Bad Faith China Syndrome

"It's likely that the shipment is being delayed as part of China's retaliation against Canada over the Meng [Wanzhou/Huawei Technology] arrest."

"But it could also be due to the kind of sudden, unexplained delay that routinely happens when you're dealing with China's opaque and often uncooperative customs authorities."

"Either way, it raises the question of why the National Research Council thought it was a good idea to work with a Chinese partner on such a sensitive project."

David Mulroney, Canadian ambassador to China, 2009--2012

"We are continuing to wait for the vaccine."

"All we know is that it's awaiting customs clearance by the Chinese government for export. We have not been able to obtain any projected time lines."

"Nothing much else I can say, other than we can start the trial as soon as we receive the vaccine."

Scott Halperin, head, planned Phase-1 trial, Canadian Center for Vaccinology, Dalhousie University

Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics’ sign is pictured on its building in Tianjin, China, Nov. 20, 2018. Stringer/Reuters/File

CanSino's Ad5-nCoV vaccine is the first of many vaccines to have published the results of its initial stage 1 tests. Which led to the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet publishing the first set of data about the efficacy of CanSino’s vaccine in humans. A coup for CanSino, and a hope that an efficacious and safe vaccine would shortly be available. If successful, however, it would be one among many. The initial findings indicated Ad5-nCoV induced binding antibodies in most people given the vaccine within 28 days.

Of the larger number of study subjects exposed to the vaccine, one-hundred-and-eight healthy volunteers responded to the vaccine in a way that was read as "safe and well-tolerated", though some of the subjects experienced troubling side-effects. Ad5-nCoV was also approved by China’s military for use by its soldiers for one year. The Chinese military’s medical research unit was also known to have played a role in the development of Ad5-nCoV.

Which leaves open to question why the National Research Council, Canada's premiere medical research group, would choose to make itself available in an agreement with a Chinese biomedical corporation with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military. CanSino's founder has a Canadian connection, having studied and worked in Canada on biomedical research. But Canada's experience with China, in particular the most recent events have been so fraught with enmity it becomes a puzzle that the government -- not the NRC -- agreed that this critical file would be attached to China's whims.

China has already demonstrated aptly its disregard for international norms when it arbitrarily took under arrest two Canadian businessmen on trumped-up charges of espionage to use them as leverage to force Canada to release Huawei's chief operating officer held on an extradition warrant issued by the United States. Further pressure was applied when a Canadian charged with drug smuggling was suddenly given a death penalty for his crimes. And previous trade agreements for the import of Canadian canola, pork and other comestibles were suddenly cancelled.

The very issue of China's miserable human rights record has never given pause to the Liberal government in its ambition to strike an advantageous trade agreement with Beijing. That ambition of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's was aborted when conditions were placed on any trade agreement that Canada would sign with any international trade group; insisting on inclusion of respect and equality for women and unions and minorities. China doesn't appreciate being lectured or dictated to.

China is known as a country whose government has never been averse to hijacking other countries' trade and military secrets through cybersecurity infractions. And its past performance infiltrating Canada's world-renowned Nortel Networks, purloining secret data which eventually helped lead to Nortel's downfall followed by former Chinese Nortel employees helping to found Huawei should have been an object lesson in the benefits to be had by maintaining a wide distance between Ottawa and Beijing. A lesson Prime Minister Trudeau flung aside.

According to the agreement signed between CanSino and the NRC in mid-May, the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University was to have begun a small Phase 1 safety trial with the vaccine, with the possibility of Phase 2 and 3 trials to follow. On regulator approval, the vaccine could be manufactured at a facility in Montreal owned by the NRC to ensure that Canada was "among the first in the world to have access to a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19", according to the National Research Council.

It is now known that CanSino conducted talks with Russia, Brazil, Chile and Saudi Arabia to conduct Phase 3 trials. And it just signed an agreement with Egypt to test and produce the vaccine once it could be determined that the vaccine does protect people against infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19.  "It might also be that China would prefer to ensure that any vaccine is developed in China first and not shared with a foreign country, especially Canada", suggested Guy Saint-Jacques another former Canadian ambassador to China.

Alternately, he said, the situation "could well be part of the Chinese arsenal" in the dispute over Meng's arrest. As for the CanSino vaccine candidate, it makes use of a harmless virus as a system of delivery where the "adenovirus" is modified to express part of the SARS-CoV-2 germ causing COVID, which should trigger the immune system to fight the coronavirus. Dampened immune response occurred in some people, theoretically attributed to the thought they were exposed previously to the adenovirus backbone in the vaccine and resulting antibodies repelled the vaccine.

A technician works at a manufacturing facility of Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics in Tianjin,China.    Reuters

China's Concerns for 'Peace' Overseas

"Greater Vancouver has many Chinese emigrants, exchange students and tourists, and incidents of injury, illness, disappearances, detention, fraud, and so forth involving Chinese citizens remain frequent."
"In order to adapt to a new era, and new higher expectations of excellence in overseas public service and effectiveness in overseas legal defence, it is necessary to innovate new approaches and elevate the effectiveness of consular protection."
"The volunteer mechanism is fully making use of the advantages of the emigrant community, developing working synergy, and helping the consulate to provide good consular services, giving overseas Chinese emigrants and Chinese citizens a feeling of safety and benefit."
China's Vancouver Consulate website

"I believe that there's more to the consulate's efforts than simply training consular volunteers, and that they may be looking to enlist Chinese citizens, and even Canadians, to promote the Communist Party's political agenda."
"Politically motivated outreach to Chinese citizens who are living short-term or studying in Canada is also questionable, especially if it encourages them to act against the interests or policies of their host country, Canada."
David Mulroney, former Canadian ambassador to China

"I have never heard of such an arrangement by any other nations. Of course, most embassies and consulates would have locally engaged staff to assist their diplomats with this kind of thing."
"[The creation of a volunteer corps does] fit into the official Chinese Communist Party rhetoric that Canada is a hostile and dangerous place for ethnic Chinese so they should identify with and seek the protection of the PRC authorities."
Charles Burton, senior fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute

"When Canadian community groups and citizens are being recruited, trained and given tasks by the Chinese consulate, they are working on behalf of the Chinese government. They could easily become foreign agents, and their given tasks may interfere with Canada's internal matters."
"It is very important for our government, our media, and Canadian citizens to understand the potential serious consequence of this strategic move of the CCP."
Ivy Li, pro-democracy group Canadian Friends of Hong Kong

Pro-China counter-protesters, wearing red, shout down a man in a black shirt during an anti-extradition rally for Hong Kong in Vancouver on Saturday August 17, 2019.   Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The world's tyrants use any means at their disposal to infiltrate other nations' administrations and threaten their sovereignty. The Kremlin, famously, speaks of ethnic Russians long resident in parts of eastern Europe from the years of the Soviet Union, requiring Russia's intervention to ensure the safeguarding of their Russian heritage, language and values. So far, only Georgia and Ukraine have suffered violent incursions and revolts incited by Moscow; the rest quaver and shelter under NATO's protective canopy.

Germany's large Turkish population, a result of the availability of cheap labour brought into Germany generations ago, has seen Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan officiously treat those German Turks as though their loyalty is to him and to Turkey and not the country where they have citizenship and where later generations were born and raised. China too has reached out its octopus arms to claim concern over the well-being of Chinese Canadians, most -- other than more recent expatriates from Hong Kong and Chinese students studying in Canada -- have been resident in Canada for a century.

As it is, there are divided loyalties among the Chinese diaspora; those more recent immigrants from mainland China have a different world view from those long established in Canada who came and were used in backbreaking work on cross-country railroads, then established themselves as small independent business people, becoming fully Canadian in the process. But it is the Chinese Communist Party's infiltration through its United Front Work Department and its connection to Chinese diplomatic posts that bring disquiet to Canadian intelligence services.

In late 2016 an English-language newspaper, the China Daily, published an article announcing the inauguration of "consular liaison volunteers" to serve Chinese embassies and consulates abroad. "An increasing number of Chinese people travelling around the world for business or tourism [who] encounter problems as they go" ostensibly led to the launching of this new 'service' staffed by civilian volunteers living in the countries where Beijing has established diplomatic posts.

A photo of the volunteer group, whose recruits include some prominent Chinese-Canadian community leaders, on the consulate page. Consulate of China

Chinese living in Canada are enjoined to volunteer, to "carefully pay attention to the safety situations of their home area, strengthening communication with the consulate". As volunteers they are expected to be "excellent representatives of overseas Chinese people and encouragers of friendship between the Canadian and Chinese peoples". So now a volunteer corps exists, representing Chinese Canadians with influence through their business holdings in the community, a fledgling volunteer system speaking in Canada on behalf of the Chinese government.

According to the director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, Gordon Houlders, China has always been interested in the Chinese diaspora, and Canada is aware of the activities by its diplomats, with Canadian authorities wary that coercion is not involved or pressure of any nature. The problem lies with intention to rally Chinese Canadians in support of PRC policies. 

"In short, contact with Chinese nationals in Canada is one thing. But where China might be engaged in efforts to shape the views of the broad Chinese-Canadian community or to push a particular point of view, that is another matter."
"...If the point of the campaign is ... focused on loyalty to a foreign state, t hat is quite distinct."

The Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver representative of over 100 Chinese associations earlier in the year took out large advertisements in Chinese-language newspapers denouncing Hong Kong protesters as "radicals", appearing to support the Chinese Communist Party position on an extradition bill that was proposed between China and semi-autonomous Hong Kong that saw the growth of mass protests in Hong Kong, calling for respect for Hong Kong's sovereignty, and calling for greater democracy in the city-state.

The United Front Work Department, allied with Chinese diplomats reminded Chinese students in Canada of their pledge of loyalty to the Chinese government, inciting them to go out and protest against the Hong Kong rebellion, and clash with Chinese Canadians who rallied in public support of the Hong Kong demonstrations. Former Ambassador Mulroney expressed his interest in whether the Vancouver Chinese consulate had consulted with Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs relating to "an activity that appears to involve recruiting people in Canada to work for a foreign state".

The current government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is prepared to bow to Chinese pressure; the prospect of greater trade opportunities for Canada with China has the final word with the Liberal Party of Canada.

Pro-China counter-protesters cast shadows on a Chinese flag as they shout at Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protesters holding a rally in Vancouver in August. Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press