Anything that deals more directly with the issue than the past of the founder of one associated organization? “One of the guys saying it is bad, so it isn’t true” doesn’t work well on the people I argue with.

It’s very hard to prove a negative, especially to people who want to believe, thanks to over a century of anticommunist propaganda. The burden of proof ought to be on those making claims of secret foreign police stations on their soil, an extraordinary claim. All those articles are trash and have no real evidence. And they don’t need any, because almost no Westerners demand any, because the narrative aligns with their preconception of communist states as cartoonishly evil.

It was my understanding that the existence of police stations in foreign countries is not debated, they have them. The allegation that they are used for repressive purposes beyond their stated aim of providing administrative services to citizens living abroad is what is controversial. It really seems like, when you cut all the baggage away, all we have is testimonials from expats claiming harassment and assurances from the MFA that it never happened, so I struggle to land firmly on one side of belief considering both parties have historically been loose with the truth.

It was my understanding that the existence of police stations in foreign countries is not debated, they have them. No, that’s not a thing. What country allows another country to have police stations on its sovereign territory, where it has sovereign jurisdiction and the foreign country has none? That makes no sense.

www.mfa.gov.cn/…/t20221102_10797427.shtml

It is widely known and actually mentioned in the article you linked above The things mentioned in the article aren’t police stations, Chinese or otherwise. You also read the Chinese government’s explanation for their existence if you search the MFA website for 海外警务服务中心 I can’t read Chinese, can you? Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on “Overseas Chinese Service Centers in the Netherlands” AFP: The Dutch government said yesterday that no permission was sought from the Netherlands for the Chinese “police service stations”, and it ordered China to close the “police service stations” in the Netherlands. What is China’s comment? Zhao Lijian: I would refer you to competent authorities for more detailed information. Let me say that according to our understanding, the sites you mentioned are not “police stations” or “police service centers”. They assist overseas Chinese nationals who need help in accessing the online service platform to get their driving licenses renewed and receive physical check-ups for that purpose. The venues are provided by local overseas Chinese communities who would like to be helpful, and the people who work on those sites are all volunteers who come from these communities. They are not police personnel from China. There is no need to make people nervous about this.

I can’t read Chinese, can you? Yes, I lived in China for almost a decade. The things mentioned in the article aren’t police stations, Chinese or otherwise, nor are they secret. That is the exactly the crux of the conflict, when does a citizen service station abroad that maintains communications with province-level PSBs and performs functions that the PSB would perform domestically need to seek approval from a host country? And why would the volunteers burn comms after the FBI started snooping in there were no secret dealings behind the scenes in the non-secret, totally-above-board hukou and drivers license operation? Beyond that, the testimonials from diaspora Chinese in the US are hard for me to handwave away. To be clear, I don’t intend to take any moral stance on this, I just think it is a bit naive to assume China wouldn’t do that or hasn’t done that, even without considering the weight of the claims on either side, diaspora community/Biden DOJ and Zhao Lijian/the MFA.

It seems you’ve done more research than me, and have more incentive to, having lived in China, so you tell me. It’s doubtless that China has spy networks, as all countries do, and if some or all of these “police station” locations have connections to them, that wouldn’t surprise me. But “secret police station” implies that China is extraordinarily renditioning people or locking them up in secret prisons in Toronto, New York, Amsterdam, etc. Even if they are part of a spy network, they’re still not “police stations.”