He directed a “secret police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown to help Beijing persecute dissidents in his country. This is what Chen Jinping, 61, did, who pleaded guilty to conspiring and acting as an unregistered foreign agent in a hearing in Brooklyn Federal Court. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on May 30.
At trial, Chen admitted to having removed an online article about the alleged police station on behalf of the Chinese government in September 2022. He also acknowledged that it was not registered with the Department of Justice. as a foreign agent at that time, as U.S. law requires of people acting for other countries.
Chen was detained on April 17, 2023, and along with him, a New York-based co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, was arrested. He has pleaded not guilty to the same chargeas well as obstruction of Justice.
The arrests followed a 2022 investigation published by the Spain-based advocacy group Safeguard Defenders, which reported that China had established “service stations” abroadincluding New York, who worked illegally with the Asian giant’s police to pressure fugitives to return to the country.
«There are no so-called secret police stations. (China) has always strictly abided by international law and has respected the judicial sovereignty of all countries,” Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Asian country, declared this Thursday when asked about the Manhattan case in a conference. regular press.
Transnational repression
The Justice Department has intensified investigations into what it calls “transnational repression” by United States adversaries, such as China and Iran, to intimidate political opponents living in the North American country.
The Chinese government has stated that there are centers outside its borders run by local volunteers, not Chinese police, whose goal is to help its country’s citizens renew their documents and offer them other services. Beijing has accused Washington of fabricating the accusations to discredit the image of the Asian giant.
According to prosecutors, Lu and Chen are American citizens who ran a nonprofit organization whose mission was to provide a social gathering place for people from the Chinese province of Fujian. Before it closed in the fall of 2022, they occupied an entire floor in a nondescript Chinatown building near the Manhattan Bridge.
Prosecutors detailed that the site was being used in part for mundane government services, such as helping some Chinese citizens renew their driver’s licenses. However, they also assured that Beijing asked Lu to locate an individual who lived in California and was considered a pro-democracy activist.
Furthermore, in 2018, Lu had tried to persuade an individual considered a fugitive by China to return to his country, according to prosecutors.
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