By Nicholas Zifcak
The trial of a Chinese American man charged with helping China’s communist regime track down dissidents from an overseas police station in New York starts on May 6.
Lu Jianwang, 64, former president of the American ChangLe Association, allegedly operated an overseas police service station in Manhattan’s Chinatown on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. The FBI raided the office in October 2022.
According to court documents, in January 2022, Lu attended a ceremony in Fuzhou, China, at which the Ministry of Public Security officially launched an effort to establish overseas police stations worldwide.
On his return to the United States, Lu allegedly helped found the illegal overseas police station in mid-February 2022. The center assisted a Chinese police official in locating a person of interest—a California pro-democracy advocate who had served as an adviser to a 2022 congressional candidate from New York state, the federal complaint states.
Another New York City resident who appears to be a member of the America ChangLe Association, together with Lu, received assignments from Chinese officials to identify the Chinese regime’s targets since at least 2018, according to the filings.
Lu Jianwang is charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, as well as conspiring with the Chinese regime as a foreign agent. He is also charged with obstruction of justice. His trial, which starts this week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, is expected to last until mid-May.
Overseas Chinese police service centers promote themselves as serving the Chinese immigrant community, offering services such as renewing Chinese drivers’ licenses and other services normally handled by a consulate.
A 2022 report from nongovernmental organization Safeguard Defenders revealed that the stations are also tasked with tracking down, intimidating, and repatriating people wanted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including dissidents against the regime and its leader, Xi Jinping.
U.S. lawmakers are also pressing for the investigation of so-called hometown associations. According to a report from Safeguard Defenders, overseas hometown associations often started with a mission to serve communities of Chinese nationals from the same province living overseas, but many have been co-opted by the CCP’s “united front” agenda in an effort to exert control over the Chinese diaspora.
The CCP’s united front strategy is a national-level concerted influence operation that co-opts individuals and organizations overseas to advance the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
When the FBI raided the secret police station in New York City in October 2022, they seized phones belonging to Lu and an alleged co-conspirator, Chen Jinping. The agents noted that conversations with the Chinese police official had been deleted from these phones, the complaint states. For this, Lu is charged with obstruction of justice.
Chen, Lu’s alleged co-conspirator in establishing the police station in New York, pleaded guilty in December 2024 to conspiring to act as an illegal agent.
Chen and Lu were arrested in April 2023.
Eva Fu contributed to this report.
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