China’s footprint in the Middle East has grown significantly in the past two decades. The region has become central to China’s foreign policy within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Not surprisingly, the exponential growth in trade, investment, and commerce between China and Middle Eastern states since 2000 has generated a large influx of Chinese citizens, businesses, and capital into the region. The estimated number of Chinese citizens in the Middle East is about 1 million, but the transient population of temporary Chinese visitors, traders and indentured workers could add to the total.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain have emerged as the main destination countries of Chinese expatriates in the Gulf. At the same time, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel are top destinations for Chinese immigrant workers, tourists, and foreign students.
The successful opening of China’s economy has fostered the expansion of Chinese businesses and has contributed to the creation of large diaspora communities of Chinese citizens around the world. Following a wave of emigration in the 1990s, an estimated 10.5 million Chinese citizens live abroad, and between 35 and 60 million people travel or work temporarily abroad. Importantly, the Chinese diaspora encompasses workers, migrants, and dissidents, which has required Chinese state security agencies to take a new approach to monitoring them and assessing their political stances. Furthermore, the growing Chinese diaspora is a primary target of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front’s strategy to increase its political influence globally.
Thanks to the combination of these trends, the scope of police activity by Chinese agencies outside their home country’s jurisdiction against Chinese nationals has recently increased. The reports of “China Overseas Police Service Centers” are part of this image.
According to the human rights group safeguard advocates, which first drew attention to the issue in 2022, China has 102 overseas police stations in 53 countries on five continents. The considerable size of the Chinese communities abroad has allowed China to have a wide global presence through these stations. The overseas Chinese service station network is managed by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and operated by local public security bureaus in three Chinese provinces (Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian). His official tasks are to help overseas Chinese citizens with administrative matters, such as renewing their driver’s licences.
However, there are also reports that the stations are involved in “return-persuasion” operations (attempts by the Chinese authorities, either directly or through proxies, to get criminal suspects or dissidents to return to their homes to be investigated and/or prosecuted). According to China’s Ministry of Public Security, between April 2021 and July 2022, the Chinese authorities arrested 230,000 suspects abroad, mainly from Southeast Asia, mainly in connection with cases of suspected telecom fraud.
In some countries with good relations with China, these stations act as legitimate centers to help Chinese citizens abroad, and the existing and growing Chinese immigrant and worker communities will likely allow further expansion of overseas Chinese stations. They will continue to evolve to adapt to the environment of their host countries. The station’s ongoing operations (both overt and covert) show the increasingly sophisticated ways in which China intends to advance its interests, help its citizens abroad, persuade others to return home, expand cooperation agreements and influence activities around the world.
The role of these station networks in promoting China’s interests and the extradition of Chinese citizens has naturally caused concern in the West, although his response was slow. More than a dozen countries have launched investigations against the stations in recent months, and other countries have significantly reduced their cooperation with them.
For its part, the Chinese government has consistently denied the existence of police stations abroad. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin He said China strictly follows the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs and abides by international law, respecting the judicial sovereignty of all countries.
However, it is important to note that the United Nations Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 prohibits countries from sending government representatives to other countries without the consent of the host government. This means that the Chinese government’s overseas police stations are technically illegal in many countries.
China Overseas Police Service Centers in the Middle East
The presence and operations of Chinese Overseas Police Service Stations in the Middle East and other regions have been shrouded in secrecy and a lack of transparency. Available information is often limited and difficult to independently verify. Surprisingly, given the warm and close relations between China and the Middle Eastern countries and the size of the Chinese population in the region (including residents, workers, students, and tourists), the number of police service centers, compared to other regions of the world, is insignificant. According Safeguards advocates reportChinese overseas police service centers are located in only two countries in the Middle East: one in Israel and two in the United Arab Emirates.
In Israel, China has operated a police service center since at least April 2020 to monitor overseas Chinese citizens and opponents of the regime without following local judicial rules. The station in Israel, whose precise location is unknown, was opened on behalf of the Nantong police in southeast China. The exact nature of the cooperation between the station and Israel, including whether the station was established with the consent and cooperation of local authorities, remains unclear. He israeli authorities They have not commented on the matter, adding to the veil of secrecy.
In recent years, Israel has become a emerging and highly volatile tourist destination, attracting an increasing number of Chinese tourists and becoming a major source market for tourists. Currently, China is the tenth largest source of tourists to Israel. Beyond that, however, Chinese travelers constitute Israel’s fastest growing source market for tourists and will therefore play a key role in achieving the goal of 10 million tourists by 2030. In 2019, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, More than 150,000 Chinese tourists traveled to Israel. Although Chinese tourists have returned, the numbers are still far from pre-COVID-19 levels.
In addition to attracting tourists, the Israeli government plans to bring thousands of Chinese workers to help address the country’s severe housing crisis. Chinese workers have long work history in the Israeli construction industry and are seen as trustworthy and capable. The government hopes that by bringing in more Chinese workers, it will be able to build more housing units and lower the cost of living. Today, Chinese workers make up the most significant proportion of foreign construction workers in the country, at around 6,000. They work on various projects, mainly employed by Israeli companies.
In the United Arab Emirates, China has established at least two overseas Chinese police services stations, one in Dubai and one in an unknown location. These stations are reportedly operated by the Nantong and Wenzhou police departments and are said to work in cooperation with local authorities. Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have been concerned about the activities of these stations and have reportedly uncovered evidence of “Black sites operated by Chinese intelligence agencies that were used as detention and investigation centers.”
The United Arab Emirates has a close relationship with China, which gives Chinese law enforcement certain privileges, including freedom of movement and the ability to conduct surveillance and arrests. In the past, local authorities have arrested Uyghur Muslims or dissidents and deported them to China.
Dubai is home to the largest and most diverse Chinese population in the Middle East. The estimated number of Chinese in the United Arab Emirates is 400,000, about 4 percent of the country’s total population. In 2022, around 6,000 Chinese companies were operating in the United Arab Emirates. In 2019, nearly 990,000 Chinese tourists He traveled to the United Arab Emirates. China was an emerging source market for Dubai’s tourism sector. However, that changed with the COVID-19 outbreak, and while the UAE is doing better than most countries in terms of tourism, it is eager to attract more Chinese visitors.
In short, China’s presence in the Middle East has grown significantly in recent years, and as a result, the number of Chinese citizens living and visiting the region has increased. The issue of overseas Chinese police service stations in the Middle East is complex and non-transparent, requiring further investigation. The operations of these stations are often shrouded in secrecy, and it is not easy to determine their exact activities and purposes, or even their locations, which should presumably be readily available if they are really meant to provide basic services to overseas Chinese citizens.
The level of cooperation between the Chinese police service stations and the host countries is also uncertain. It has not been disclosed to what extent the local authorities are aware of and involved in the establishment and operation of these stations. The lack of transparency around their presence raises questions about the nature of the relationship between the Chinese government and the host countries.
Given that Chinese law enforcement has apparently established a global chain of overseas police service stations, it is unlikely that such centers do not exist in other countries in the Middle East where Chinese interests and citizens are constantly growing. . The future of the Chinese government’s overseas police stations is still being determined in the Middle East. The Chinese government may continue to expand its overseas police stations in the region as it seeks to increase its influence. However, these stations may also be forced to close as local governments become more aware of their activities and concerns grow regarding their legality and implications.
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