Interference in Canada by the People's Republic of China

 "The message of Li Kequing was 'Don't forget the motherland -- bring back technology, bring back investment. It was like he was talking to Chinese nationals. China doesn't care about foreign citizenship."

"I kept telling [federal officials] 'You have to be tough, you have to be firm.' This is the only language that China understands. If you don't push back, they will just occupy more and more ground."

"At the beginning of the crisis with Meng Wanzhou I gave interviews to Canadian media in Mandarin."

"I was struck because all the questions and the viewpoints were those of Beijing. They didn't know the Canadian position. We were the bad guys -- 'Why had we done this'?"

"[Chinese officials] are quite satisfied with their interference activities. They have had good results."

Guy Saint-Jacques, former Canadian ambassador to Beijing

"It could be to silence dissent it could be silence a community, it could be to silence any kind of discussion or talk seen as negative to China's interests."

"If you can drive a wedge between Canada and its allies and have Canada get into spats or conflicts with the United States, that could create dissent and chaos."

"You could be talking about a broader, long-term strategy to drive Canada away from the United States."

Dennis Molinario, former intelligence analyst, Ontario Technical University professor

The Canadian public has been apprised of the failure of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau to protect itself from Chinese interference in Canadian elections. Intelligence was leaked by Canada's spy agency to the press indicating that the prime minister had been briefed on numerous occasions of the situation where Beijing has applied pressure on Chinese-Canadians to reject political candidates for Parliament with anti-Beijing attitudes. 

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, March 6, 2023. Trudeau is under heavy pressure to order a public inquiry into reports of foreign interference in Canada's elections. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

 

In actual fact, according to the data revealed and names named, pro-Beijing contacts in Canada had funded Beijing-friendly candidates in their election campaigns for public office, funding that was later restored to them by Beijing. The result being that in both provincial and federal ridings candidates were elected to sit as Members of Parliament whose first interests are to speak for China in the House of Commons and the provincial legislatures.

Canada has long been targeted by Beijing seeking to infiltrate academia, politics, science and technology and corporate business enterprises. Both for influence and for the opportunity to secure any and all government and private industry political and trade secrets. Canada does not, needless to say, represent China's sole foreign interest. Beijing has a vast influence and interference strategy powered by the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, documented by academics and think-tanks.

Australian researcher, Jichang Lulu detailed in a 2019 paper how a China "friendship group" in the European Parliament was a conduit for party influence, assisting in engineering "a growing global consensus on the legitimacy of the party's totalitarian governance". The moulding of a more positive image of China as well as neutralizing Beijing's enemies, according to analysts, represents one of China's goals in Canada. Enemies of China are described by Beijing as practising 'five poisons'.

The five are comprised of activities revolving around Tibetan independence by advocates, the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region of China, the Falun Gong, Taiwan and pro-democracy activists in mainland China. In 2020 an employee of the now-defunct branch of the Confucius Institute funded by China at McMaster University informed of how she and other teachers were given instructions to speak to Canadian students of Tibet's 'liberation' by China and that Taiwan was an integral part of the People's Republic -- both assertions central to the Chinese Communist Party.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to questions from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about reports of campaign donations funnelled from Beijing. Trudeau said it's ‘unfortunate and despicable’ to question any MP’s ‘loyalty to Canada.   CBC

 

Chinese Canadians informed former ambassador Saint-Jacques that they feared to speak out themselves against the People's Republic lest they place relatives and friends back in China in jeopardy through repercussions that Beijing uses as threats to keep its critics in line. In turn they were grateful to him for his tough stance in revealing China's manoeuvres abroad. Critics of China claim there is little resistance to Beijing in its efforts to neutralize negative voices in Canada.

Practitioners of Falun Gong, China democracy proponents and minorities such as Tibetans and Uyghurs complained for years of harassment and intimidation by China. Amnesty International spearheaded a detailed report on interviews with those China has threatened, yet the federal government consistently resisted calls to have a system installed or police units to respond to such complaints.

Chinese police, it was recently revealed, have themselves set up a number of "service stations" in Canada, along with other countries, including the United States, which a Spanish human-rights watchdog explained were used to intimidate critics of the regime. Once this became public knowledge the federal police began to investigate the extraordinary presence of foreign police setting up shop and interfering with Canadian citizens of Chinese descent.

Beijing has long been involved in siphoning technological and other intellectual property out of Canada. A scientist fired from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg who was escorted along with her husband who also worked at the Lab, out of the complex, and later fired, was named on patents in China for discoveries related to  her work as a federal civil servant in Canada. She had been discovered to have worked closely with a People's Liberation Army general. The federal government refused to release to Parliament details of the situation around the reason for the firing.

A United Front Work Department manual notes the number of politicians of Chinese descent elected in Toronto had almost doubled between 2003 and 2006, stating that officials should "aim to work with" those politicians. A concept  called "huaren canzheng" to encourage sympathetic ethnic Chinese to become actively involved in the electoral process is pushed by the United Front. Australian academic and researcher on Chinese interference, Clive Hamilton, wrote that Canada is at the forefront of the initiative. Understandably, since the Liberal government has always been warm to Chinese interference.

Academics such as Anne-Marie Brady of New  Zealand, who study the United Front Work Department explain it often works through friendly community and business groups. But it seems on the evidence of the last few years that Beijing's often clumsy attempts to increase its influence in Canada has resulted in a public that has become wary and resentful of its interference. The percentage of Canadians viewing 

China favourably has plummeted to record lows, according to a recent Angus Reid Poll. 

"It's a bit of a double-edged sword. What's actually happened is possibly the reverse of what the PRC was expecting", noted Mr. Molinaro. Mr. Saint-Jacques, however remains to be convinced, citing the fact that the government of Canada succumbed only under sustained opposition and media pressure to agree to look at a foreign agent registry to be established. The government of Justin Trudeau had kept under wraps continued warnings from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service related to election interference.

China has succeeded however, on another front. Beijing managed to deeply infiltrate the Chinese-Canadian community whose ethnic-language media is dominated by pro-China outlets. It is a community starkly divided, polarized by its reaction to a China that many distrust and many others support. A politically, socially fractured Chinese-Canadian community, mostly loyal to Canada, feeling themselves unprotected by their own government from the stealthy, steady predations of their totalitarian country of origin.

CSIS Canada

@csiscanada

"CSIS continues to observe increasing foreign interference activity by state actors, including the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Given the nature of today’s geopolitical environment, these activities will almost certainly intensify."