China's Innocence, Canada's Disgraceful Conduct

"United Front work has taken on a level of significance not seen since the years before 1949."
"[China] is increasingly able to use its soft -power 'magic weapons' to help influence the decision making of foreign governments and societies."
Marie Brady, political scientist, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

"Overseas Chinese [should] remember the call from the Party and the people, spread China's voice, support the country's development, safeguard national interests."
Chinese President Xi Jinping

"An organization that once had another purpose has gradually been taken over to serve China's national interest. Where United Front work becomes problematic is when it's engaging persons of Chinese origin who have Canadian citizenship ... to serve the interests of the motherland, when in fact the motherland should be Canada."
Charles Burton, political scientist, Brock University, Ontario

"I have heard of Chinese influence over community newspapers."
"[But] I think the Canadian Chinese community is remarkably resilient and diverse, and for the most part immune to blandishments from the Chinese government."
Jeremy Paltiel, China specialist, Carleton University

"I think there is definitely an attempt to influence domestic public opinion here."
"But from what I can see, the extent of success here is rather limited."
Lynette Ong, professor, China expert University of Toronto

"Our executive committee's background is a combination of Canada, mainland China, Taiwan and Chinese from other Asian countries."
"Support for China is not and will not be a focus ... Our primary focus is to support the Chinese community and to promote Chinese culture in Niagara."
Li Yu, former president, Niagara Chinese Cultural Association

"A lot of people don't think of the long arm of influence of China in Canada, because they're under the influence, to put it mildly."
"Outsiders like me, who is a Hong Kong immigrant ... we see very clearly that this is a United Front effort, a very subtle, soft-power kind of advance into Canadian society."
Cheuk Kwan, head, Toronto Association for Democracy in China

Chinese police are seen patrolling in front of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing last month. A new book, Claws of the Panda, argues that the Chinese Communist Party has spent decades manipulating Canadians.  (GREG BAKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Canada is comprised of many immigrant populations; it is the defining identity of the country, multi-cultural in origin. Immigrants from Ukraine, Greece, Poland, Germany, Japan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China, India, the United States, Scotland, Ireland, Britain, France; wherever in the world they come from, including Jews from all over the world, escaping oppression and finding a haven in a Canada that has, in the latter half of the 20th Century forward, extended equality of opportunity and security to all its citizens.

Unsurprisingly, people migrating from other countries find comfort in the fact that their original cohabitants have arrived in numbers to form communities in their new country of habitation. They form clubs and build churches reflecting their own religious commitment and the cultures they left behind, to support one another in their adjustment to their new reality. And even long afterward once they have acclimated socially and culturally, their original congregations remain of importance to them.


In some instances, like the Turkish population in Germany, the government in the original homeland takes on an 'ownership' attitude, viewing their expatriates as a demographic abroad they can continue to manipulate and have control over, to the extent of demanding from their new homeland government especial privileges for their own. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin are especially given to these unwanted and unwarranted interferences in other countries, the latter with Ukraine.

And, it seems, China has made inroads in Canada by surreptitious means, to retain influence among its once-time citizens, now resident in and citizens of Canada, and to extend that influence to non-Chinese by offering to install and pay for programs that have benefit to China, and ostensibly to Canada. The Confucius Institute is one such organ which Communist China uses to extend a friendly hand, persuading Canadian universities and schools of the bonus it offers in teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture.

The Toronto Chinese Canadian Association once put on a banquet to bid farewell to the Chinese vice-consul who persuaded local Chinese to support the Confucius Institute. Now, Confucius is entrenched at three school boards in the region and on nine university and college campuses across the country, its funding very much appreciated by those institutions. Chinese state-aligned corporations have made large investments in Canadian industry. Suspicions are rampant not only in Canada but in other western countries that China's friendly helpfulness comes at a price.

Chinese intelligence services and Chinese technological giants are known for their industrial infiltration and military espionage escapades. Under President Xi, a "massive expansion" of China's soft power has emerged, much of it within the auspices of the United Front Work Department, an offshoot of the Chinese Communist party, which forges links with officials in foreign missions to influence the Chinese diaspora.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at a fundraiser held on Nov. 7,2016 at the West Vancouver mansion of B.C. developer Miaofei Pan.

Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the Wenzhou People’s Government

Infiltration for the sake of befriending foreign political and economic elites, with the aim of promoting Beijing's agenda all helps in expanding a China-centric economic bloc. A goal of the United Front is to advance opinions on issues such as acquisition by Chinese companies of Canadian natural resources and technology. The decision Canada has yet to make about Huawei's involvement building Canada's 5G telecom network a critical issue at hand.

Huawei's close ties to the Chinese state makes accusations of corporate espionage logical, enough so that the U.S., Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand have all backed off allowing Huawei to take part in their 5G trials, leaving Canada the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance to not yet having decided to leave Huawei out. Which has led China's ambassador to Canada to issue none-too subtle threats of 'repercussions' that might accrue.

Such 'repercussions are already being seen by Canada in China's fury at the arrest on December 1st in Vancouver of Huwei's chief financial officer on an extradition warrant issued by the U.S. justice system which led China to arrest two Canadian businessmen and commit another Canadian to death for drug smuggling out of China. Canada under this Liberal government has been ingratiating itself with China in the search for a free trade deal and in its zeal to have a seat at the revolving UN Security Council.

There are 211 accredited 'diplomats' from China in Canada at the various Chinese missions. The U.S. with ten times the population and with huge trade between China and the United States, rates a comparative fewer 276 accredited representatives of China, while the United Kingdom has 38. Of that 211 in Canada, it would be interesting to know how many are accredited in China's intelligence apparatus and outreach to Canada's very large Chinese diaspora.

Canada's recently removed Ambassador to China, John McCallum boasted in an interview with Chinese foreign and domestic reporters to which major Canadian news outlets were not invited, that his sons were married to Chinese women. While he was a backbencher, he was the recipient of $73,000 worth of trips to China paid for by pro-Beijing business groups and the Chinese government.

His ill-considered reassurances of the welfare of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou's bid to escape extradition to the U.S. which forced Justin Trudeau's hand in firing him, has given aid and comfort to China and stoked the furnace of concern over the fate of Canadians arrested in China in furious retaliation against Canadian law honouring a commitment with its neighbour on extradition.

"McCallum was merely stating the truth when he observed that Meng has a strong case against extradition, which he rightly said was politically motivated."
"Although what he said is 100 per cent true, his words seem to have fallen on deaf ears at home. Those who had attacked McCallum should feel ashamed of themselves... the political mess that Ottawa is floundering in could get a lot worse if it chooses to accede to the U.S. request for Meng’s extradition despite the problems with the case that McCallum, among others, has pointed out."
China Daily

John McCallum, Canada's former ambassador to China, arrives at a fund-raising event at a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver, B.C on Jan. 25, 2018.

BEN NELMS