The Diplomat
The Ministry of Interior has informed that it is investigating the “veracity” of the information about the existence of possible Chinese parapolice centers in Spanish territory and, in any case, has assured that the Spanish Government has “no agreement” with the Government of the People’s Republic of China to “establish joint police stations”.
This was assured by the Executive on January 16 in response to a parliamentary question from MP Pablo Cambronero, of the Mixed Group, on “the possible existence of police stations or ‘alleged’ police centers of China in Spanish territory” and on whether the Governments of Madrid or Beijing plan the opening of “joint police centers”.
According to Cambronero, “information is being published about the agreements of several European countries with China for the establishment of joint police centers or various formats of police cooperation between the Asian country and some European countries.”
“In Spain we are not aware of the existence of this type of units or collaboration projects”, but the fact that the Chinese community established in Spain does not usually “turn to the national authorities for any question or problem (…) invites to think that there are their own ways of self-managing their problems and security needs, of which the Ministry of Interior itself should be aware”, he continued.
Therefore, the former MP of Ciudadanos asked the Government if “it is aware of the existence in Spanish territory of any Chinese police or parapolice formula that is operating in our territory” and if “it has any agreement with China for the establishment of joint police stations or any other formula of police collaboration between China and Spain”. The question also asks for “crime statistics and complaints of Chinese citizens living in Spain”.
In its response, the Government assured that “the State Security Forces and Corps are checking all the extremes of the information published to assess the veracity of the facts and the impact they could have with respect to the group of citizens referred to”. On the other hand, he affirmed that “the Ministry of the Interior has no agreement with the Government of the People’s Republic of China to establish joint police stations”.
As for the data on arrests and investigations of Chinese nationals in Spain in recent years, the Government assured that between 2019 and 2022 (both included) a total of 7,520 cases were recorded. Specifically, between January and November 2019 there were 2,233 detainees and investigated, in the same period of 2020 there were 1,492, in 2021 there were 1,793 cases and throughout 2022 there were 2,002 detentions and investigations.
Chinese police centers in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Santiago
Last October, Spanish MEP Ignacio Sánchez Amor, of the PSOE, submitted a question to the European Commission regarding alleged unofficial operations by Chinese authorities in Spain and other Member States that could lead to violations of the procedural and political rights of Chinese citizens fleeing from justice in their country and residing abroad.
According to a report by the NGO Safeguard Defenders, quoted by Sánchez Amor, the Chinese authorities are using a network of “police service centers abroad” established in fifty countries around the world to bring alleged fugitives from Chinese justice back to the country. To this end, the Chinese police, “in coordination with the overseas Chinese association led by Chinese Communist Party entities”, have set up a series of “police service stations abroad”, particularly in Europe, through which they have allegedly “persuaded” some 230,000 alleged Chinese fugitives to return to their country. As a means of pressure, Chinese officials use the relatives of the fugitives.
These centers are said to be distributed in numerous countries, including some EU member states, such as Spain, Portugal, France and Germany, and their operations are said to take place outside official bilateral police and judicial cooperation. According to the NGO, Spain is the country with the most centers, nine to be precise (three in Madrid, three in Barcelona, two in Valencia and one in Santiago de Compostela), a figure that could be “much higher” (up to five times higher) because only the centers related to two jurisdictions, Fuzhou and Qingtian, where most of the Chinese residents in Spain come from, have been detected.
