South Korea investigates secret Chinese 'police stations' after claims of 2 more being uncovered on Jeju Island
South Korean authorities are reportedly looking into alleged Chinese "secret police stations" in the country, as analysts say Seoul has apparently had enough of sovereignty transgressions by Chinese agents.
Security authorities have uncovered two suspected Chinese secret police stations on southern Jeju Island, bringing the total number of such stations in South Korea to three, including one found in Seoul last year, Yonhap News TV reported on Monday.
A spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Seoul slammed the allegations as "totally groundless".
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"It is our firm official stance that there exists no so-called secret police stations set up by China in this country," he told This Week in Asia.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wengbin said last month that there were "no so-called overseas police stations" and that such accusations were "disinformation ... smearing and discrediting China".
Wang said there were institutions helping Chinese nationals in other countries return home during the pandemic, but these were "not so-called police stations or police service centres".
According to news reports, South Korean intelligence operatives reached a tentative conclusion last month that a Chinese restaurant in central Seoul was acting as a base for undeclared police operations for Beijing, the first example uncovered in the country.
There was no immediate comment from South Korea's National Intelligence Agency on the reports.
After opening in 2017, the restaurant in Seoul remained unprofitable before it shut early this year to carry out renovations.
Owner Wang Haijun, 44, in December denied reports that his restaurant served as a "secret police station" for China.
He also rejected allegations he was involved in secret police activities, such as suppressing Chinese dissidents and forcibly repatriating them.
"We never forcibly arrested anti-Chinese people, it's not something we're involved in. We don't have the ability or authority to do so," he told journalists at that time.
Wang said he served as the head of the Overseas Chinese Service Centre in Seoul, which local news reports had accused of having links to the secret police.
He said the organisation "helps Chinese people who die or are injured [in South Korea] due to unexpected circumstances such as illness, to return to China".
Safeguard Defenders, a Madrid-based human rights group, said in a report last year that the United Front Work Department - a Communist Party body that coordinates influence operations in China and abroad - was behind the "secret police stations" the NGO claimed to have found in 53 countries.
The US State Department describes China's United Front Work Department as being "responsible for coordinating domestic and foreign influence operations, through propaganda and manipulation of susceptible audiences and individuals" for the interests of the Communist Party.
Last year, the Netherlands said two such police facilities found in Amsterdam and Rotterdam had been closed. Ireland also ordered another centre in Dublin to shut, according to news reports.
Chinese authorities have previously said the facilities are run "voluntarily" to offer services such as renewing documents for Chinese nationals overseas.
But Safeguard Defenders believe the main function of the facilities is to pressure some Chinese dissidents to return to China to face criminal charges.
The tools they use to do so, including "denying the target's children in China the right to education", are "similar to the North Korean practice", the group has alleged.
Its report said such police stations were operated out of four Chinese jurisdictions: Nantong, Wenzhou, Qingtian and Fuzhou. The one in South Korea is believed by the group to be operated out of Nantong, a city in China's southeastern Jiangsu province.
Against this backdrop, Choi Jae-hyung, a lawmaker from South Korea's ruling People Power Party, last week introduced a bill to the National Assembly with a view to forcing all foreign governments' agents in the country to register with the Justice Ministry.
Choi said this would enable authorities to identify any instructions, orders and money that were delivered to such agents and help officials to detect influence operations designed to intervene in domestic policies or bend public opinion.
Cho Tae-yong, one of Seoul's top national security officials, said last week that South Korea would build a "healthy bilateral relationship with China" through a "self-confident diplomacy" in line with the country's increased national strength.
"Relations between countries should be based on mutual respect," Cho said last week at a seminar held to celebrate President Yoon Suk-yeol's first anniversary in office.
The Yoon administration has accused its predecessor, the government of liberal president Moon Jae-in, of being "submissive" to Beijing.
Yang Uk, a security expert at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies think tank, said South Korea had apparently reached its limit in "letting Chinese agents operate without restraints" as conservative President Yoon toughens his stance towards Beijing.
"The two countries should address this issue quietly to avoid a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat in expelling each other's agents," Yang said.
Lee Il-woo, an analyst at the Korea Defence Network, said that in addition to the usual intelligence collecting activities, Chinese agents were suspected of using Chinese migrant workers and students in South Korea to influence public opinion online in favour of China.
Additional reporting by Korea Times
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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