Threat agents sponsored by China have “compromised” government networks over the past five years, collecting valuable information, according to a new report from Canada’s cyber spy agency.
The Communications Security Establishment, responsible for foreign signals intelligence, cyber operations and cyber security, released its updated national cyber threat assessment on Wednesday, which flags what the agency sees as the most pressing cyber threats facing individuals and organizations in Canada.
China on October 22 conducted live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
The bellicose move follows a 13-hour simulated blockade of Taiwan on October 14 and 15. The People’s Liberation Army, in the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, employed a record 153 planes as well 26 ships, including the Liaoning, one of the country’s three aircraft carriers.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to suffer diplomatic and political fallout for accusing India, without solid evidence, of complicity in the murder of Sikh militant Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whose extradition India repeatedly requested. Nijjar immigrated illegally to Canada using a false passport and then used his Canadian perch to establish a terrorist training camp, blow up a crowded cinema in India, and seek targeted killings of rivals and Indian government officials.
Even if India had ordered the hit on its own Osama bin Laden, and there is no conclusive evidence it did so, Nijjar seems a curious sword on which Trudeau should fall.
h/t Mauser
China and the Vatican have agreed to extend a deal on the appointment of Catholic bishops in the Asian nation by four years. Some conservative Catholics have criticized the accord for handing too much control to Beijing.
“These are not dual-use capabilities,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters in Brussels on September 10, describing China’s aid to Russia for use against Ukraine. “These are component pieces of a very substantial effort on the part of China to help sustain, build, and diversify various elements of the Russian war machine.”
The Beijing-Moscow cooperation, Campbell argued, is “not a tactical alliance.” It is, instead, “a fundamental alignment.” The Chinese-Russian hook-up was “orchestrated at the highest levels” in the two capitals, he said.
When former Alberta premier Jason Kenney was but a lowly minister of state for multiculturalism in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa, he used to be known as the “minister for curry in a hurry.”
The moniker was a nod to Kenney’s punishing weekend schedules: it wasn’t unusual for the minister, despite his work obligations in Ottawa, to wrack up 30 visits in a weekend of campaigning in multicultural hotspots such as Toronto and Vancouver. Kenney would dip into this temple and that, from this cultural celebration to another, sampling the culinary delights of each community as he went.
Former public safety minister Marco Mendicino says he is very worried the public conversation about some parliamentarians being complicit in foreign interference is becoming a “kangaroo court.”
Mendicino said at a federal inquiry into foreign meddling today that it’s important to follow due process under the law before leaping to conclusions about the conduct of parliamentarians.
DETROIT/WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday will propose making all interest on car loans fully tax-deductible and taking steps to prevent Chinese automakers from selling vehicles in the United States, according to excerpts of a speech seen by Reuters ahead of remarks in Detroit.
Trump will say at the Detroit Economic Club he plans to impose new tariffs to prevent Chinese automakers from building cars in Mexico and exporting them to the United States, part of an effort to appeal to autoworkers in the battleground state of Michigan.
Trump also will say he will formally notify Mexico and Canada of his intent to renegotiate a North American free trade deal to address concerns about Chinese vehicles, according to the prepared remarks. Vice President Kamala Harris has also said she plans to invoke the renegotiation provision if elected.
The reaction to this should be fun. h/t Mauser
A 2021 analysis of China’s foreign interference operations intended to spark discussion among senior government figures did not make it to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or cabinet ministers, the Hogue commission heard Monday.
The report, produced by the Privy Council Office (PCO) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and delivered in January 2022, was stalled for months in the office of Trudeau’s then-national security adviser, Jody Thomas.
China’s foreign interference extends beyond elections to other key areas of Canadian society, the public inquiry on foreign interference was told Monday.
Martin Green, a former top foreign intelligence assessment expert with the Privy Council, said a special report prepared for the Privy Council’s Intelligence Assessment Secretariat in January 2022 concluded that China was going beyond merely trying to influence Canada.
Is it foreign interference if the government is complicit.
A retired editor from one of Canada’s leading Chinese-language newspapers has raised alarms about the dominance of Chinese Communist Party influence over local ethnic media.
Blacklock’s Reporter says Victor Ho, who served as the Vancouver editor of Sing Tao Daily for 13 years, testified before the Commission on Foreign Interference, warning that Chinese media in Canada, especially those targeting recent immigrants, have long been under the sway of Beijing’s agenda.
An RCMP official appearing before the foreign interference inquiry today refused to say whether any Chinese government “police stations” are still operating in Canada.
Asked by lawyers and later by journalists whether any of the so-called police stations are still active here, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn cited an ongoing investigation.
“That again falls into part of our ongoing investigation and I’m not speaking about it at this time,” Flynn told reporters.
China’s Communist Party has for years stoked patriotism in the state media and the country’s classrooms, driving nationalist fervor that at times spun out of control.
Now, three stabbing attacks in four months that targeted Japanese and Americans have exposed a dark side of that campaign, what many in China describe as “hate education.”
In one of the past year’s viral videos, a desk-pounding schoolteacher lectures to her students about China’s “blood feud” with Japan, admonishing them to never forget the atrocities conducted by the Japanese army in World War II. State media praised her, and other teachers reposted her video.
A Chinese woman accused of spying on Germany’s defence industry was arrested in Leipzig on Tuesday, October 1st. The woman is “strongly suspected of acting as an intelligence agent for a Chinese secret service,” federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Named only as Yaqi X., the woman worked for a logistics services company, including at Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany. She is alleged to have used her position to gather information on “the transport of military equipment and persons with connections to a German arms company.”
Canada’s new tariff on electric vehicles from China will reverberate through a multitude of industries and could lead to repercussions well beyond the electric vehicle market, according to analysts.
The 100 per cent tariff on imports of Chinese-made EVs (and some hybrids), including cars, buses, trucks and delivery vehicles, takes effect on Tuesday after a 30-day consultation period over the summer. A 25 per cent surtax on steel and aluminum imports from China will kick in on Oct. 15.
