Lawmakers Call for Closing Chinese Consulate in New York City

Hannah Ng
By Hannah Ng
May 3, 2023China News
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Two GOP lawmakers have called for closing the Consulate General of China and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York City following the arrest of two people on charges of operating a secret police station in the city on behalf of China’s regime.

In September 2022, a report by Safeguard Defenders alleged agents of the Chinese regime had been covertly operating in several countries, using secret police stations as a base of operations to surveil Chinese dissidents, and even coercing Chinese expatriates to return to China.

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) cited the report on a secret police station in New York City, believed to be one of more than 100 such stations operated by the CCP’s agents around the world.

The problem is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “has set up these police stations around the world, including in New York City. And you know, this really hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. But it’s being done all over the world, including in the United States,” Tiffany told NTD.

He further pointed to the legislation that he together with Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) introduced last week, seeking to remove the CCP’s “operatives out of New York City.”

“And so I believe the Biden administration should be closing that down. And what we are proposing is that the consulate should be closed down. And those diplomats that were involved with it from the Communist Chinese [regime], should be removed from the United States of America,” he added.

The bill came a few days after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against two individuals for allegedly operating a secret police station in New York City at the behest of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of China.

The lawmaker called the secret police stations “antithetical to the open free country that we aspire to be,” he said, adding that the CCP was trying to intimidate Chinese people living in the United States from being able to lead their lives.

Tough in Pushing Back

Tiffany singled out the report on six more Chinese police stations operating in the United States—spanning from California to New York and in between, according to an Apr 18 report from New York Post.

“I hope our intelligence agencies are continuing to investigate this. Because if we’re seeing this pattern of behavior in other consulates, or other police stations, other satellite operations, whatever you want to call them around the country, if that’s the case, then each one of them should be closed as we identify them as intimidating people here on United States soil or stealing our intellectual property,” he said.

The congressman suggested that the Biden administration should be tough on pushing back such a threat from China.

“Bullies are going to continue to step on your toes. And if you step backwards, then they’re going to continue to do that. And we need to deal with this early on,” he said.

“You look at other things that are happening around the world. If we don’t stand up now, if we just go with a policy of appeasement, they’re going to get nothing but more aggressive,” Tiffany said.

Eva Fu contributed to this report.

From The Epoch Times

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