They have been accused of hunting Chinese dissidents abroad. The UK government has ordered China to shut down secret “police stations” operating in its territory, which are said to provide administrative services but are accused of monitoring and pressuring regime critics.
The British Foreign Office announced that “the Chinese Embassy has no relevant activity.” Police stations are unacceptable in the UK and under no circumstances should they operate,” Defense Secretary Tom Tugenhardt said in a written statement to Parliament released on Tuesday. In response, Chinese officials vowed to shut them down, according to a statement from the secretary of state.
Three or four positions in England
The existence of such antennas has been mentioned in the United Kingdom but also in France or the United States, but China has always denied their existence. Britain’s Home Office and London police launched preliminary investigations Human rights group Security Defenders Last year documented the existence of these locations.
Tom Tugenthat said there would be three or even four in the United Kingdom. He said police visited every suspicious location and found “no illegal activity”. “We believe that policing and public oversight has had an effect,” the secretary of state said.
“However, these Police stations “Established without our consent and with however little administrative action taken, they would have alarmed and threatened those who had left China to find safety and liberty in England,” he added.
Damaged relationships
In April, daily The Times Lin Ruiyu, a Chinese businessman with ties to the British Conservative Party, published an article about a food delivery business in Croydon, south London, operating as an undeclared Chinese police station.
The Chinese embassy in London has already reiterated that “police stations are not called overseas” and criticized the spread of “false allegations”.
After the “golden age” desired by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015, relations between London and Beijing have deteriorated significantly in recent years, particularly due to the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in the former British colony of Hong Kong. The plight of the Uyghur Muslim minority and intelligence suspicions about telecommunications equipment maker Huawei.
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