A US government witness in a trial of an alleged illegal Chinese police station in New York testified on Monday that he was harassed after holding a protest against establishing the Fuzhou-directed facility, one of several that China purportedly set up overseas.

The US government has charged Lu Jianwang, 64, with acting as an unauthorised agent of China; conspiracy to act as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors argue that it is part of a pattern that underscores China’s bid to expand its influence well beyond US shores.

Lu has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers maintain that the police station was simply a service centre where overseas Chinese could renew their drivers’ licenses as a convenience during the pandemic.

Testifying on behalf of the government, dissident Xu Jie said he travelled from his home in Pomona, California, to New York after the police station was set up, and he live-streamed a demonstration against it on YouTube, after which he was harassed.

Asked whether he understood what the term “dissident” meant, Xu responded: “I’m very much familiar with dissident. I am one of them. In China, I understand it to be a group of people who criticise the Chinese government.”

Xu, a native of Nanjing, participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests before fleeing the country in 2013 for Laos and then heading to the US in 2018.