There is only one party that benefits from this one-sided trade:
The report finds that Chinese intelligence services were actively attempting to recruit business and political leaders in Canada to influence political activities here back in the ’90s
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"I was pretty dismayed at the extent of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence in the federal Parliament. I should probably not say any more to stay on the right side of the libel laws... [W]hat are the authorities doing about this? I think that's the real measure of China's influence." — Australian professor Clive Hamilton, National Post, April 15, 2019.
Despite leaked intelligence reports about Chinese interference in Canada's last two federal elections in 2019 and 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has refused to hold a public probe into the matter.
[T]he passivity of Trudeau's Liberal Party is "permitting China to colonize Canada." — Tasha Kheiriddin, Canadian political columnist, National Post, August 22, 2023.
"On housing: Chinese money laundering inflated Canadian property values for decades and helped push home ownership out of reach for today's buyers. On drug addiction: China is the main source country of fentanyl found in Canada, paving the way for thousands of overdose deaths. On the economy: China has targeted a host of Canadian industries for control, from lobsters to lithium." — Tasha Kheiriddin, National Post, August 22, 2023.
"The CCP's basic strategy of overseas influence and interference is to capture elites in politics, business, media, think tanks, universities, and cultural institutions...It deploys a range of techniques including flattery, financial inducement, exploitation of anti-racist and anti-American sentiment, bribery, and honey traps... Key figures in the Liberal Party have long historical ties to the CCP, not least through business connections..." — Clive Hamilton, thehub.ca, June 2, 2023.
"I've often said that Chinese leaders are what I call CEO whisperers, they're very, very skillful when meeting foreigners, particularly senior foreigners. China inspires a kind of excessive affection in people and an excessive sense of wonder and a desire not to apply the usual sort of critical thinking skills, and people are seduced by it." — Former Canadian Ambassador to China David Mulroney, thehub.ca, June 2, 2023.
China has reportedly openly been trying to influence [Canadian PM] Justin Trudeau for the past ten years. One unnamed CSIS source said that the CCP had its eyes on Justin Trudeau well before he became prime minister.
Trudeau, during his first election campaign in 2016, visited the homes of "wealthy Chinese-Canadians for private fundraising events. Some of the hosts had close connections with the CCP and had been actively promoting Beijing's takeover of islands in the South China Sea." — Clive Hamilton, in his book, Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World.
The influence of the CCP is so pervasive that Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, "is pulling double duty as an official adviser to the Chinese government" according to a report in the Toronto Sun.
China... is a real threat to Canada's sovereignty. "Recent Chinese actions and announcements are pointing to Beijing's determination to have a military capability in the region that will exceed that of Canada." — Rob Hueber, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary, Globe and Mail, August 25, 2023.
"What has not received as much attention is a research paper, published in 2021, in which Chinese scientists explain their success in developing Arctic-resilient underwater listening systems. The paper says the listening systems are for peaceful purposes, but the actual ramifications of the HABs [high-altitude balloons], buoys and research systems are inescapable. China is refining its means of monitoring the Canadian North." — Rob Hueber, Globe and Mail, August 25, 2023.
"China will very soon enjoy a major advantage in monitoring Arctic waters, especially under the surface, and it will have confidence that Canada has little ability to see what is going on or do anything about it. Factor in the overwhelming evidence of Beijing's efforts to target and interfere in our political system – and our reluctance or inability to respond to these actions – and the larger threat to Canada's very sovereignty comes starkly into view." — Rob Hueber, Globe and Mail, August 25, 2023.
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Elections Commissioner Caroline Simard yesterday in her Annual Report to Parliament omitted all mention of “China” in updating investigations of alleged election fraud by foreign agents. Simard earlier dismissed 116 complaints of alleged interference prior to the May 8 expulsion of a Chinese spy: “It is clear the issue of foreign interference weighs heavily on Canadians’ trust.”**
Canada must follow U.S. Customs in restricting the import of slave-made goods from China, Conservative MP Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.) yesterday told a committee of the United States Congress. Canada “can’t be the place” where Chinese manufacturers export the products of slavery, he said: “We have yet to seize one shipment.”
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Anti-China slavery groups have lost a legal challenge to force federal agents to seize products made by forced labour. The Federal Court of Appeal said human rights advocates could not sue on principle, alone: “Our enforcement to this point has been terrible.”
(Sidebar: now Canada can get its lithium mined with Congolese child slave labourers without thinking twice about it.)
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The United States believes Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu has been placed under investigation and relieved of his command, reports said Friday, in what could be the latest sign of turmoil in Chinese leader Xi Jinping's government, just over six months after he installed a collection of loyalist leaders in his Cabinet.
Three U.S. officials and two people briefed on intelligence surrounding Li told the Financial Times that Washington has concluded that the defense chief, who took up his post in March, had been stripped of his responsibilities. They did not offer further insights into the probe.
Li, who has not been seen in public since Aug. 29, would be the latest senior Chinese official to lose his post, following Xi’s abrupt purge last month of two generals leading the country’s Rocket Force, which oversees the country’s nuclear and land-based missile arsenal, and the still-unexplained-disappearance of then-Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who was stripped of his position in July, seven months into the job.
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Attention to Confucius Institutes has mainly been centered around colleges and universities, but less so on K-12 education. This means that Chinese state propaganda is probably now pretty much all over American K-12 classrooms.
PDE observed that more than $17 million had been spent by the CCP on Confucius classrooms in the US between the years 2009-2023.
"Three of the nation's top science and technology high schools have ties to Chinese government affiliated programs including Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has had ties to Tsinghua University High School—the high school affiliated with one of China's top military schools, Tsinghua University..." — Peter Wood, President, National Association of Scholars, Daily Signal, August 15, 2023.
"[W]hat's happening in these schools is that they learn that China is a benevolent institution, the heir of an ancient civilization that means nothing but goodwill to the rest of the world... And the notion that you can take children who have some aptitude for the hard sciences and math and get them to view China as a potential partner and friend... all through their educational careers. We're creating an assembly line for talented young men and women who will be unable to distinguish the American national interest from the Chinese national interest. They're getting blurred together at a young age and that's very difficult to undo once it's done." [Emphasis added.] — Peter Wood, Daily Signal, August 15, 2023.
Wood noted that CCP infiltration of American K-12 schools is "almost everywhere."
"[I]t's concentrated in the feeder schools to elite education, which means mostly West Coast and East Coast, but not exclusively those.... China's... looking for places where buying influence will yield results in the long term." — Peter Wood, Daily Signal, August 15, 2023.
"Programs vetted and managed by China's government have infiltrated 34 states and Washington, D.C., which impacts approximately 170,000 students across 143 school districts. Unfortunately, this investigation discovered 12 school systems in our own state have received money from the CCP. This includes the New York City Department of Education, which received $375,575.00 in CCP-connected funding. Considering China's adversarial relationship with the United States, this is deeply problematic and presents a national security concern for our constituents and state." [Emphasis added.] — Letter from Republican Members of Congress to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, August 21, 2023.
Hochul reportedly has close relations with CCP representatives in New York. She has repeatedly met with Huang Ping, China's New York Consul General, who once described Hochul as "an old friend," an honorific bestowed on those who have "rendered great services to China," as Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg write in their book, Hidden Hand: How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World.
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Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet arrived in Beijing on Thursday on his first official trip abroad since taking office last month. The visit demonstrates his country's warm relations with China, Cambodia's closest political and economic ally.
Hun Manet was expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials in the capital and to attend a weekend trade and investment expo in southern China, according to Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry.
A ministry statement said the two leaders would discuss tightening the nations' ties with the building of a “Cambodia-China Community,” strategic directions for their bilateral relations, and regional and international matters.
Chinese state broadcaster CGTN posted images of Hun Manet and his wife, Pich Chanmony, walking down the stairs from a plane to a red carpet on an airport tarmac, where they were greeted by two children, a Chinese official and others.
Hun Manet later laid a wreath at a monument in Beijing's Tiananmen Square that honors those who died fighting foreign invaders and in the protests and battles that brought China's ruling Communist Party to power in 1949.
Cambodia is a key Chinese diplomatic partner and supporter in regional and international forums. It helps dampen criticism of Beijing within the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, several of whose members are engaged in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.
China has gained important influence in Cambodian politics and its economy, as seen in the numerous Chinese-funded projects, hotels and casinos in the capital, Phnom Penh, and elsewhere around the country. China’s state banks have financed airports, roads and other infrastructure built with Chinese loans. More than 40% of Cambodia’s $10 billion in foreign debt is owed to China.
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