We Don't Have to Trade With China

Three guesses why ...

Our adversaries understand that Western military superiority over the world’s authoritarians is meaningless if we lack the political resolve to use it, if we think there is no moral difference between free democracies and authoritarian despotisms. That is why China and Russia take aim at our culture, our beliefs and our institutions. Their objective is nothing less than to cause us to lose faith in ourselves and the society we have built. 

There are other ways in which our adversaries are using our own strengths against us.

In the trade sphere, for example, we assume other countries sign trade deals in the same spirit of openness as we do. There can be no doubt, however, that China has used industrial espionage and trade agreements for the explicit purpose of achieving industrial and economic domination over the West, destroying Canadian industrial giants such as Nortel along the way. The result has been the deindustrialization of our societies.

In Canada’s case we have aided and abetted our adversaries’ ambitions by allowing them to launder and then invest money on an industrial scale. We have, moreover, been complaisant in the face of foreign efforts to coerce and intimidate Canadian citizens and residents seeking to alert Canadians to the dangers posed by China, Russia and other authoritarian regimes.

China, however, has the resources and the will to go beyond destabilizing disinformation. They have for years pursued a policy of suborning a wide range of Canadian institutions, from our political parties, civil service and police to our research labs, universities and business leadership. To do so they have employed the traditional tactics for exploiting human weaknesses, such as divided loyalties, the fear engendered by threats and intimidation, the active corruption of institutions by the placement within them of agents loyal to Beijing, and that old standby, greed.

Canada’s security services have been sounding the alarm on China’s growing interference and nefarious activities for decades; indifference and hostility have been Ottawa’s official response.

And while interference in our democracy seems to have captured the public imagination, it is easy to demonstrate that China’s efforts are much more ambitious than influencing voters in a handful of constituencies. Elections, however, are a good place to start inventorying the rot.

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The federal government gave nearly $160,000 to another Quebec non-profit the RCMP believes may be hosting a secret Chinese “police station,” the second organization to receive funding experts fear may have been used to advance Beijing’s agenda in Canada.

According to a federal government database, Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive Sud, a not-for-profit based in Montreal’s south shore, received over $105,000 in funding between 2016 and 2022 via six grants from the Canada Summer Jobs program.

In its 2018-2019 annual report, the most recent report available via an Internet archiving service after the information was scrubbed from its website, Centre Sino-Québec said it used the funding that year to hire four students of Chinese origin to work at a summer camp for youth from low-income immigrant families.

The data also shows it received over $53,000 via three contributions between 2020 and 2022 from the New Horizons for Seniors program, which funds projects geared toward seniors.

** 

Rather, let's identify the leak:

A former Ontario cabinet minister who has been the focus of intelligence leaks related to Chinese interference in Canada is suing CSIS, saying the spy agency publicly humiliated him because of a “stereotypical typecasting of immigrants born in China as being somehow untrustworthy.”

Liberal Michael Chan, who’s currently deputy mayor of the Toronto-area city of Markham, says persecution by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service began in 2010 and has continued recently with disclosure of what he called unreliable and “frail” intelligence reports.

Chan said unnamed CSIS employees not only broke federal secrecy laws when they gave media such information, they caused him real harm.

“Chan is justifiably proud of his Chinese heritage. But he is first and foremost a Canadian,” says his statement of claim, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. “He has devoted a good portion of his working life to public service to his country.”

Due to the “misfeasance” of the CSIS leakers working with news outlets, “Chan has suffered pain, embarrassment, humiliation, stress and damage to his reputation, as well as threats to his personal well-being and that of his family,” alleges the document. “It has particularly pained him to know that his family members have had to deal with this matter.”

 **

A citizen petition against a foreign agent registry that was sponsored by Liberal MP Chandra Arya in the House of Commons in April was drafted by Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, The Epoch Times has confirmed.

“At the request of organizers across the country, I helped to draft the petition,” Woo told The Epoch Times in an email.

The petition, initiated by Coquitlam, B.C., resident Li Wang, says “a foreign influence registry poses a serious harassment and stigmatization risk for racialized communities.”

It adds: “A registry is a misleading way to identify sources of foreign influence.”

Like you, for example?

**

A Canadian magazine yesterday defended its publication of a commentary by China’s Ambassador on tea and the wisdom of President Xi. The Ottawa Life article followed Canada’s expulsion of a Chinese spy and Commons committee evidence of threats against an MP: “Just like enjoying tea, let us embrace the spirit of harmony.”

**

As predictable as the NDP's inaction over this and their much-needed interference:

Cabinet’s refusal to hold a public inquiry into claims of illegal activities by Chinese agents was predictable, a Bloc Québécois MP yesterday told the House affairs committee. “The walls are closing in,” said MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides-Labelle, Que.). “That’s enough.”

 

Also:

NDP MP Jenny Kwan revealed during a press conference on May 29 that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) recently told her she has been a target of Beijing for several years.

“While I’m not able to disclose the details of how that foreign interference applied to me specifically for national security reasons, CSIS has confirmed with me that I am being targeted for foreign interference and will continue to be a target,” the MP for Vancouver East told reporters in Ottawa.

Kwan said CSIS had contacted her a few weeks ago to “offer a briefing” with respect to foreign interference targeting her and followed up with another classified briefing on May 26.

Kwan, who is the NDP’s immigration critic, said she is being targeted by the Chinese regime because of her “activism in support and to fight for basic human rights for not just Canadians, but for those who are abroad as well.”

Kwan, who was born in Hong Kong, has been outspoken against Bejing’s national security law, which facilitated the erosion of democratic rights and freedoms for Hong Kongers. Back in 2021, she condemned the arrest of six journalists in the city, calling for Canadians to “rally in support of the people in Hong Kong.” Kwan said her outspoken support of the Uyghur minority population who are targeted for persecution by the Chinese regime also led to her becoming a target.

Kwan said she would continue to stand with those across the world fighting for “basic human rights” and that she would not be intimidated or silenced.

“Whoever is trying to put pressure on me—in whatever way that they’re trying to do it—they will not succeed. I will continue to do what is right and what is just,” she said.

While Kwan said she could not reveal the specifics around how she was being targeted—as doing so would reveal classified information and jeopardize the work of CSIS—she said she is an “evergreen candidate,” meaning that she will “forever be targeted.”

**

A Toronto lawyer who assisted David Johnston in his review of alleged misconduct by Chinese agents yesterday would not comment on her ties to the Liberal Party. The advocacy group Democracy Watch filed an ethics complaint naming lawyer Sheila Block: “I retained Sheila Block of Torys LLP to assist me.”

None of this is a concern to uncle David Johnston, whose company Justin enjoyed while eating deluxe chicken nuggets,

Special Rapporteur David Johnston has refused to take questions from MPs on the House of Commons public accounts committee regarding his previous work at the Trudeau Foundation, leading members of the committee to threaten to issue him a summons.

“We have a meeting scheduled for a week today with individuals who have been involved with the Trudeau Foundation,” said Conservative MP and Committee Chair John Williamson at a meeting of the committee on May 29, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. “I regret to inform you all, I have three who have declined, including the Right Honourable David Johnston.”

Trudeau appointed Johnston to be the special rapporteur on March 15 following media reports suggesting widespread interference by Beijing in Canada’s elections. Instead of launching a public inquiry, which opposition leaders repeatedly called for, the prime minister said he would heed the recommendations of Johnston.

When tabling his report on foreign election interference on May 23, Johnston said a public inquiry should not be held, as the classified information informing his decision could not be revealed to the Canadian public. He instead called for a series of public hearings to “hear from Canadians about the numerous policy questions my work has raised.”

Johnston has been criticized in his role as special rapporteur, given his past relationship with the Trudeau family and membership in the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation. When tabling the report, Johnston dismissed the criticisms by saying he has had no interactions with Trudeau “of a friendly kind” since Trudeau became a Liberal MP.

Johnston resigned his membership with the foundation after his appointment as rapporteur.

Johnston is slated to testify in front of the House Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs—which passed a motion on May 26 re-inviting him to appear—no later than June 6. The committee had called for him to testify in March, but Johnston responded that he would only be available after tabling his report.

 

Also - utterly craven:

Malaysia has detained a Chinese-registered vessel suspected of looting two British World War Two shipwrecks.

The bulk carrier was seized on Sunday for anchoring illegally at the site in the South China Sea.

Ammunition believed to be from the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were sunk by Japanese forces more than 80 years ago, was then found on board.

The UK Ministry of Defence had earlier condemned the alleged raid as a "desecration" of maritime war graves.

Old shipwrecks are targeted by scavengers for their rare low-background steel, also known as "pre-war steel". The low radiation in the steel makes it a rare and valuable resource for use in medical and scientific equipment.

The British vessels, on the bed of the ocean some 100km (60 miles) off the east coast of Malaysia, had been targeted for decades.

The Royal Navy battleships were dispatched to Singapore during the war to shore up the defence of Malaya. They were sunk by Japanese torpedoes on 10 December 1941.

The strike - which occurred just three days after the attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbour - killed some 842 sailors and is considered one of the worst disasters in British naval history.

**

Daniel Suidani, a former provincial premier of Solomon Islands who was ousted from office for standing up against Beijing’s foreign interference, says countries need to be very careful when dealing with communist regimes as they don’t share the same values as other parts of the world.

“The [ideology] of communism, … these people are atheist. They don’t believe in God. We need to be very mindful of this because we will be having a friendship with somebody with different values and principles. So we need to be very careful and the people need to understand before involving in anything with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” Suidani, the former premier of Malaita Province, the most populous province in Solomon Islands, told The Epoch Times.

In October 2019, Suidani issued the “Auki Communique” from the premier’s office, a document issued to fend off interference and influence operations by the CCP. It also affirmed the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Malaitan people, including protection of the law and the freedom of expression and religion, while rejecting the “CCP and its formal systems based on atheist ideology.”

In addition, Suidani’s government barred new investors with any connections to the CCP from operating in the province. The communique highlighted the importance of safeguarding Malaita’s resources and sovereignty from “wilful and exploitive investors” including preserving the province’s natural environment from overdevelopment by CCP-linked companies such as logging from the forests.

But his courageous efforts did not sit well with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s government, which has adopted a series of policies over the past few years that pivot the country’s foreign policy closer to Beijing.

This includes the decision in September 2019 to cut diplomatic ties with the democratic government of Taiwan—which has historic conflict with the communist regime in Beijing—and instead recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate government of China.

The Taiwanese government in return terminated diplomatic relations with the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, criticizing Sogavare’s decision to disregard the 36 years of cooperation between Solomon Islands and Taiwan.