Your Friday Briefing: Investigating Chinese Police Outposts Abroad

Chinese police outposts in other countries stir concern

F.B.I. counterintelligence agents last fall searched a nondescript building in New York City’s Chinatown for evidence of a remarkable enterprise: a Chinese outpost suspected of conducting police operations without jurisdiction or diplomatic approval.

There are more than 100 such outfits around the world, unnerving diplomats and intelligence agents. State media accounts and public statements published in China identify sites in Japan, Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and other nations.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington played down the importance of the outposts, saying that they are staffed by volunteers who help Chinese nationals perform routine tasks.

But Chinese state news media accounts describe the centers conducting crime-solving or intelligence work, without collaborating with local authorities. Western officials and human rights groups see the outposts as a way for China to intimidate or keep tabs on Chinese nationals abroad, including dissidents and ethnic minorities.

Context: Irish, Canadian and Dutch officials have called for China to shut down police operations in their countries. The F.B.I. raid is the first known example of a seizure by the authorities of materials from one of the outposts.

Background: Police officers who work overseas typically declare themselves to the foreign government. China has made arrangements for joint patrols in places like Italy, which makes these off-the-books operations more curious.

Quotable: “It’s a long-arm power to show their own citizens inside China that their government is so strong,” said Chen Yen-ting, a Taiwan-based researcher. “We have the power to reach globally, and even if you go out, you’re still under our control.”

Xi cheers on China Inc.

Xi Jinping, China’s leader, is now extolling the economy he has long sought to rein in. He lauded China’s economy in the first minute of his New Year’s address, noting that he planned to reduce taxes and fees and otherwise “ease the burden on businesses.”

His remarks signal a shift in priorities. In recent years China abandoned its pro-business market overhaul to put the goals of the Communist Party above business interests, which included crackdowns on tech companies and curbs on borrowing by China’s property firms.

Growth is now at its slowest rate in decades, hampered by a property market in crisis, a lack of promising jobs for young people, consumer confidence shaken by years of rigid Covid policies and depleted local government coffers. Companies like Apple are looking with greater urgency to diversify outside of China.

What’s next: China’s central bank said this week that it was relaxing the oversight of technology companies, and the country has begun rolling back restrictions on heavy borrowing by property developers. Liu Kun, the finance minister, told state media that the country planned to spend heavily in 2023 to support an economic recovery.

In the U.S., inflation continued to slow on an annual basis in December, a welcome relief for American households.

South Korea considers nuclear weapons

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea said that the country would weigh building its own nuclear weapons, or asking the U.S. to redeploy them on the Korean Peninsula, if North Korea’s nuclear threat worsens.

His comments marked the first time that a South Korean president officially mentioned arming the country with nuclear weapons since the U.S. removed its nuclear munitions from the South in 1991. Surveys in recent years have shown that a majority of South Koreans support such a move.

Yoon added that building nuclear weapons was not yet an official policy, and that South Korea would for now strengthen its alliance with the U.S. to discourage the North’s nuclear acceleration.

Context: North Korea has vowed to expand its nuclear arsenal, and in 2022 the country tested more missiles than any previous year. The provocations have led some members of Yoon’s conservative People Power Party to call for Seoul to reconsider a nuclear option.

History: South Korea embarked on a covert nuclear weapons program in the 1970s, but abandoned it after the U.S. promised to keep the South under its nuclear umbrella. South Korea is a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which bans it from seeking nuclear weapons.

THE LATEST NEWS

Asia Pacific

• U.S. and Japanese officials said they would expand their military cooperation.

• A driver sped into pedestrians at a busy intersection in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, killing at least five and injuring more than a dozen others.

• Scores of people from China’s mainland are traveling to Hong Kong for mRNA Covid vaccines, which are not available in most of the country, Reuters reports.

Around the World

• A video obtained by The Times shows the moment when more than 1,000 angry protesters broke through meager police barricades to ransack Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices.

• A second batch of classified documents from President Biden’s tenure as vice president was found, in the garage of his home in Wilmington, Del., the White House said. Merrick Garland, the attorney general, appointed a special counsel to handle the investigation into how the documents ended up at Biden’s private office and home.

• Here is how the discovery of classified files in Biden’s possession compares with the discovery of those kept by Donald Trump.

• Russia is building up its forces in Ukraine as it struggles to capture Soledar, a small mining town, said a senior Ukrainian defense official.

Other Big Stories

• A new study said that beginning in the 1970s Exxon scientists made accurate predictions of how much the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet. Yet for years Exxon cast doubt on climate science.

• Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency financier, said that the millions of customers who lost money when his exchange collapsed could still get their funds back.

• A mysterious fund that raised big money for George Santos, the freshman congressman from New York who is under scrutiny after running a campaign built on lies, may have run afoul of campaign finance rules.

• Eggs have now become a lavishly priced commodity in the U.S.

A Morning Read

Face filters and selfie apps like Lensa AI scan images of your face, then generate portraits in a variety of artistic styles. The result is a version of your visage that can’t be captured in a snapshot — and that stimulates limitless interest.

The results can be “ugly and strange,” writes Sophie Haigney. But, she adds, “I can’t help staring at Lensa’s hundred semi-real versions of my face.”

Lives Lived

Jeff Beck, a member of the Yardbirds and leader of his own bands, was one of the most skilled, admired and influential guitarists in rock history. Here are 10 essential songs.

Rehman Rahi was a celebrated poet who was devoted to preserving the Kashmiri language and credited with restoring it to literary prominence.

TRAVEL ASPIRATIONS

52 places to go in 2023

Want to stroll among the Taisho-era buildings in Morioka, Japan? Or wander through the stone circles and standing slabs of Kilmartin Glen, Scotland? Or bottle-feed a joey on Australia’s Kangaroo Island?

All three destinations made the top 10 of the Times Travel section’s 52 places to go in 2023. Also recommended to people hungry for adventure are places like Flores, Indonesia; Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria; and New Haven, Conn.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Sweet coconut milk tempers the fire of Thai green curry paste in this easy one-pot salmon and rice dish.

What to Read

Even medieval monks struggled with their attention spans, Jaimie Kreiner shows in “The Wandering Mind.”

What to Watch

In Netflix’s six-episode adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s “The Lying Life of Adults,” formidable female characters navigate the complexities of class in Naples.

What to Wear

Wirecutter explains how to choose the best running shoes.

Now Time to Play

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: cow’s milk dispenser (five letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for Friday’s briefing. Have a great weekend. — Dan

P.S. Rebecca Blumenstein, a Deputy Managing Editor and newsroom leader at The Times, is leaving to become president of editorial for NBC News.

“The Daily” is about flooding in California.

You can reach Dan and the team at [email protected].