Switzerland struggles to explain hush-hush deal with China’s Ministry of Public Security

瑞士解釋與中國公安部簽訂保密協議的爭議

Renewable deal allowed Chinese state security to conduct unsupervised interrogations in Alpine country


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A recently expired, renewable five-year agreement between the Swiss government and China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) that allows Chinese agents to covertly roam Switzerland on two-week trips funded by Swiss taxpayers has drawn intense criticism, which officials in the Central European country have dismissed since the full text of the agreement became public.

The deal had been entirely unknown to the Swiss Parliament, the Swiss Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Swiss public until August, when it was first reported on by Swiss newspaper NZZ. It expired on Dec. 8, but the government is currently pursuing its renewal.

The non-reciprocal arrangement is categorized as a “readmission agreement” and focuses “on the identification of alleged Chinese citizens with [an] irregular stay in Switzerland.” Common in diplomacy, readmission agreements are typically used to facilitate one country's request for help from another to identify the nationality of anyone suspected of entering a jurisdiction illegally or overstaying.

While the Swiss migration ministry maintains that the agreement with China is just like the ones it signed with other states, critics allege this is untrue.

Peter Dahlin, whose organization Safeguard Defenders published the document, told AFP that the agreement “differs so much” from Switzerland’s roughly 60 other readmission agreements. He added that it was misleading to even describe it with the same term.

In his written analysis accompanying the document, Dahlin noted that all the other agreements were struck with other countries' immigration bureaus. In the case of China, the deal was made with the Ministry of Public Security, which does handle immigration — but also policing, national security, espionage, and counterintelligence.

Additionally, the MPS agents dispatched from China are not selected by the Swiss authorities, nor are they supervised during their visits, when they are given broad leeway to conduct interrogations with a pre-arranged list of Chinese nationals. All of the expenses during these trips are footed by the Swiss government.

Since the MPS teams arrive in an unofficial capacity, Dahlin speculated it is likely they come on tourist visas. This would then give them visa-free access to Europe's entire Schengen Area.

The agreement has only reportedly been put to use once; in 2016, a visit by MPS agents led to the deportation of 13 people from Switzerland, four of whom were asylum-seekers. MPS reports on the cases are not made public.

Reto Korman, spokesman for the Swiss migration ministry, told AFP in an email that readmission agreements are necessary because “most states are only willing to take back their own citizens if they can verify their identity.” He went on to emphasize that the agreement with China does not pose a threat to Uyghurs and Tibetans, who are not subject to overseas interrogations by the MPS agents.

In the years since Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) came to power in 2012, the pursuit of alleged criminals who fled abroad has yielded 6,000 extraditions, wrote Dahlin, citing Chinese state media figures. A likely larger but unofficial number, he added, have voluntarily returned home after threats were made against family members still in China.