why they should be shut down.

> there's nothing functionally inappropriate about what PRC is doing

That's your opinion.

I'm just clarifying your assertion that these stations:

> are used for rendition

There's no extradition agreement between PRC and NE hence rendition could only be extralegal/extraordinary, which these stations are not doing. That's borderline declaration of war territory. I'm not suggesting these stations are not also used to "pressure" / coerce people to return - they explictly are - but my point is in terms of functionally appropriate is there's nothing wrong about informing people about consequences on PRC soil if they don't voluntarily return. I don't see how "free" societies can enforce, in this case dutch nationals (again a lot of these stations are staffed by nationals) telling other dutch nationals about "implications" on PRC soil. That's as tame as it gets in terms of permissible foreign influence.

intimidation and harrasment is a crime in many jurisdictions.

the only unique thing here is that we are talking about a state actor vs the traditional style organized mafia intimidation, vito corleone style.

Even if they have an extradition treaty it only apply to crimes which are actually crimes in both countries. So most political "criminals" couldn't be extradited anyway...

> diaspora wealth, knows it's misbegotten, and can't survive politics of formal extraditing

So prosecute them for any crimes they committed in your country? I mean the Chinese government is thoroughly corrupt so the fact the they want to arrest certain people and not others is not a great indicator on which wealth is "misbegotten"...

> told of personal and extended consequences

Right.. like how much their families will suffer it they won't return. The Soviets were using the same tactic on political dissidents to shut them up,

> capital controls is that virtually every PRC ex-national with a decent amount of assets abroad didn't get it there legally

Safeguarding the capital control laws of the PRC should be something anyone cares about why exactly?

Dissidents no, but in terms of financial crime PRC pressure / focus largely on 10s of millions to billion tier, the obviously misbegotten gains that western court system would look retarded to pretend otherwise. Millions of PRC diasphora in the west, are we going to pretend they're all upstanding. PRC isn't generally wasting time on petty graft, and even then optics of cooperating with PRC is none starter. And when did I say other countries care about safeguarding PRC laws, clearly they don't because they benefit from it, including hosting dissidents who get weaponized for anti-PRC campaigns. Hence PRC resorts to grayzone methods like threatening consequences on PRC soil, which is valid tactic calibrated to not actually cross sovereignty lines in host country. There's likely a reason there's so many "investigations" into these sensational "police stations" while so few have actually been shut down. Meanwhile we don't hear about mass PRC agents being deported because most of the messengers are actually citizens who has right to act as intermediaries to activities that doesn't trip up on foreign agent politics.

> focus largely on 10s of millions to billion tier, the obviously misbegotten gains that western court system would look retarded to pretend otherwise

Well yes, but they are only after the misbegotten gains of the people who currently don't have the favor of the party/Winnie-the-Pooh. So either western countries have to become tools for the Chinese "judicial system" or they have to start investigating these alleged crimes themselves to determine which are legit and which are political motivated (problem is that most are probably both...).

Neither seems like a great option...

Besides this I mostly agree on your take on this whole situation overall though.

>don't have the favor of the party/Winnie-the-Pooh

Operation Foxhunt criminals being harboured in west should get a pass just to stick it to CCP/Xi is pretty much why Guo Wengui happened. Let a known criminal swindle billion+ in US instead of working out deal to hand him to CCP after years of petitioning because... I don't even know. Ultimately extraditing even criminals to PRC too much of political shitshow in west, especially under current environment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com