We Don't Have to Trade With China

It's simply not worth it:

A series of national security leaks in the press led to the current public inquiry on foreign interference, but the leak of one CSIS report indicating Beijing was targeting MPs—a report ignored by the government—had a major role in forcing Ottawa to hold an inquiry.

That Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) assessment has now been partially disclosed by the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference.

The report dated July 20, 2021, and titled “PRC Foreign Interference in Canada: A Critical National Security Threat,” says that foreign interference activities by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “continue to be sophisticated, pervasive and persistent” and use a “complex array” of “overt and covert mechanisms.”

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Last February, while Justin Trudeau pushed back against media investigations into Chinese election interference, citing anti-Asian racism, a brief for Trudeau’s Cabinet confirmed China’s clandestine influence in the 2019 and 2021 federal contests, and that current Members of Parliament were targeted in hostile state activity, and China leverages a “vast range of tools” to undermine “Canadian values, electoral processes, and Charter Rights.”

This definitive confirmation of Ottawa’s awareness of China’s deep attacks in recent Canadian elections comes from a newly released “Canadian Eyes Only” CSIS document called “Briefing to the Minister of Democratic Institutions on Foreign Interference.”

The document dated Feb. 23, 2023, was obtained and first reported on by Stewart Bell of Global News, who used Access to Information law to collect documents on India’s and China’s mounting foreign interference threats.

As Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Commission starts this week with a mandate to discover whether China interfered in the past two federal elections, the documents obtained by Bell and reviewed by The Bureau, broadly confirm much of the reporting on China’s interference started by Global News in November 2022, and later followed by Globe and Mail reporters in Ottawa.

Much of the leaked, sensitive evidence that informed those reports — and continues to be collected and reported on by The Bureau — stems from the challenges that Canadian intelligence agents say they face, in providing documented alerts and in-person “defensive briefs” to senior Canadian politicians regarding their vulnerability to influence agents from China.

But according to The Bureau’s national security sources, foreign interference has been enabled to run rampant and endanger Canada’s sovereignty, because for too long, powerful Canadian officials have neglected CSIS’s increasingly serious warnings.

A stunning figure revealed in the the Feb. 23, 2023 intelligence prepared for Trudeau’s cabinet minister, asserts that CSIS has provided “defensive briefs” on Foreign Interference to 117 Canadian elected officials since May 2021, including 71 MPs, 15 Federal Ministers, and 5 Senators.

The declassified documents obtained by Stewart Bell indicate that CSIS director David Vigneault provided the February 2023 brief, which says the People’s Republic of China “is by far the most significant threat” to Canadian elections, among India and several other unidentified states. ...

But after these briefs were distributed for Trudeau’s senior officials last February, days later, on Feb. 27, Justin Trudeau resisted calls for an inquiry into China’s election interference and in a press conference for Toronto reporters he dismissed scrutiny of his party’s nomination process in the 2019 election as “anti-Asian racism,” according to The Toronto Star.

On the contrary, another CSIS document in the Access to Information release — a March 2022 Intelligence Assessment — says that China’s “sophisticated, pervasive and persistent” electoral interference schemes are tearing Canada’s social cohesion, and “undermines Canadian sovereignty, are anti-democratic, and have divisive effects on Canadian civil society, particularly within Chinese-Canadian communities.”

While Trudeau’s administration also pushed back on Global News reports in 2022 citing intelligence that alleged China clandestinely funded election interference in 2019, the newly released February 23, 2023 CSIS briefing confirms hostile states leverage money, community proxies, and exploit loopholes in party nomination processes, to interfere in Canadian elections.

“Several foreign states use FI to interfere with Canada’s democratic institutions,” the CSIS director’s brief for Trudeau’s minister says.

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Canada knows China tried to influence the last two federal elections, according to a top secret briefing report obtained by Global News that said the government “must do more” to fight foreign interference.

“We know that the PRC sought to clandestinely and deceptively influence the 2019 and 2021 federal elections,” according to the briefing released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

The declassified document, dated Feb. 24, 2023, is titled, “Briefing to the Minister of Democratic Institutions on Foreign Interference.” It called China “by far the most significant threat.”

It also named India as a foreign interference threat, predicted the problem would worsen and said, “we must do more to protect Canada’s robust democratic institutions and processes.”

“The PRC’s FI activities are broad in scope and significant in the level of expended resources,” it said. “The activities are significant, pervasive, and directed against all levels of government and civil society across the country.”

FI is the government’s acronym for foreign interference, while PRC refers to the People’s Republic of China. A memo suggests the briefing was delivered to the minister by the director of CSIS.

Of course, they knew:

China inquiry documents confirm accounts by ex-Conservative MP Kenny Chiu (Steveston-Richmond East, B.C.) that he was likely targeted by Communist Party agents in the 2021 campaign. Liberal MPs had ridiculed Chiu’s story as a “Trump-like tactic to question election results.”

Rather, you are hiding the truth from the public:

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc in testimony at the China Inquiry would not commit to full disclosure of illegal conduct by foreign agents. “We are not going to publicly confirm the veracity of what appeared in some media articles,” said LeBlanc.

(Sidebar: none is more stunned than LeBlanc.)

Realistically, Canada is simply a vassal state of China.

Why have more of the same?:

Hongkongers have largely stopped applying for Canadian work and study permits under a policy for those fleeing the Beijing-imposed national security law, previously unpublished data from Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) shows.

Thousands of people from Hong Kong fled to Canada after China cracked down on dissent and free speech in the former British colony by imposing the national security law in 2020. Since then, many pro-democracy activists have been silenced, civil society groups have been shut down and outspoken media outlets have been closed.

However, a tough job market for new immigrants, housing challenges, competition from the UK and Taiwan, as well as a downturn in the Hong Kong economy could all be behind the sudden slowdown in asylum applications to Canada, according to expert opinion.

The number of Hongkongers who applied and were approved to come to Canada using the policy has never been published before and was supplied exclusively to New Canadian Media by the IRCC. 

Just 455 applications were made through the policy in 2023, compared to 16,195 in 2022, and 10,403 in 2021 when the program was first launched, according to figures provided by IRCC.

There was a steep drop off in Hong Kong asylum-seekers choosing Canada in January 2023, when 103 applications were made through the pathway, compared with 1,181 in the month prior. 

The program saw its highest number of applicants in November 2022 when 2,222 people submitted paperwork, and Hong Kongers had begun to show disinterest by December of that year.

That's the plan, Korea:

Chinese e-commerce companies are intensifying their expansion into the South Korean market through a ‘Koreanization strategy.’ This involves setting up logistics centers in Korea to facilitate shipping and returns and implementing unique policies such as zero commission fees to entice Korean businesses. The push, known as ‘C-commerce,’ a blend of China and e-commerce, resulted in Korean consumers making 67.75 million cross-border purchases of Chinese goods from January to October last year. This represents a 64.9% increase from the previous year, averaging 2.6 orders every second. For the first time, China has overtaken the U.S. as the leading source of cross-border purchases for Korean consumers.

In Korea, there is a growing unease regarding the ‘C-commerce advance,’ primarily led by platforms like AliExpress (Ali), Temu, and SHEIN. Given the market’s tendency to be monopolized by a single platform business, analysts predict that well-funded Chinese e-commerce entities will eventually dominate Korea’s retail sector.

China, surely you have something that the Houthis want?:

China's navy has started escorting Chinese cargo ships through the Red Sea, according to a shipping company and Chinese state media reports. This comes as many cargo shipping companies have decided to avoid the globally important trade passage because of attacks from Houthi rebels.

Since November, Iran-backed Houthis have launched scores of drone and missile attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea, acts that they say are in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas in the war with Israel.

A U.S.-led coalition has responded to the attacks with missile strikes on Houthi positions, backed by a collective force from Bahrain, Britain, Canada, France, Holland, Italy, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain. But they have so far not stopped ships from being targeted.

And while most ship companies have re-routed to go around Africa, doubling costs and shipping times, Sea Legend Shipping, a Qingdao-based company registered in Singapore, is actively promoting its cargo business through the Red Sea.

The company says that since January, the Chinese navy has provided security escorts for its five cargo ships in the Red Sea, making it one of the few still operating in the region, according to Chinese media.