Secret police and propaganda: The Chinese agents spying on expats in US

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. Secret police and propaganda: The Chinese agents spying on expats in US45 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleMadeline HalpertReutersLawyers for Lu Jianwang say he was using an office in Chinatown to help people renew their driver's licence - but prosecutors say it was a secret police stationThe glass-paned office building perched above a ramen store in the heart of Manhattan's Chinatown looked inconspicuous on a busy block of Chinese restaurants, grocery stores and apartments. In 2022, Lu Jianwang, the 64-year-old president of a Chinese community group, set up shop on one of the floors, creating a space where his attorneys said he planned to help expats renew their driver's licences and play ping pong on a table in a conference room. But it was not long before the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the space, and accused Lu of taking orders from the Chinese government to establish the first known overseas police station in the US.

This week, he was found guilty of acting as an unauthorised foreign agent for China, just days after a California politician pleaded guilty to similar offences. Getty ImagesA passerby walks by the building that housed a secret police stationArcadia Mayor Eileen Wang admitted she posted propaganda on a website targeting the Chinese American community at the behest of the Chinese government. The two convictions came in the same week that President Donald Trump headed to Beijing for a rare meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where the two steered clear of topics like espionage and focused on trade.

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But experts say the two cases in the US highlight the long-arm of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which has ramped up its attempts to peddle influence around the globe over the past decade, both through its strategic use of "soft power" - funding projects and industries overseas - as well as more covert means. "It's part of the same sort of strategic approach, which is to tamp down on dissent and to shape a clear narrative around the PRC, and to do that in bolder ways, as we're seeing," said Lauryn Williams, a deputy director with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which has tracked cases of Chinese espionage in the US since 2000. Mahjong, ping pong and overseas 'police stations'Lu, who was supported by dozens of community members during his one-week trial in Brooklyn, could face up to 30 years in prison for the charges linked to the illegal police station.

China has been accused of setting up such stations around the world, with at least 100 reported across 53 countries. Just last week, a UK immigration officer was found guilty of working for Chinese intelligence as part of a "shadow policing operation". The Chinese government has at times denied that the stations exist or has described them as places where volunteers help their fellow Chinese citizens with administrative services.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.