Unreliable Narrators
Two New York residents arrested for running illegal Chinese police station
On Monday, April 17, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York held a press conference to announce they had arrested two New York residents for their role in running an illegal Chinese police station within the city.
Standing alongside representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and national security officials from the Department of Justice (DOJ), District Attorney Breon Peace described the charges pending against Harry Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, both citizens of the United States. The unsealed filing notes their prosecution was “in connection with opening and operating an illegal overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, New York, for a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”
This story may sound familiar to most Rounding the Earth listeners, but perhaps the details of the case have thus far passed you by. Certainly, there appears to be an escalation in rhetoric and actions between China and the “Collective West” (referring to the broad coalition of North America, Europe and Australasia) as new trade relations form in the East and military action looms around Taiwan.
As pointed out in The Globe and Mail, this undercurrent of covert so-called Chinese “police stations” spans far wider than just New York City. On Wednesday, the outlet reported that the FBI discovered photographic evidence on Lu Jianwang’s cell phone that showed “the opening of a similar covert station in Canada.” It’s not just North America, though:
Among the people depicted in a collection of other photos on the phone were “association presidents from Spain, France, Canada and the Netherlands,” an affidavit in support of Monday’s arrest warrants said.
110 Overseas
In September 2022, a non-governmental organization called Safeguard Defenders published an investigative report titled 110 Overseas, detailing the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to “persuade” Chinese nationals to return to their home country.
Officially, the government’s campaign was aimed at individuals accused of “telecommunications fraud” and “web crimes” that needed to be prosecuted within China. However, the report argued that “using threats and intimidation to target suspects abroad” amounted to violations of international law while “[eschewing] official bilateral police and judicial cooperation.”
This report by Safeguard Defenders is cited as the basis on which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) began their investigation back in November of last year, given that “the organization’s list of the so-called Chinese police stations includes two in Markham, [Ontario] and one in the Scarborough area of Toronto.”
Safeguard Defenders
The publisher of 110 Overseas, Safeguard Defenders, is a non-profit organization registered in Spain under the name “Fundacion Safeguard Defenders.”
Liam Sturgess
Its origins go back to an organization called the Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, founded in 2009 by Michael Caster and Peter Dahlin. Called China Action for short, the group operated out of Beijing until 2016. At that point, the Ministry of State Security detained and interrogated Dahlin over the course of 23 days. The agency forced China Action to shut down and sent Dahlin fleeing to Madrid. After a short period of laying low, the group reorganized into Safeguard Defenders, eventually registering with the Spanish government in 2019.
U.S. government support
Safeguard Defenders opened an office in Taiwan in May 2022. Taiwan, of course, is the focus of much tension between China and the United States. Given the organization's self-declared opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it is worth investigating the source of Safeguard Defenders' funding in order to ascertain any outside influence that may threaten the NGO's supposed independence.
Unfortunately, this information is not readily disclosed. However, as the apparently pro-CCP outlet CGTN reported in April 2021, the organization previously received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the European Union, which the outlet suggested were signs that China Action and its successor were operating to some degree as agents of the United States government. Note that Safeguard Defenders had filed formal complaints against CGTN with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its European equivalent, the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA), so it is certainly accurate to accuse the article's author, Keith Lamb, of bias. It is not, however, in question that China Action was funded by NED or the EU, as confirmed in reports by the New York Times and others.
It’s also true that the National Endowment for Democracy has been described by both American and Chinese representatives as a surrogate for U.S. intelligence agencies. Allen Weinstein, co-founder of NED, infamously told the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
China agrees, big time. A fact sheet published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 2022 describes NED as “one of the US government’s main ‘foot soldiers,’ ‘white gloves’ and ‘democracy crusaders,’” having “subverted lawful governments and cultivated pro-US puppet forces around the world under the pretext of promoting democracy.” An accompanying article by Global Times states that “NED is nominally an NGO that provides support for democracy abroad, but in fact, it relies on continuous financial support from the White House and Congress, and takes orders from the US government.”
The team behind Safeguard Defenders
As I said, Safeguard Defenders does not list its sources of funding, citing safety concerns for its staff and partners. But the list of team members publicly listed offer another look at the network behind the organization.
Of particular interest to me is Chen Yen-ting, a “coordinator” whose biography lists prior journalistic work for Radio Free Asia.
Contrary to what its name suggests, Radio Free Asia is actually part of a network of related media organizations under the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Formerly called the Broadcasting Board of Governors, USAGM is an agency funded and operated entirely by the United States government. RFA's board of directors includes Shanthi Kalathil, who formerly served as senior director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy.
A couple of further points of interest about USAGM:
- USAGM is serviced by an “investigative, intelligence, compliance, staffing, and training” contractor called Computer Evidence Specialists (CES), who also work for a range of federal agencies including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), the Interior (DOI), Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Navy.
- USAGM is a client of the Poynter Institute, which lists the National Endowment for Democracy as a “major funder” and hosts the infamously dishonest PolitiFact and the International Fact-Checking Network.
Liam Sturgess
Yen-ting also previously wrote for Intium Media, an outlet backed by a venture capital firm called WI Harper Group. In April 2020, WI Harper released a statement noting that despite the burgeoning COVID-19 crisis, “solidarity is awakening in the global community.” The statement went on to summarize the efforts of its various portfolio companies in responding to the declared pandemic. The listed activities included making and distributing ventilators to Italian hospitals and European households; an artificial intelligence platform called “Project COVID,” described as “a vaccine against misinformation”; a remote learning company; a food delivery service; a digital ID system for medical credentials; and no less than 9 news websites.
WI Harper Group also appears alongside the World Economic Forum on a 2017 clients/affiliates list for Entertainment Media Ventures, a company “operating at the intersection of entertainment, technology and finance.”
Liam Sturgess
What’s really going on with China?
Of course, this “illegal police station” business is not the only ongoing story involving China. In fact, there seem to be an increasing number of strange narrative threads afoot, with decreasing clarity as to what is real and what is propaganda. And if something is propaganda, it’s even less clear who is trying to propagandize who.
Four days ago, a New York rapper named DVS 7.0 boasted on Twitter that he “Schnapped on Schcumbag Schifty Little Adam Schi*%….ft” — referring, of course, to United States representative Adam Schiff from California.
After exercising his right to criticize his elected official (with perhaps a hint of harassment thrown in) DVS 7.0 was handcuffed and removed from the premises. He had been giving Schiff a hard time throughout his appearance that day at the House Judiciary Committee’s meeting on crime, sending him to such viral heights as being mentioned on the official website for Donald Trump’s 2024 Presidential campaign.
Standard MAGA political stuff, right?
Except that DVS 7.0 appears to have gained the support of a very interesting group of anti-Chinese Communist Party activists. The replies to DVS 7.0’s tweet were left by a significant number of accounts with names in Chinese characters.
One such commenter, named wanliu（互粉）, uses his bio to describe himself and an unspecified group of others as “the citizens from the New Federal State of China.”
Another user goes by the handle “Antscastle1”, and his bio reads simply “#FreeMilesGuo !”
Both users reference DVS 7.0’s music, with yet another user specifically thanking him for the recent release of a song titled “Free Miles Guo.”
The song was released on April 8, 2023 and can be heard on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube, for those so inclined. An opening monologue in the track alludes to a “new revolution” against the CCP, and once again names the New Federal State of China. And as you can see, the cover art features the face of a man whose name is quickly simmering to the surface: his name is Miles Guo.
…or is it? This is a question we will seek to answer next week, as I believe there’s a very interesting “Miles Guo” string to pull that may further illuminate what’s going on as far as China’s current role in North America goes.
Liam Sturgess
For today, questions are what we are left with.
Whatever is going on, DVS 7.0 is not behaving as a bystander. It seems his interaction with Schiff is part of a larger campaign that DVS has chosen to join up with, for better or for worse. I don’t know DVS and I don’t cast aspersions at him, though I admit this collection of details leaves me faintly alarmed.
I hope this episode has laid out reasons to treat both sides of this story as unreliable narrators, and reminded listeners/readers of the importance of “rounding” the news of its most biased points. Identifying sources of funding and ideological bend are key to processing the onslaught of information funnelled in our direction, and only then can one begin to seek the truth somewhere in the middle of it all.
In the meantime, a word of caution: trust, but not blindly. Verify, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Use your conscience as your filter, and don’t hesitate to leave a situation if your instinct says it’s time. But don’t make the mistake of losing faith in the good nature of people, hidden deep underneath layers of confusion and apprehension.
There surely are bad actors out there, and their influence is disproportionate. But they are the few.
Good people are the many.
Originally published on Substack on April 21, 2023.