For months people dismissed the idea of secret Chinese police operating on US soil as pure paranoia. Now a federal jury in Brooklyn just convicted Bronx resident Harry Lu for doing exactly that.
He was running an unregistered overseas police station right in Manhattan's Chinatown. The operation worked directly on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. They monitored and intimidated dissidents living here in America. Lu even deleted the online messages containing instructions from Beijing when the FBI finally raided the site. The DOJ says this is the first criminal matter of its kind and they expect more prosecutions as the US finally cracks down on foreign influence.
This matters because sovereignty matters.
Look at what happens locally when officials decide to ignore federal laws. Recently our county commissioners tried to enact a proclamation on illegal immigration because our Sanctuary State status contradicts federal law. But a room full of leftists and communist organizers showed up to fight it and the measure failed.
When you blur the lines of national sovereignty at the local level you open the door for massive violations. We go from ignoring basic federal immigration law to finding hostile foreign police stations operating in our biggest cities.
The rules have to mean something.