Chinese Agent Convicted of Running Illegal Police Station in US

A glass-paned office building above a ramen store in Manhattan’s Chinatown appeared unremarkable among the area’s Chinese restaurants, groceries and apartments.

In 2022, Lu Jianwang, 64, president of a Chinese community group, established an office on one floor. His attorneys said he planned to help expats renew driver’s licenses and play ping pong in a conference room.

However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation soon raided the space, accusing Lu of following Chinese government orders to create the first known overseas police station in the United States.

This week, Lu was found guilty of acting as an unauthorized foreign agent for China, days after a California politician pleaded guilty to similar charges.

Arcadia 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 occurred the same week President Donald Trump visited Beijing for a rare meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where they avoided espionage topics and focused on trade.

Experts said the cases highlight the long arm of the People’s Republic of China, which has intensified its global influence campaigns over the past decade through both strategic soft power—funding projects and industries abroad—and more covert methods.

“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, deputy director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which has tracked Chinese espionage in the US since 2000.

Lu, supported by dozens of community members during his weeklong trial in Brooklyn, faces up to 30 years in prison for charges linked to the illegal police station.

China has been accused of setting up such stations globally, with at least 100 reported across 53 countries. 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 sometimes denied the stations’ existence or described them as places where volunteers help fellow Chinese citizens with administrative services.

“They are not so-called police stations or police service centres at all,” China’s Ministry of Public Security said in 2023. The BBC has contacted the Chinese Embassy in the US for comment.

A police investigation into “secret Chinese police stations” in London concluded that “no criminal activity” had taken place.

Lu, the 64-year-old president of the American Changle Association, argued he was simply helping people renew licenses and facilitate social activities like mahjong and ping pong.

“This isn’t ‘Spy Time’,” his lawyer, John Carman, said according to Courthouse News. “This is license renewal.”

But prosecutors said Lu used the office for more nefarious purposes, including monitoring critics of China.

In one instance, prosecutors said Chinese officials asked Lu to help “verify” that Xu Jie, a longtime critic of China who fled the country in 2013, was in the US.

Lu’s co-defendant, Chen Jinping, had already pleaded guilty to acting as an unauthorized foreign agent for helping set up the center.

China’s attempts to crack down on opposition are just one part of its overarching espionage campaign abroad, including hacking, stealing military and technology secrets, and other sensitive information, said Douglas London, a Georgetown University professor who worked as a CIA officer for 34 years.

For years, China has sought to exert influence abroad through a “vast bureaucracy and network” of resources, people and funding, said Lyle Morris, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

China’s campaign of tracking dissidents worldwide is motivated by the belief that criticism threatens the country’s stability, said Claire Chu, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

The Chinese government believes that dissent is actively supported by Western governments to smear China’s image, Morris said.

“China sees ulterior motives when Western countries provide platforms for Chinese dissidents who harshly criticize the Chinese government, and doesn’t buy the argument that such voices are part of a healthy democracy based on free speech,” he said.

The country uses various harassment and bullying strategies to silence dissidents, Morris added, including tracking cell phones or recruiting dissidents to spy on their friends. He noted it can be dangerous for those with family still in China, who are more vulnerable to government intimidation.

For decades, Beijing has also sought to cultivate relationships with so-called “talents” across the US government and business community, Chu said.

The Chinese government targeted Wang, the Arcadia mayor, who pleaded guilty this week to taking orders from Chinese officials to publish pro-China content.

Prosecutors said she published an essay arguing there was no genocide in China’s Xinjiang province and “no such thing as forced labour.” China has faced international criticism over its treatment of the mostly Muslim Uyghur population in Xinjiang, where evidence shows millions of Uyghurs held in camps subjected to forced labor. China says the camps are for “re-education” only.

These types of cases pose a challenge for US prosecutors because there are so many and they require years of work and resources to prove, espionage experts said.

China views espionage as a “volume enterprise,” London said.

US prosecutors may continue focusing on the most egregious cases abroad, but they are unlikely to stop China’s activity, experts said.

“Obviously with these cases just this week, I don’t think we’re seeing a downtick here,” Williams said.