'My floating restaurant is not a secret Chinese police station'

The owner of a restaurant on the Han River that's been pegged as a secret police station is hopping mad and has threatened to file a complaint against anyone who repeats the allegation...

Wang Haijun, the owner of the Dongfang Mingzhu restaurant in Seoul speaks to the press in front of the restaurant on Thursday to dismiss allegation that the location was a secret Chinese police station. [NEWS1]

The owner of a restaurant on the Han River that's been pegged as a secret Chinese police station is hopping mad and has threatened to file a complaint against anyone who repeats the allegation.

And he will tell you more for 30,000 won ($23.65).

“The malicious media coverage has really pissed me off lately," said Wang Haijun, the owner of Dongfang Mingzhu during a press conference outside the Chinese restaurant.

Wang's outrage comes after Safeguard Defenders, a nongovernmental human rights organization, claimed earlier this month that a local-level public security bureau based in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, was running at least one police station in Korea, though it couldn’t confirm its exact location.

Local media claimed that the Chinese cops were operating out of the Dongfang Mingzhu, which is located in Songpa District, southern Seoul, and sits floating on the Han River.

Wang said he will host another press conference at the restaurant on Saturday to explain why his restaurant is not a secret Chinese police station. The first 100 people who come will be allowed in, and each person will have to pay 30,000 won.

He didn't say whether food will be served.

“I have been running business normally, until the secret police reports,” Wang said. "I have lived in Korea for nearly 20 years. I don’t know what in the world these media outlets want.”

He added he will press charges against all media outlets and reporters who made reports so far on the allegation and disclosed private information, including his name and information about his family members.

Wang has been running restaurants and other businesses in Korea since early 2000s. The headquarters of his restaurant is located right across the street from National Assembly in western Seoul.

Wang is also the CEO of HG Culture Media, a Chinese-Korean television network, and oversees the Korean operations of Xinhua Net, which is a part of state-run Xinhua News Agency.

He is the president of the Overseas Chinese Service Center, which Safeguard Defenders suspects could be a channel used by the Chinese secret police around the world to monitor its citizens.

The Chinese government persuaded 230,000 suspects in fraud cases from around the globe to return to China to face prosecution from April 2021 to July 2022, and these police stations may have played a part, according to the rights group.

While these targets of the Chinese government could include actual suspects of crimes, many others are dissidents, according to the group.

China has denied the presence of secret police stations overseas.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, “the so-called overseas police stations do not exist,” during a press conference last Thursday.

The Korean government has been cautious.

“At this point, we do not have anything significant to share,” a Foreign Ministry official told the press in Seoul last week.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]