We Don't Have to Trade With China

There is no reason, really:

Conservatives finally succeeded in getting a House of Commons committee to take a closer look at the two high-security scientists who were fired from the Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory for their close collaboration with Chinese institutions.

On Tuesday, MPs on the Canada-China Relations committee agreed to undertake a study about the revelations contained in the 600 pages that were released last month detailing why Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were ultimately fired in 2021.

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said that the study will allow MPs to examine any national security breaches and to examine the flow of information and intelligence within the government that prevented the earlier release of these documents.

“My view is that this is the start of the matter, not the end,” he said. “And so really, we’re leaving off where we left three years ago, when the Canada-China committee in the previous parliament asked for the Winnipeg lab documents.

“I believe strongly that the committee is the right place to examine these documents, the right place to hold the government accountable and the right place for us to hear from witnesses and to produce a report with recommendations.”

MPs will be hearing from Minister of Health Mark Holland, Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc, as well as CSIS director David Vigneault, the prime minister’s national security adviser Nathalie Drouin and top officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).

They agreed to hold two meetings every week on the study once Parliament resumes next month, and to make it a priority over any other business.

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Someone actually let this guy in:

A military veteran who spent 20 years in uniform, Lieutenant Colonel Huajie Xu now lives on a quiet street in Winnipeg.

But he did not serve in Canada’s armed forces.

Instead, he was a member of China’s People’s Liberation Army, according to records obtained by Global News.

Before arriving in Canada in 2021, Xu worked at the military academy of the Chinese cyber warfare department that hacks Canadians and steals their secrets.

Chinese state-sponsored cyber attacks have targeted Canadian companies, activists and government agencies.

But three years ago, Xu obtained permanent residence in Canada and moved into a newly built suburban home in the Manitoba capital.

Questioned by immigration officers when he landed at Vancouver airport, the 43-year-old said he and his wife left China because “the air quality was getting bad.”

“Through the internet, we found out that the air quality is better in Canada.”

He denied involvement in, or knowledge of, China’s cyber warfare and espionage programs, and insisted he was only a PLA instructor.

But the army school in Henan where he taught is the training centre for the PLA hacking units that target Canada and the United States.

It is also on the Canadian government’s list of “research organizations and institutions that pose the highest risk to Canada’s national security.”

In addition, it has been rated a “very high risk due to its record of training signals intelligence and political warfare officers and carrying out offensive cyber operations.”

Xu’s wife worked at the same PLA facility, as a language instructor, he told immigration officials. In their marriage certificate photos, records show they both wore their PLA uniforms.

 

Also:

The US government has released images of seven alleged Chinese hackers wanted on charges of infiltrating the communications of targets in Britain and America over a 14-year period.

In a newly unsealed indictment, the Department of Justice (DoJ) accused the men of taking part in a state-sponsored hacking ring, known to US authorities as APT 31 or by the codename “Violet Typhoon”.

The documents lay bare the scale of China’s illicit incursion into Western public life, through the use of malicious emails designed to harvest data on their targets.

The defendants, two of whom have also been sanctioned by the US Treasury, are: Ni Gaobin; Weng Ming; Cheng Feng; Peng Yaowen; Sun Xiaohui; Xiong Wang; and Zhao Guangzong.

The men, aged between 34 and 38, are connected to Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science & Technology, a front company operated by an arm of the ministry of state security, the Chinese foreign intelligence agency.

Since 2010, the unit has been tasked with what US government officials called a “sinister scheme” of “computer intrusion activities” on behalf of the Chinese government, mainly through email attacks on foreign targets.

The hit list included US government departments, White House staff, China-sceptic British MPs and the UK’s Electoral Commission.

The list also included members of Congress, including both Democrat and Republican senators, the United States Naval Academy and the United States Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute.

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I'm pretty sure all of it because Justin is awful:

One of Canada's intelligence watchdogs has finished its investigation into allegations of foreign electoral interference and has sent its findings to the prime minister and members of his cabinet.

It will still be a while before the public can read it, however — and it remains to be seen how much of the report will be redacted.