Report Maps 1,247 Chinese Overseas Sites in 91 Countries
Safeguard Defenders says China runs 1,247 designated liaison points in at least 91 countries to monitor diaspora communities, despite Beijing’s denials.
Featured photo: The Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands (file photo). Photo: Steven Lek, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
THE HAGUE — China’s “overseas police stations” have not closed and are expanding, with 1,247 designated liaison points in at least 91 countries used to monitor Chinese diaspora communities, the human rights group Safeguard Defenders said in a report released Nov. 6, 2026, the Taipei Times reported. The figures are the group’s own.
What the report says
Titled “A Formula for Repression: China’s Global Grid for Community Control,” the report identified 74 Chinese authorities and Communist Party bodies operating through the offices at the direction of the United Front Work Department. It was released at the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China’s annual summit.
The group said the real number is likely higher and that Beijing’s claim to have closed the stations is false. It said five national policies since late 2024 told authorities to expand such activity abroad.
Earlier findings
Reports by the group in 2022 detailed more than 100 stations in more than 50 countries and prompted some governments to open criminal investigations, the Taipei Times said.
What it means
Analysis: The shift from “police stations” to a wider grid of liaison points makes the activity harder to close down site by site. Government responses to the new list are the next indicator.
