QUEBEC CITY—Conservative MP Michael Chong, twice the target of alleged Chinese state interference, will make the case to American legislators Tuesday that more international co-operation is urgently required to thwart Beijing’s efforts to meddle in Western democracies.
His top-line message: If influence operations go unchecked, they will threaten economic prosperity, undermine public confidence in democracy and place social cohesion at risk.
China is warning of “consequences” for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government unless it stops spreading “lies and false information” about alleged interference in Canadian affairs.
The Chinese embassy in Ottawa issued a stern statement on Friday, a day after Canada announced a public inquiry into meddling by China, Russia and other state and non-state actors in Canadian national elections in 2019 and 2021.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he will “willingly” testify before the public inquiry into foreign election interference if he’s asked.
“Willingly and with very much enthusiasm,” Trudeau told reporters at a news conference in Singapore.
“I think it’s important for Canadians to know exactly everything this government has been doing in regards to foreign interference and to talk frankly about the challenges that we continue to face in our democracies around the world.”
Just don’t ask him about China.
The former head of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) department responsible for engaging with foreign political parties met with multiple federal cabinet ministers and the national security adviser to the prime minister during a 2018 visit to Canada. This CCP department was recently designated an “intelligence service” by a German federal intelligence agency.
The International Department of the Central Committee of the CCP, also known as the International Liaison Department (ILD), operates “de facto as an intelligence service of the People’s Republic of China and is therefore part of the Chinese intelligence apparatus,” says a “Safety Notice for Politics and Administration” in German.
Justice Marie-Josée Hogue of the Quebec Court of Appeal will chair a public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada’s elections, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced Thursday.
Hogue’s first report is due Feb. 29 and her mandate will focus on alleged acts of interference by China and other states, including Russia, he said.
Former governor general David Johnston was tasked with looking into allegations that China tried to meddle in the past two federal elections. He resigned from the position in June, saying his role had become too muddled in political controversy for him to continue.
I have zero faith in this farce, it’s like asking Al Capone to investigate bootlegging.
Former Canadian fighter pilots face RCMP probe over training work in China
The RCMP are investigating three former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilots who are training military and civilian pilots in China, even though their employer, a South African flying academy, insists no sensitive information is being passed on to Chinese authorities.
The work the three pilots are doing in China has also come under scrutiny from Canadian security officials, who reached out to the former top guns in late August. The Department of National Defence says it referred the matter to the RCMP.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has instructed three of the founding investors of Wealth One Bank of Canada to divest their shares, and has also ordered the financial institution to comply with extraordinary national-security conditions intended to firewall its operations against the trio, who have faced federal scrutiny over alleged links to the Chinese government.
The three men, Toronto insurance executive Shenglin Xian, Vancouver property developer Morris Chen and Toronto grocery tycoon Yuangsheng Ou Yang, were told in April to sell their shares in the bank. Wealth One has also been ordered to sever all ties with the three, and to put in place stringent security measures to guard against money laundering and unauthorized sharing of sensitive information.
Laurentian elite firewall?
Canada’s spy agency is leaning on Soviet imagery to help prime the public against disinformation, but experts say Moscow is more likely to use images that make readers think the messaging is coming from North American sources.
Last month, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) started posting on social media about its efforts to counteract deliberately misleading information online.
The posts feature a font that resembles the Cyrillic alphabet, featuring stars instead of dots and the letter N appearing backwards.
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While Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was in Beijing this week, ostensibly to discuss ways China and Canada can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, a new report warned China is massively expanding it use of coal to produce power.
MP Michael Chong is about to appear in a unique locale for a Canadian Opposition politician: a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
American lawmakers studying foreign interference by China have taken an interest in Chong’s case and invited him to testify. He has agreed to appear before the congressional-executive commission on China on Sept. 12.
Members of the commission reached out to the Ontario Conservative after reading media reports about his family being targeted by Beijing.
I hope he names the LPC as an arm of the ChiComs.
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While Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was in Beijing this week to discuss ways China and Canada can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, one of China’s major state-run media organizations wrote an editorial headlined “Western concerns about China’s coal power growth unnecessary.”
China is using Canadian think tank to fund and bolster its green image, critics say
Funded by the federal government, a Canadian think tank has for four years been acting as the international secretariat for a Chinese environmental agency headed by one of Beijing’s most powerful Communist Party leaders.
Its little-known role adds to an unusual, longstanding and controversial collaboration between Canada and the Chinese government-founded agency. Touted as an advisory body for policy makers in Beijing, the council is accused by critics of being part of China’s vast global influence machine.
Some Chinese international students say their study permits have been tied up in security screenings, leaving them in the lurch for months after being admitted to Canadian universities.
Yunze Lu, a master’s student in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Ottawa, has already completed a year of coursework online and successfully applied to the school’s co-op program.
“I have a very simple and clear background. It’s OK to be checked, but I don’t think it needs to be checked for so long,” he said.
A noted educator and anthropologist, she spent almost her entire life in China, where she was a committed friend of the Communist government.
Isabel Crook, a China-born daughter of Canadian missionaries who became one of her adopted country’s most celebrated foreign residents, beloved as an educator, anthropologist and articulate advocate for the Communist state, died on Sunday in Beijing. She was 107.
Her son Carl Crook said the cause of death, in a hospital, was pneumonia.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rags the puck on holding a public inquiry on China’s interference into Canadian democracy, which he’s never wanted, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is in China seeking its cooperation on climate change.
Guilbeault’s trip isn’t surprising – U.S. climate envoy John Kerry was in Beijing last month seeking the same thing – nor will it will result in any breakthroughs.
