China’s Police Stations Worldwide and a Strange Chinese Restaurant in Seoul

2022-12-24, Tara O

Safeguard Defenders, a Spain-based rights group, exposed China’s extraterritoriality by discovering China operating extralegal police stations in at least 50 foreign countries in a report “110 Overseas Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild.”  110 is the emergency number for the police in China.  The operation includes the involuntary return of Chinese people, the report noted.  By November 2022, 14 countries began investigating the matter, including the Netherlands and Ireland, which shut down the illegal Chinese police stations in their countries.  A follow-up investigative report added South Korea to the list of additional countries found, where China’s police stations operate, but it did not have a precise location. As a result, the South Korean government has begun investigating. 

South Korean authorities began looking into a Chinese restaurant in Seoul as a possible base for China’s secret police stations in South Korea.  The restaurant had many strange characteristics.  The restaurant had a sign “We only take customers with reservations.  Please understand” (예약 손님만 받습니다. 이해해주시기 바랍니다) on the door.  Hoverlab (Garo Sero Yonguso) visited the restaurant in question, named Dongbang Myungjoo (동방명주), which was a huge, multi-story restaurant on the Han River in the middle of Seoul.  The restaurant staff was not interested in serving food to customers, but rather stated they take reservations only, repeating the words of the sign on the front door, although the large restaurant was empty. (1:34)  The staff then said they do not take reservations, contradicting the sign and their earlier and later statements. (2:38)  They wanted the Youtubers to leave, and when they were out of the building, someone else from the restaurant ran up to them and wanted their business cards, so the person can “report” (bogo)—this term “bogo,” means reporting the information up to his superior, which is different than “shin-go,” which is the term used for reporting information to the police.

The location of the restaurant provides a fantastic, unobstructed view of the Han River.  If used for other purposes, it is in an ideal location for observation, infiltration, and exfiltration, among other possibilities.

The distance between the restaurant and the closest part of China’s Shandong peninsula is about 230 nautical miles by boat. 

The Han River Estuary by the West Sea has been a traditional invasion route for thousands of years.  For many years, there was a dam on the Han River Estuary that prevented boats from sailing up the river and into Seoul, but it appears to have disappeared.  A lack of a barrier to sailing up the Han River would make this “restaurant” an ideal location to facilitate the involuntary return of Chinese people by sea as well as an ideal intelligence collection location and observation point to support Chinese military operations on the Han River.

It turns out that the restaurant’s office opened just across the street from the National Assembly in Yoido, Seoul.  The business registry shows that it opened the office in December 2020 on the 9^th floor of the building, the same floor as the Seoul Bureau of China Central Television (CCTV), China’s state-run media.  The restaurant appears to be already operational prior to opening the office at Yoido.

When journalists from Yonhap visited the restaurant, the restaurant worker said Dongbang Myungjoo will close at the end of the month (December 2021).  Will they move to another location in Korea?  Is this the only one or are there more?