China is preparing for a different kind of war. Canada is still preparing for yesterday’s. The defining geopolitical struggle of the twenty-first century will not be fought solely with tanks, warships, or fighter aircraft. Increasingly, it will be contested through factories, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, supply chains, advanced manufacturing, and technological innovation. Beijing understands this. Most Western governments, including our own, are only beginning to catch up.
VANCOUVER — The Bureau has learned from a source with direct knowledge that Richmond’s mayor and city councillors were asked to attend an extraordinary closed-door briefing delivered by senior regional officials of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Chinese-brand cars are sitting at Canadian ports, waiting to be unloaded. The first dealerships of BYD, Geely, and Chery are set to open this fall in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montréal, with more to follow by the end of the year. And not one of those cars can legally be sold in the United States.
That gap—vehicles landing at America’s doorstep that can’t be sold across the border—is the center of a quiet contest now unfolding on the northern frontier. The United States has walled out
Chinese cars with a 100 percent tariff and a national security rule that bars China-owned automakers from the U.S. market even if they build their cars on American soil.
But Canada has moved the other way. In January, it agreed to let in a rising number of Chinese electric vehicles at a tariff of only 6.1 percent, breaking ranks with Washington.
Allegations that China had recruited a former Canadian government employee as a spy could worsen relations between Ottawa and Beijing that had been gradually improving since Mark Carney became prime minister.
The Chinese authorities did not respond to requests for comment Friday about a Canadian NATO intern accused by Belgian prosecutors of spying on behalf of Beijing.
The arrest of a Canadian intern accused of spying inside NATO’s senior military headquarters in Belgium reaches beyond one person or one failed security check. It shows how hostile states can combine espionage, criminal networks, technology, and trusted access to weaken an alliance without firing a shot.
Belgian prosecutors allege that the intern, who is of Chinese origin, conducted espionage for an unidentified third country while interning at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, known as SHAPE, in Mons, Belgium. They also accuse her of belonging to a criminal organization.
VANCOUVER — Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West called on British Columbia Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay Wednesday night to take an unverified allegation about one of her own caucus members to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and expel her from caucus, or else apologize to her — the first significant public intervention by an elected official into a purported leak that has moved through British Columbia political circles at speed since Tuesday evening.
OTTAWA — The Canadian woman of Chinese origin held in Belgium on suspicion of spying inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) military command for a third country, and of membership in a criminal organization, was vetted by CSIS and the RCMP and cleared for the posting — despite a finding by Canada’s public service watchdog that she committed fraud in a hiring competition run by the CBSA, CSIS’s sister agency inside the Public Safety Canada portfolio.
The Federal Court upheld that finding in a published judgment 11 months before she took up her post at allied command.
The Canadian woman recently arrested by Belgian authorities on suspicion of spying appears to have worked for multiple government agencies before her NATO internship.
A CBC News investigation has identified the woman as Biwei Zhang, a systems engineer with a background in economics whose online resume suggests she previously worked for the Canadian Space Agency and Statistics Canada.
Zhang’s public and professional profiles match the information Belgian prosecutors provided, which described the suspect as a “Canadian national of Chinese origin” who was an intern at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the military headquarters of NATO in Mons, Belgium.
Carney will welcome her home and allow her to return to China.
Spy charges against Canadian intern at NATO triggers ‘cascade of issues’ for multiple agencies
OTTAWA — A Canadian intern accused of spying at NATO’s strategic headquarters will make her first appearance in a Belgium court Tuesday to seek bail, and while the hearing will be held behind closed doors, the outcome will be released to the public.
The female suspect is accused of working on “behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organization,” according to the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, adding that the chamber will decide if “pre-trial detention should be maintained.”
… As per protocol, the intern was vetted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the RCMP before being hired at NATO.
More … Ottawa vows to ‘get to the bottom’ of spying allegations against Canadian NATO intern says foreigner in charge of stealing your guns.
A Canadian woman of Chinese origin who was an intern at NATO’s military headquarters in Belgium has been arrested on spying charges, Belgian prosecutors said Saturday.
“She is suspected of spying on behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organization,” the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
h/t Ontario John
Donald Trump has once again inspired anger and confusion in US allies and trading partners as he imposed a wave of tariffs on more than 80 countries, replacing an expiring global duty introduced earlier this year.
The new measures effectively replace blanket 10% tariffs that Trump imposed in February. The US supreme court ruled many of those were illegal. The new levies come in at between 10% and 12.5% on countries including the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China and the 27 countries that make up the EU.
Carney’s bewildered because his ChiCom pals are big on slave labour.
A $25,000 electric vehicle sounds like exactly what Canadian consumers have been waiting for. But when that bargain comes from China, the real cost may have little to do with the sticker price.
Earlier this year, as part of the strategic partnership with China, Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to allow up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) into the Canadian market at a favourable tariff rate. These EVs have just begun to arrive with prices between $25,000 to $35,000 – approximately half the current average cost for an EV in Canada. But before Canadian consumers get too excited or seek to jump behind the wheel of a freshly imported BYD or Dongfeng, they should understand why Canada had a prohibitive tariff rate on Chinese EVs prior to this year and what security risks the high-tech automobiles pose to both drivers and the country as a whole.
OTTAWA — China’s new Ethnic Unity Law should not be viewed in isolation, nor should it be dismissed as inapplicable to foreign nationals or Canadians. It is the latest addition to an increasingly sophisticated legal architecture through which Beijing seeks to extend its political authority beyond its borders. Officially titled the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, the legislation was adopted by the National People’s Congress in March 2026 and entered into force on July 1, 2026.
In this episode with Jason James, we revisit the Vancouver Model — the Chinese transnational money-laundering system that helped make Vancouver infamous around the world — and we connect that history to a live political question in Canada today.
Because this is not just a story about casinos, luxury homes, or offshore capital. It is a story about how dirty money, political weakness, and a captured real estate economy can combine to distort an entire country.
The country’s top spy agency says Natural Resources Canada approached it with concerns about former federal scientist Dennis Lu more than two decades ago, not the other way around — and has made a rare disclosure of one of its documents in court to set the record straight, CBC News has learned.
There are also new details about part of the reason for a 23-month delay between the last Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) briefing about Lu to his employer in February 2021 and the start of Natural Resources’ internal investigation into Lu in January 2023.
