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With F.B.I. Search, U.S. Escalates Global Fight Over Chinese Police Outposts [1]
['Megha Rajagopalan', 'William K. Rashbaum']
Date: 2023-01-12
The nondescript, six-story office building on a busy street in New York’s Chinatown lists several mundane businesses on its lobby directory, including an engineering company, an acupuncturist and an accounting firm.
A more remarkable enterprise, on the third floor, is unlisted: a Chinese outpost suspected of conducting police operations without jurisdiction or diplomatic approval — one of more than 100 such outfits around the world that are unnerving diplomats and intelligence agents.
F.B.I. counterintelligence agents searched the building last fall as part of a criminal investigation being conducted with the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. The search represents an escalation in a global dispute over China’s efforts to police its diaspora far beyond its borders. Irish, Canadian and Dutch officials have called for China to shut down police operations in their countries. The F.B.I. raid is the first known example of the authorities seizing materials from one of the outposts.
Those who discussed the F.B.I. search did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. The Chinese Embassy in Washington on Wednesday played down the role of the outposts, saying they are staffed by volunteers who help Chinese nationals perform routine tasks like renewing their driver’s licenses back home.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/world/europe/china-outpost-new-york.html
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