🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Chinese police will soon be patrolling streets alongside local counterparts in Hungarian cities, according to a new agreement.
The agreement, inked last month by Hungarian Minister of the Interior Sandor Pinter and Chinese Minister for Public Safety Wang Xiaohong, is aimed at boosting security in well-trafficked tourist areas, the Ministry of the Interior told Hungarian news portal Telex last week.
This official law enforcement presence follows allegations that China has been operating clandestine "police stations" in dozens of cities worldwide. In a 2022 report, Spain-based human rights organization Safeguard Defenders detailed how this shadowy network, believed to be part of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front influence apparatus, intimidate and surveil dissidents, asylum-seekers, and ethnic minorities living abroad.
The ministry said: "Police officers from the two countries will in the future be able to carry out patrol duties together, thus helping to improve communication between the citizens and the authorities of the two countries and improving internal security and public order."
Hungary's Ministry of the Interior and the Chinese embassy in Budapest did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.
Such an arrangement is not unheard for the central European country and its neighbors. Hungarian police join patrols in Croatia during the coastal country's peak tourism season, and Austrian police do the same at tourist hotspots in Hungary, the ministry pointed out.
Croatia, as well as Serbia and Italy have even run their own joint patrol programs with China. Italy announced it was ending the activity in 2022 after news of the underground police-like centers spread.
Safeguard Defenders identified two of these hubs in the Central European country's capital of Budapest that it said were run by China's Qingtian and Fuzhou county public security bureaus.
It is unclear how closely Prime Minister Viktor Orban's China-friendly government will keep tabs on the activities of visiting law enforcements.
"At this point it is clear how lessons learned in other countries have not been heeded. While this is not at all surprising given Orban's Hungary and his relationship with the PRC (People's Republic of China), it is concerning and highlights how the coordinated European response we've been asking for is direly needed," Safeguard Defenders campaign director Laura Harth told Newsweek.
The U.S. is on high alert over suspected cases of Chinese transnational repression such as those detailed in the NGO's report.
Last April, Chinese nationals Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, were arrested for allegedly running a secret police station in the Chinatown of New York City's Manhattan. The two claimed they were running "service centers" to assist other Chinese.
Lu and Chen were charged with obstruction of justice and conspiring to act as agents for China.
"As alleged, the defendants and their co-conspirators were tasked with doing the PRC's bidding, including helping locate a Chinese dissident living in the United States, and obstructed our investigation by deleting their communications. Such a police station has no place here in New York City—or any American community." U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York was quoted as saying in a Department of Justice press release.
Update 03/14/24, 10:40 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information about China's previous police patrol agreements in Europe, and with a comment from Safeguard Defenders.
About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more