We Don't Have to Trade With China

It becomes more evident with each passing day:

Practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, have long faced the threat of forced organ harvesting as part of the Chinese regime’s all-out campaign to eliminate the faith.

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The RCMP has questioned a veteran Liberal political operative who handled the finances associated with Han Dong’s 2019 campaign for the federal Liberal Party nomination in Toronto’s Don Valley North riding.

In November 2023, the RCMP met and questioned David Pretlove, an Ontario Liberal aide who was Dong’s financial officer for the 2019 nomination contest, but the police force won’t release a recording of that interview, saying its investigation is ongoing.

It is unclear what issues the RCMP are specifically probing and whether they involve criminal allegations, possible campaign finance breaches under the Elections Act or another area of federal jurisdiction.

Han Dong told Global News this spring the RCMP had not contacted him. No charges have been filed. He has denied all wrongdoing.

“I have always been diligent to follow election rules, dating back to 2013,” Dong said in an April 23 email response to Global News. He did not respond to a second, additional request for comment in the past week.

 

 

Not why did they launch the program but why did they do it eventually:

Within a week of launching the program, the RCMP received six credible reports of Chinese interference, amounting to a quarter of the total 24 reports the force received on interference since March 2023, in just a fraction of the time.

Mehmet Tohti, executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, told The Epoch Times previously that one time in December 2021, after his phone and his legal adviser’s phone were hacked by people he suspects were Chinese agents, his lawyer tried to file a report with the RCMP, CSIS, and other relevant agencies. However, after three hours on the phone, he said he still wasn’t able to file a report, as the agencies passed his call from one to another.

Tohti relayed his account following remarks by then-RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki in January 2022 that the force has a phone number that people with concerns can call.

Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, who, according to the public inquiry was subject of Chinese interference via misinformation tactics during the 2021 election, says he also wants to see the Quebec program expanded nationally.

 

Also:

“The intelligence collected by Canada indicates that the People’s Republic of China (‘PRC’) stands out as a main perpetrator of foreign interference against Canada,” wrote Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue in her interim report released in May.

When first hearing the news, Eric told ABC he thought it was possible Hua had been killed.

Eric told a defence conference in Australia earlier this year that there are at least 1,200 CCP agents operating within the country.

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The man, a resident of Geneva who has only been identified as “Craig,” went missing months ago, according to NK News. It turned out he was being held in pretrial detainment while an investigation was conducted by the Swiss AG’s office.

In 2022, a Hydro-Québec employee was arrested for spying for China.

Last year, a retired RCMP officer accused of providing intelligence to China was arrested by the Mounties.

Also in 2023, Canada expelled a Chinese diplomat for targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family due to Chong’s stance against Chinese regime’s rights abuses.

Former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin, who defected to Australia in 2005, said at the time that China has a network of 1,000 spies and informants in Canada.

 

 

Justin is livid at the idea that he does not support his favourite country:

While taking questions following the event, Trudeau was asked to respond to Poilievre's calls on Friday for Canada to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and associated parts.

Trudeau didn't address the question of tariffs on China. Instead, he accused Poilievre of not supporting investments like the one his government announced in Napanee.

"It's a bit of a joke that Poilievre is suddenly talking about workers in the auto industry. He has said repeatedly that he wouldn't be making these investments in our auto industry. He'd be cutting our investments in EVs," Trudeau told reporters.

"We have been there every step of the way, and the federal Conservatives continue to say they'd cut it all. They don't support it. They don't believe in investing in Canadian workers. So for him to suddenly turn around and say, 'Oh we're worried about EVs'? That's baloney."

 

These EVs:

Taiwanese shipping firm Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp said one of its cargo ships caught fire on Friday at China's Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, one of the world's busiest.

Earlier, Chinese state media said an explosion was reported at the port and shockwaves were felt a kilometer away.

Yang Ming Marine Transport said a fire occurred on board the YM Mobility while it was operating in the port. No casualties or injuries were reported after the blast at around 1:40 p.m. (0540 GMT), China's official Xinhua news agency said.

"At present, immediate fire-fighting measures have been taken at the scene, the fire has been brought under control, and all the ship's personnel have been safely evacuated," the company said in a statement.

The explosion among containers near the bow of the Liberian-flagged vessel sent cargo flying and left a plume of black smoke, footage from China Central Television (CCTV) showed.

The ship, docked at the port's Beilun terminal, was transporting hazardous goods, the Ningbo Maritime Search and Rescue Center said.

CCTV, citing preliminary findings from authorities, said the goods included lithium batteries and tert-Butyl peroxybenzoate, an organic compound that is flammable and explosive and should not be stored in an environment over 30C (86F).

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Management teams in office buildings and apartment complexes across South Korea are mulling measures to address the risk of fire after an electric vehicle explosion led to the evacuation of more than 200 families.

An unplugged electric Mercedes-Benz sedan caught fire last Thursday in an underground carpark at an apartment complex in Incheon, west of Seoul, according to fire authorities. More than 700 residents were evacuated due to water and power outages and the blaze damaged some 140 cars, according to the Incheon Metropolitan City government. Twenty three people were hospitalized.

Several office buildings have now banned EVs from entering and parking, according to notices on social media, while some apartment management committees are advising EV owners to be cautious when they charge their cars.

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청라 아파트 전기차 화재 사고

벤츠 전기차라고 합니다

불 순식간에 붙네요 무섭 ㄷㄷㄷ pic.twitter.com/BA3l5GJbJY

— Healthy Investing (@btc_tsla_keepgo) August 1, 2024

 

More:

Canada isn’t a country, so much as an elaborate program for distributing public money to a handful of manufacturing companies in southern Ontario. It doesn’t matter if the government in Ottawa is Liberal or Conservative. And it doesn’t matter if whatever is being manufactured is something people want to buy. The existence of industries in other parts of the country, such as oil and gas in Alberta, that thrive largely without subsidies only seems to reinforce Ottawa’s need to coddle Central Canada.

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The farce that has become the electric vehicle industry, with more than $40 billion in Canadian subsidies and tax breaks, is, perhaps, the greatest example of this grift. In decades past, Ontario manufacturing companies produced something people actually needed or wanted. Under the National Policy, western farmers were forced to purchase equipment at inflated rates, while they competed, largely unprotected, on international grain markets, but at least farmers needed the equipment. Though the traditional auto industry was bailed out under the Harper government, you could at least make the case that Canadians were interested in buying cars and trucks.

As for the EV battery plants that the federal and Ontario governments are dispensing cash to, in order to be successful, they would have to produce batteries for cars that have a hope of selling, and that is not at all clear. Sales have fallen flat, as consumers are put off by the high cost and poor performance of electric vehicles compared to gas-powered options. Carmakers — such as Volkswagen, Ford, General Motors and Mercedes — are scaling back production, and even Tesla sales are dropping.

The Liberals remain unmoved by market realities, however. At an announcement of yet more EV-related subsidies on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that, “Canada has positioned itself to be a leader in the EV industry and we will continue to be because those are where the jobs are going to be.” But if it was truly the industry of the future, it wouldn’t need government support to grow, a reality that is entirely lost on Ottawa.

In any case, if Canadians don’t want to buy EVs of their own accord, the feds will try to force them to by requiring an increasing percentage of vehicles sold in Canada to be electric. The aim is for 20 per cent of all cars and light trucks sold in this country to be zero-emitting by 2026, 60 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035. So not only will taxes subsidize the EV industry, under the Liberals’ preferred scenario, Canadians will be compelled, if they want to drive, to spend their (ever dwindling) disposable income on vehicles they’ve already paid for through the public purse.

The Liberals claim their goal is to meet emissions targets, but their EV policies are pretty much the same old Central Canadian protectionism, just with the added pretension of saving the planet. This is especially true given the fact that many of the minerals needed in the production of electric vehicles can be found in Canada, but under current regulations, it can take a decade or more to bring a new mine online. As mineral mining is not the primary industry in southern Ontario, where elections are won and lost, the inexpensive option of government just getting out of the way isn’t even on the Liberals’ radar, though it is on Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s agenda.

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Similar policies of subsidizing, then mandating (directly or indirectly) the production and sale of EVs exist in the United States and Europe, and, just like in Canada, they exist to protect favoured industries. All that separates the industrial policy of today from the industrial policy of, say, 10 years ago, is how important the Liberals, and the Biden Democrats, claim their policies are to the existence of humanity.

It was only natural that China would try to exploit this by flooding global markets with cheap electric vehicles. If governments are going to rig it so that only EVs can be sold, why wouldn’t the Chinese Communist Party, which aims to destabilize western democracies at any chance it gets, seek to benefit from that? The West is obsessed with climate posturing. China is obsessed with testing and taking advantage of our self-delusions to gain dominance.

The fact that the U.S. and the European Union have responded by putting massive tariffs, 100 per cent and up to 38 per cent respectively, on Chinese EVs, shows that subsidies and mandates were never really about controlling carbon emissions. If that were the case, why not just let Chinese cars in, especially if they are affordable enough to encourage people to buy them?

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In Canada, the political interests at play are obvious. While the government continues to study whether or not to implement tariffs, the Opposition sensed an opening and promised to match the American toll of 100 per cent. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said China was motivated by the goal of “crushing our steel, our aluminum and our automotive production and taking our jobs.” At least he didn’t claim to be saving the world. Trudeau was incredulous and accused Poilievre of faking his support for the auto industry, calling it “baloney.”

The suggestion that this has anything to do with anything beyond trying to win seats in Ontario is laughable.

An added wrinkle is the fact that China is an unfriendly nation with obviously malevolent intentions, and Chinese EVs are potential security threats, with technology that could gather data and be accessed remotely. A possible solution, though, would be to be ban the import of certain technologies, rather than the cars themselves, as Chinese EVs are often already equipped with western-developed software.

Whether a true threat or not, the importation of Chinese vehicles has only become a problem because of subsidies pouring into the EV market across the western world. As long as governments maintain their subsidize-and-mandate approach to EVs, China will be incentivized to take advantage, no matter how high the tariffs go.