(New York) American justice opened on Wednesday a very first criminal trial against China accused, under the guise of fighting against corruption, of having sought to forcibly repatriate Chinese opponents and dissidents living in the United States.
Three defendants appear in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, prosecuted for having forced residents on American soil to return to China to answer for misdemeanors or crimes for alleged acts of corruption.
According to the American authorities, the global operation “Fox Hunt”, carried out by “undeclared” Chinese “agents”, involved extrajudicial “repatriation brigades”, operating in complete clandestine order to force expatriate Chinese to return to their country.
The methods of these Chinese “brigades”, according to American justice, ranged from threats to harassment, from intimidation to kidnapping.
Federal justice has charged several Chinese nationals since 2020 and three of them, Michael McMahon, a retired former New York police officer, Yong Zhu from the borough of Queens and Congying Zhen from Brooklyn will be tried during two to three weeks and face up to ten years in prison.
Officially, their targets were people wanted by Chinese justice, often for corruption. But for Washington, they were in fact opponents, dissidents or critics of the regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Beijing has always defended the “Fox Hunt” operation, accusing Washington of “slander” and claiming to respect international law by operating abroad.
According to the Chinese government, a large number of suspects suspected of corruption and economic crimes in China live in the United States.
According to a 2022 report by a Spanish organization, Safeguard Defenders, nearly 10,000 Chinese nationals worldwide have been forced to return to China since 2014.
The New York trial is being held in a context of strong diplomatic tensions between the two leading world powers.