Italy hosts largest number of shadow Chinese ‘police stations’ worldwide, report says – POLITICO

Italy is home to the largest number of unofficial Chinese “police stations” globally, a report by a Spanish human rights group said.

Safeguard Defenders said Monday it had identified 48 more stations, 11 of which are in Italy, with others located in Croatia, Serbia and Romania among other countries.

The report also said that the Italian government’s cooperation with the Chinese central government directly contributed to setting up these stations back in 2016.

“A 2015 Ministry of Public Security bilateral agreement on joint police patrols with the Italian government appears to have contributed directly to the later establishment of European “pilot” stations in Milan in 2016 (by Wenzhou police) and 2018 (by Qingtian police),” the report said.

Italy is home to 330,000 Chinese citizens, according to 2021 figures from Istat, the national statistics agency. The Italian stations are in Rome, Milan, Bolzano, Venice, Florence, Prato — a town near Florence that hosts the largest number of Chinese immigrants per capita in Italy — and Sicily.

The new revelations follow a report released by Safeguard Defenders in September on Chinese police stations abroad. That report exposed 54 stations around the world, but mainly in Europe. The new data brings the number of such stations to more than 100.

The stations nominally provide administrative services, but have also been active in “covert and illegal policing,” the organization stated at the time.

The so-called overseas service stations offer diplomatic services to Chinese citizens, such as renewing their driving licenses — but they also attempt to silence Chinese dissidents in Europe.

In addition to already exposed operations in Spain and Serbia, at least one “persuasion to return” operation was conducted by the Wenzhou station in Paris. Safeguard Defenders said that this “contradicts PRC authorities’ statements that the stations are merely providing ‘administrative services,’” in its new report.

A number of countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, have started to look into the issue and launched investigations, but Italy is among those that have been more reluctant until now.

“To date, despite having the largest number of liaison outposts on its soil, the Italian government is among the very few European countries that has not yet publicly announced an investigation into the Chinese Overseas Police Stations or declared their illegality,” the report reads.

POLITICO has contacted the Italian government for comment.