II. The case of the Chinese tourists and the reactions to satire
(2018)
This affair took place in September 2018, in two stages. First some Chinese tourists claimed
they had been abused by the Swedish police, the embassy became involved and the affair was
largely covered by Chinese media. Second, a Swedish satirical program mentioned the events
and its take on them generated a violent reaction. Before examining these two phases in detail,
we should note that the timing of the affair was suspicious, because very opportune, coming
at a moment when the Chinese embassy in Sweden was on the defensive.
A. Prologue
This affair took place in a context of tensions that had been escalating after early June
2018, following the simultaneous publication, in 38 Swedish newspapers, of a call for the release
of Gui Minhai signed by 45 intellectuals and public figures.38 The embassy immediately reacted
by sending emails, letters and texts, and by calling the signatories; more than two thirds of them
confirmed that they received a lengthy file from Chinese authorities incriminating Gui Minhai. Jojje
Olsson and other Swedish journalists subsequently demonstrated that these files were fabricated.39
The very aggressive embassy multiplied its often ad hominem attacks against the signatories and
the media which published the call to release Gui Minhai. This offensive was counter-productive
insofar as it drew negative attention and “raised interest and awareness not only about the Gui
Minhai case, but Chinese influence on Swedish society in general.”40 In late June protests took
place in front of the embassy. In late August, Gui Minhai was formally invited to the Gothenburg
Book Fair: the invitation was published in the press and sent to the Chinese embassy.
Björn Jerdén and Viking Bohmans’ quantitative study, which counted the number of crit-
ical statements released by the Chinese embassy,41 confirmed their marked increase since
early June 2018. The authors also showed that most of the embassy’s statements pertained
either to Gui Minhai or to human rights in China (notably Xinjiang or organ trafficking).
38. https://www.journalisten.se/debatt/frige-gui-minhai.
39. Olsson, “Chinese Embassies are Becoming Increasingly Assertive.”
40. Ibid.
41. Björn Jerdén and Viking Bohman, China’s propaganda campaign in Sweden, 2018-2019, Swedish Institute of
International Affairs, Brief 4 (2019), 4.
529
This timeline shows that the affair that occurred in September 2018, which we pres-
ent in the following pages, occurred precisely when the embassy was on the back
foot and it constituted a riposte to criticism of human rights violations in China. In other
words, it allowed Chinese authorities to create a diversion and turn the accusation
around in a piece of hypocritical sophistry (tu quoque) that let Beijing attack Sweden
for violating the rights of Chinese tourists on its own soil. This coincidence corroborates
our hypothesis that this affair was, at the very least, a blatant instance of Chinese
instrumentalization of an incident, and it may even have been an entirely fabricated
incident designed to manipulate public opinion.
B. Chinese tourists allegedly abused by the Swedish police
On September 1, shortly before midnight, the Zengs (曾), a family of three, arrived at
the Generator Hostel in Stockholm nearly fifteen hours in advance, their reservation having
been booked for the afternoon of the following day. They demanded to sleep in the hall
which the hotel refused.42 The family settled down on the sofas and refused to leave.
Hours later, judging their behavior as threatening,
the staff called the police, which removed the family.
Whereupon a theatrical scene ensued, with several
cameras rolling: the father, suddenly unable to walk
had to be carried out of the hotel by the police while
the son screamed in English: “This is killing! This is
killing!” The mother, seated on the ground, began
crying and screaming in Chinese: “Save our lives.”
To add to this comedy, without anyone having touched him, the son hurled himself on the
ground crying, as if he had been pushed.43
Three videos were apparently shot by the son and a fourth by a bystander, who later gave
an interview in which he said that the police was in no way violent. According to the son, in
42. According to another version, the hotel agreed to let the Zeng family stay after the son had explained that his
parents were old and in poor health. The son then left claiming to go in search of a room in another hotel, but returned
accompanied by a woman. The hotel refused to let them all sleep in the hall and asked that they leave the premises.
When they refused the establishment called the police (https://m.rrrtttyyy.com/news/148118.html).
43. Jojje Olsson, “All the Details you Need on the Chinese Tourists who were ‘Brutally’ Handled by Swedish
Police,” In Beijing (17 Sept. 2018).
530
comments published two weeks later by the CCP’s daily newspaper Global Times, the police
allegedly forced the family into a vehicle.
They were then driven around for an hour while the parents were
allegedly beaten and, finally, all were thrown into a cemetery out
of town, surrounded by woods and exposed to the cold. Actually,
there was no indication that the family suffered any physical
violence; they were dropped off by the police not in a cemetery
but at a metro station bearing the name Skogskyrkogarden
(“wooded cemetery”), a reference to a site on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The station
was located not outside but inside the city, less than six kilometers and a 10-minute metro ride
away from the hotel. This was standard procedure and in conformity with the law, according
to the prosecutor in charge of the case, who could not find anything to reproach to the police.
One of the videos and several photos were released by the anonymous Twitter account @
Swedenpoliceto1 (Swedenpolicetorturechineseelders), which only ever posted on the day of the
event, September 2, 2018. It posted 58 tweets in four hours (between 8:33 am and 12:43 pm), from
an iPhone,44 to attract attention to the incident and stoke up indignation; it has never been used since.
According to the ambassador, the embassy was alerted by the family on September 2 at 6am
and received a detailed written report, along with photos, on the morning of September 5.45 The
family reportedly left the country on September 2, with this comment: “I could not imagine
this happening in any modern country, especially Sweden, the homeland of the Nobel Prize. It
is so ironic that they talk about human rights all the time.”46 The Chinese embassy waited two
44. According to data collected by accountanalysis.app.
45. Chinese Embassy in Sweden, “Ambassador Gui Congyou Gives an Exclusive Interview with Expressen on the
Brutal Treatment of Chinese Tourists by Swedish Police” (18 Sept. 2018), https://archive.vn/t02qK.
46. “Chinese Embassy in Sweden Issues Safety Alert in Following Tourists’ ‘Nightmare’ Incident by Local Police,”
Global Times (15 Sept. 2018).
531
weeks before publicly reacting on its internet website. On September 14, it released a warning in
Chinese to all nationals visiting the country and informing them that Chinese people in Sweden
had recently been “harshly treated by the Swedish authorities.”47 The next day, the embassy
posted a message of indignation “strongly condemning the behavior of the Swedish police,”
announcing that official protests had been sent to the Swedish government in Stockholm and
its embassy in Beijing, and demanding a public apology, that the police officers involved be pun-
ished, and for a financial comensation for the family of tourists.48 Two days later, the embassy
posted an interview in English and Chinese.49 In it the ambassador repeated the family’s version
of events, according to which they had arrived only “a few hours” early (in reality, fifteen hours
early), been “treated brutally” (there is no proof of this and even a testimony to the contrary),
and thrown “into a cemetery” (this was in fact the name of a subway station), etc. Most notably,
he used the incident to address the larger security situation in Sweden and how he, before
arriving, had thought of Sweden as a safe place where it wasn’t even necessary to lock one’s
door, and how one year in the country had destroyed this illusion. He finally stated that, on aver-
age, two Chinese tourists in Sweden had their wallets or passports stolen every day, highlighting
that the embassy had issued no fewer than three warnings to Chinese nationals in the last month.
On September 23, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in turn published a warning
on Sweden but without specifically mentioning the Zeng incident. The statement focused on
the allegedly rising number of cases of theft and aggression suffered by Chinese tourists.50
This seemingly confirmed that the Chinese authorities’ communication strategy
was reaching beyond the Zeng affair and using it to develop a thorough narrative
about the Swedish society (which in this case was portrayed as dangerous).
On September 15, in parallel to the embassies’ statement, the Global
Times devoted an article to the affair using pictures posted 13 days
earlier on Twitter by @Swedenpoliceto1 and described in the article
as having been “provided by Zeng”; in the article, Zeng was intro-
duced as the son of the victimized family.51 This corroborates the
idea that the account was Zeng’s doing. However, the Chinese ver-
sion of the article (on Huanqiu.com) used a supplementary photo
not featured in the English version and which had not been posted
by @Swedenpoliceto1. It allegedly showed the father’s back with the
following caption: “Zeng father’s bruises after the attack (the marks
of blood congestion – i.e. bruising – have not disappeared even three days later).”52
For days, the pictures and the affair were widely covered by Chinese media, after
the Global Times (CGTN, Caixin, news.cina.cn, sohu.com, french.china.org.cn, etc.), and
on Weibo where the hashtag #ChineseTouristsMistreatedByTheSwedishPolice (#中
国游客遭瑞典警察粗暴对待) was used 100 million times.53 Chinese-speaking Weibo
47. Embassy of China in Sweden, “中国驻瑞典使馆再次提醒在瑞中国 公民务必提高安全意识、加强安全
防范” (“The Embassy of China in Sweden Once Again Asked Chinese Citizens to Pay Attention to their Safety and
to the Precautionary measures”) (14 Sept. 2018), https://archive.vn/ybGtw.
48. Chinese Embassy in Sweden, “The Chinese Embassy Spokesperson’s Remarks on the Brutal Abuse of Chinese
Tourists by Swedish Police” (15 Sept. 2015), https://archive.vn/aDF5y.
49. Chinese embassy in Sweden, “Ambassador Gui Congyou Gives an Exclusive Interview with Aftonbladet on the
Brutal Treatment of Chinese Tourists by Swedish Police” (17 Sept. 2018), https://archive.vn/pxFjC.
50. Jerdén and Bohman, China’s Propaganda Campaign in Sweden, 5.
51. “Chinese Embassy in Sweden,” Global Times.
52. “中国游客遭瑞典警方粗暴对待，一家三口被扔坟场，外交部严正交涉！” (“Chinese Tourists Brutally
Treated By Swedish Police, a Family of Three Thrown Into a Cemetery, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Being Firm”),
Huanqiu (15 Sept. 2018), https://archive.vn/Br9je.
53. https://archive.vn/WB6Bs.
532
users also hypothetized about the identity of the son, Zeng Yi. The most popular the-
sis was that Zeng Yi was the general manager (总经理) of the pharmaceutical company
Tasly in Nigeria (天士力尼日利亚分公司), and the creator of the Twitter account @
Swedenpoliceto1.54 The testimony of a former colleague described someone who used to
travel so often that it had become suspicious; he had previously told a story about how his
parents made a scene at an airport to take advantage of a situation.
However, the prevailing interpretation that the @Swedenpoliceto1 Twitter account is that of
the son Zeng is questionable. While this account only ever posted on the day of the event, about
50 tweets related to the event, it was created earlier and liked about 15 messages between August
25 and September 2, mainly about Swedish nationalists, published by Russian media including
RT and Ruptly – a behavior that seems to have no connection with the supposed interests of
a Chinese tourist. These two very distinct lives of the @Swedenpoliceto1 account could lend
credence to the idea that it is a mercenary account, used first to amplify, albeit briefly, Russian
media and Swedish far-right themes, and then for a single Chinese operation. This means that,
if the operator of the account in its second period was indeed the son Zeng, he was not an ordi-
nary tourist; and this supports the hypothesis of a manipulation.
Whether the hotel scene was built from scratch or an incident that involved more
or less unstable individuals, the embassy took advantage of the opportune timing
of the affair. Not only did it allow them to turn accusations of human rights viola-
tions against critics of the country, while the Gui Minhai affair was in full swing,
but it occurred a couple of days before Sweden’s legislative elections on September
9, 2018. Two days after the elections, the Chinese embassy released a statement vigorously
contradicting “rumors” accusing China of meddling with the election,55 which came as a
surprise since no one had made such an accusation. The events also preceded the visit
of the Dalai Lama to Sweden (he arrived in Malmö on September 11).
Besides, the embassy apparently tried to use Chinese tourists as leverage, as it
had previously done elsewhere in the world (→ p. 405). In December 2018 the ambassa-
dor explained that the September incident had “damaged the image of Sweden in China,
hurting tourism cooperation between China and Sweden. Now, the number of Chinese
tourists in Sweden has dropped sharply. We hope the Swedish side will take effective
measures to repair Sweden’s image in China. We once again urge Swedish police to sin-
cerely apologize to the three Chinese tourists and restore Chinese tourists’ confidence
in Sweden.”56 The message was clear: if Stockholm wanted to see Chinese tourists
return (along with their purchasing power), the Swedish police had to apologize.
C. The reactions to satire
The satirical TV show Svenska Nyheter (Swedish News), broadcast on SVT1, covered
the Chinese tourists’ affair weeks later, on September 22, in a ten-minute passage dedicated to
Swedish anti-Chinese bias. The intention was laudable: as they saw it, the program makers were
not mocking the Chinese but rather the Swedish and their oftenracist prejudices as well as, on
occasion, their “complete lack of knowledge about China,” as the presenter Jesper Rönndahl
54. Originally written by users @本無思維 and @锖铨 and relayed by Sansanjiang (三三酱) for instance, (https///
weibo/ttarticle/p/show?id=23096342861300710271017), before being taken up by several outlets.
55. https://archive.vn/62IIo and https://archive.vn/uAI6m.
56. https://archive.vn/1XTsy.
533
said. However, toward the end of the program, they took it a step further: the presenter intro-
duced a short satirical film addressed to the Chinese “so that they feel welcome” in Sweden;
the film was also translated into Mandarin and posted on Youku, the Chinese “YouTube.”
This one-minute-and-twenty-second clip offered “a few tips to avoid cultural shock,” such as
not defecating outside historical buildings (a reference to the fact that outside the Louvre, a
Mandarin-only sign asks visitors not to defecate on the floor),57 to not consider dogs as food, to
eat with cutlery, etc. On several occasions, an icon showed a Chinese silhouette clearly recogniz-
able by its pointed peasant hat and bowl with chopsticks. Even if it was meant to denounce
Swedish racism toward the Chinese, the program used images that were particularly
insulting to theem: this subtle irony was evidently missed by Chinese authorities.
The show’s producer, whom we met, recognized with hindsight that the program was
“offensive and stupid.”58 He especially regretted having failed to anticipate the Chinese
reaction. Thomas Hall, who manages SVT1’s programs, publicly recognized that it was a
mistake to have uploaded the film on Youku.59
The clip was quickly removed from Youku but it did remain online for several days.
The embassy protested in a communiqué, demanding an apology; a formal complaint was
lodged with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But this was not all: in the wake
of the official response came a veritable counter-attack, mounted in a matter of
days. SVT1 suffered numerous cyberattacks (DDoSes). The show’s Instagram and
Facebook accounts, the channel’s and the host’s, were attacked by trolls who sat-
urated them by posting thousands of hateful messages in Chinese, English and (poor)
Swedish. The number was so high that the accounts had to be temporarily suspended.
Furthermore, it took only a couple of hours to the Chinese “patriotic
rapper” Li Yijie (aka “Pissy”), leader of CD Rev (close to the CYL), and
already discussed in part two (→ p. 75), to knock out a song about the
affair that was posted on YouTube on September 23, the day after the
program was broadcast. It was an impressive but not unusually quick
response for the band.60 The song opened on the Zeng affair:
First things first/ Couple days ago / the Chinese family arrived at a hostel / in Stockholm / Your capital city / About
2 a.m. / they got nowhere to go / They just wanna stay in the lobby / Cuz the reservation was for the next night /
tired and anxious prolly / They were like down and down in a valley, in panic / Then the police removed them from it
/ What da heck was going on with this? / Is it culture difference? / you just do not give a shieeeet.
All of this led to the proverbial “pot calling the kettle black” with a verse on the hypoc-
risy of liberal democracies who ignore their own principles (QED):
Western nations / Sweetie Sweden / always talk about human rights / pay attention / How could you be so rude without
a reason? […]/ different races / different standards / Western nations always on the rank list / Democracy hypocrisy.
After a “You ‘bout to feel the power of Chinese nation,” and “you are just like virus,” came
the threat of economic sanctions, boycotts of Swedish brands and embargos on tourism:
57. “Mauvaise réputation – La Chine prend des mesures pour corriger ses touristes ‘malpolis’” (“Bad Reputation –
China Adopts Measures to Correct ‘Rude’ Tourists”), Le Monde (20 Aug. 2013).
58. Interview with one of the authors and the producer of the Svenska Nyheter show (Stockholm, Feb. 2020).
59. “SVT-chefen efter Kinasatiren: Helheten av vart budskap gick fförlorad.”
60. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaXCXxQKVfQ.
534
We got a lota free choice / EF that’s a good idea / Ericsson, Terra Pak / And IKEA / We can choose to refuse the
Swedish brands / And never on a trip to your Sweden again.
And, as a finishing touch, a passage on territorial integrity:
Yeah Last but not the least / Here I wanna say / You know what / The map of China on your TV Show / You should
just, you know / fix it / You know what / Tibet and Taiwan belong to China, bitch / You better watch out next time.
In addition to this online propaganda, human excrement was mailed to the TV
station, as well as to the home addresses of the show’s host and of the actress who starred
in the clip. One of the station’s executives said he feared for his physical safety after seeing
people watching over his home in the morning and evening.
In an attempt to calm things down, the channel organized a meeting in its offices between
the producer of the program, several of the channel’s executives and three representatives
of various Chinese organizations in Sweden, who demanded a public apology and that the
video be withdrawn. For them the most insulting element of the caricature seems to have
been the peasant hat, a symbol of China’s under-development. They obliged the producer
to make his apology on video – in what he felt was a “forced confession.” As he regretted
recording the video almost immediately, he asked them not to release it, explaining that
this would make it more difficult to obtain a public apology.61 The video was published on
Chinese media in Chinese, but not in Sweden, and thus did not receive international atten-
tion.
In the following week’s show, on September 30, 2018, the show’s host decided to
respond with humor to the hate campaign he was subjected to, explaining that he received
“tens of thousands of reactions, and by reactions I mean images of me eating feces.” He
also broadcast a part of the rapper Pissy’s song. Taking a more serious tone, he apologized
for the clip that aired at the end of the earlier program and that was uploaded on Youku,
acknowledging that he had gone too far: “[to] all the people in China and in Sweden –
not the government – who were offended by this film, this was not our intention, and we
should have anticipated that our clip would be perceived as racist. This was irresponsible
and culturally insensitive on our part. We are sorry. However, this is not an apology
addressed to the Chinese regime, which does not respect liberty of expression.”
He then criticized China, with very sensible mentions of the Chinese strategy in Sweden,
its aggressive diplomacy, pressure against the media, etc. He also spoke about Gui Minhai’s
abduction and detention, as well as the rapper Pissy, adding that “if he [gave] the impres-
sion of rapping the Chinese government’s press releases,” it was because he worked for
the government, which financed his rap band CD Rev. This was precisely the case, as we
saw (→ p. 75).
Finally, on October 3, five Chinese associations of the diaspora in Sweden co-signed an
open letter, in Swedish and in Chinese, denouncing the program.62
61. Interview with the producer of the Svenska Nyheter show, conducted by one of the authors in Stockholm, February 2020.
62. “今日头条：瑞典华人社团发联合声明强烈抗议瑞典电视台SVT辱华言行要求立即停止类似对中
国和中国人们恶意伤害的娱乐节目” (“Today’s Headline: The Sino-Swedish Community Publishes a Declaration
Strongly Protesting the Insulting Actions and Remarks of the Swedish Television Channel SVT, Demanding an
Immediate End to All Entertainment Programs Insulting China and the Chinese People”), Greenpost.se (10 May
2018), https://archive.vn/LpM45.
535
III. The Anna Lindstedt affair
This affair, which was described as “the biggest Swedish diplomatic scandal in
modern times,”63 started when Anna Lindstedt, the Swedish ambassador to China,
invited the daughter of Gui Minhai (→ p. 527), Angela Gui – with whom she had been
in regular contact – to Stockholm. Angela had been fighting relentlessly for her father’s
release. The ambassador asked her to travel to Stockholm on January 24, 2019, to try a
“new approach” and meet with businessmen who could help her. To reassure Angela, she
said that these were people she “trusted” and that she would be present at the meeting.
When Angela arrived at the rendezvous, a hotel in central Stockholm, she was joined by the
ambassador and two Chinese businessmen, who invited her into their car and took her
to another hotel, to a lounge accessible only with a member’s card. She stayed for two
days, during which she was questioned about her personal life and her studies (she was a
PhD student at Cambridge). She was constantly watched over and followed, even when she
went to the bathroom. The two men invited many of their colleagues: “[t]here was a lot of
wine, a lot of people, and a lot of increasingly strange questions. But because Ambassador
Lindstedt was present and seemingly supportive of whatever it was that was going on,
[Angela] kept assuming that this had been initiated by the Swedish Foreign Ministry.”
One of the two men told her she had “potential” and proposed that she came with
them to work in China. He could arrange for a visa with the embassy in Stockholm and
showed a photo of himself and his associate with Ambassador Gui Congyou. She refused the
offer. The following day, the same man told her that he had “connections within the CCP”
and assured her that her father could soon be released if she said nothing about the
matter: “I was told I needed to be quiet. I wasn’t to tell anyone about this, or say anything
publicly about the case. I was also to stop all media engagement with it. Ambassador Lindstedt,
who was sat next to me, agreed to the plan. She said that if my father was released, she’d go
on Swedish television and speak of the bright future of Sweden-China relations, as well as
express regret over the Chinese tourist hotel incident in Stockholm [of September 2018],
and the subsequent coverage of it on a Swedish comedy show [the case of Svenska Nyheter
presented previously].” The man raised his voice menacingly – “you have to trust me, or
you will never see your father again” – and asked her: “what is most important to you? Your
values or your father?” He added that, if she kept speaking to the media, she would damage
“Anna’s” career. The ambassador agreed, saying that China was “adopting a new diplomatic
line,” where all forms of broadcast activism would force China to “punish Sweden.” Angela
finally managed to extricate herself from this uncomfortable situation and left Stockholm.
The following week she called the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was told by
staff that “they had not had the slightest idea this whole affair was taking place. They had
not even been informed the ambassador was in the country.” Two weeks after the incident,
Angela told the story in an online article, which she ended by stating: “I’m not going to be
quiet in exchange for a visa and an arbitrary promise that my father ‘might’ be released.
Threats, verbal abuse, bribes, or flattery won’t change that.”64
This is how the affair started. Anna Lindstedt was immediately removed from office
and recalled to Stockholm, where she was accused of “arbitrariness in negotiations with a
63. Jojje Olsson, “Is Sweden Ready to Combat China’s Influence Operations?” The Diplomat (20 Jul. 2020).
64. This quote and all the preceding ones from: Angela Gui, “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Do not? I
Won’t,” medium.com (13 Feb. 2019).
536
foreign power” relying on “a law that was crafted for times of war” which “had not been used
since 1794.”65
The investigations later revealed that one of the two businessmen was Kevin Liu. Liu
should not have been able to enter Sweden since he was blacklisted in 2011. He had since
tried to enter the Schengen space using “different identities and forged passports,”66 but had
until then been detected and turned away. This time he had visibly succeeded in obtaining a
visa through the Finnish general consulate in Hong Kong. The court was unable to establish
that the two businessmen represented the interests of a foreign state, China, and this is
one of the reasons Anna Lindstedt was exonerated in July 2020. Experts on China know
that the relative success of this grey zone operation – because plausible deniability was
maintained, the operation was not state-backed according to the courts – has probably
been interpreted by Beijing as an invitation to persist with its efforts.
IV. Local relays of Chinese Influence
The different Chinese diaspora groups in Sweden, somewhat affiliated to the United
Front network, are “hometown associations (同乡会, tongxiang hui): the Stockholm Overseas
Chinese Service Center (斯德哥尔摩华助中心, Sidege’ermo Hua Zhu Zhongxin), which was
founded in 2017 with an authorization from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, a united
front organ; local branches of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association; professional
organizations; media outlets and other networks.”67 The most important actor, the “cen-
tral node,” in this “Swedish United Front community” might be the Swedish China
Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (瑞典中国和平统一
促进会), created in 2005, which is the Swedish branch of the eponymous organization that
acts around the world to promote the “annexation of Taiwan.”68 There is also the National
Swedish Chinese Association that the ambassador Gui described as the “backbone” of
the Swedish branch of the Council for Reunification, and which received 812,000 Swedish
crowns (€77,500) of public subsidies in Sweden between 2012 and 2017.69
There are myriad associations (five of which, for example, co-signed the open letter
attacking the satirical program),70 but they are often headed by the same people: for exam-
ple, according to Pär Nyrén, the president of the Association for Reunification, Ye Pei-qun
(Sometimes spelled Ye Peiquan in Sweden 叶沛群), is also the president of a Chinese lan-
guage school in Stockholm, of the Committee of the Nordic Zhigong Association (北欧致
公协会) and of the Swedish Chinese National Association (瑞典华人总会) – whereas his
uncle, Ye Kexiong (叶克雄), heads the Swedish Qingtian Association. Another example is
Zong Jinbo (宗金波), a PLA veteran, who is an honorary president of the Association for
Reunification, and president of the Swedish Tianjin Association.71
Among other prominent local relays of Beijing are the Sweden-China Bridge asso-
ciation (directed by Xueifei Chen Axelsson, who writes for the news website Greenpost.
se), the China-Sweden Business Council (CSBC) and the Belt & Road Initiative
65. Olsson, “Is Sweden Ready to Combat China’s Influence Operations.”
66. Ibid.
67. Pär Nyrén, “The CCP’s United Front Network in Sweden,” China Brief, Jamestown Foundation (16 Sept. 2020), 29.
68. Ibid., 29.
69. Ibid., 30.
70. https://archive.vn/LpM45.
71. Pär Nyrén, “The CCP’s United Front Network in Sweden,” 29-30.
537
Executive Group for Sweden (BRIX), which the ambassador Gui referred to as his
“Swedish friends”72 and whose objective is to promote the BRI in Sweden. It was revealed
in 2019 that one of its executives, Lydia Liu (刘芳), also president of the Swedish Hubei
and Hunan Association (瑞典两湖同乡会) and a member of the municipal council of
Nacka in Stockholm’s suburbs, had close links to the UFWD. As a consequence, she was
expelled from the Christian-Democrat party.73 BRIX founding members come prin-
cipally from the Swedish branch of the Schiller Institute. The president of BRIX,
Ulf Sandmark, is also the president of the Swedish section of the Schiller Institute. Based
in Germany with members from around 50 countries, the institute is one of the main
organs of the LaRouche movement, named after the U.S. politician Lyndon Larouche: an
international political network regularly condemned as neo-fascist, anti-Semitic and con-
spiratorial (→ p. 326). The small European Workers Party is a Swedish affiliate of this
movement. Besides, the German activist Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Lyndon’s widow, presi-
dent and founder of the Schiller Institute, has already been invited to a BRIX event. The
Chinese Embassy, which works regularly with BRIX (the ambassador participated in many
seminars), has funded at least one of their events. That the embassy chose to publicly
associate itself with the Schiller Institute came as a surprise in Sweden and was
perceived as “self-sabotage, given the organization’s bad reputation.”74
V. The Swedish case as an example of the Russification of
Chinese operations
Several features in the previous pages are symptomatic of a wider tendency high-
lighted in this report: the Russification of Chinese influence operations, which we will
develop again and in more details in our conclusion (→ p. 620). The first feature are the nar-
ratives used. The ill treatment of Chinese tourists is a subject that bridges the gap between
standard “positive” Chinese propaganda (about China) and “negative” propaganda (about
the host country) with which Russia has been familiar for years (even decades in Sweden’s
case). It still addresses the situation of Chinese nationals (and China) but chiefly in order to
criticize the host and it ultimately develops a narrative according to which liberal democra-
cies are decadent and violent. With Gui Minha, the boot is on the other foot now: while
Sweden accused China of violating human rights and the rule of law, arbitrary arrests and the
bad treatment of prisoners (notably Gui Minhai), the Chinese tourist incident in Stockholm
gave Beijing the opportunity to turn the accusation around and claim that it was Sweden that
behaves abusively. This strategy of focusing on incidents, criminality, immigration,
Sweden’s alleged shortcomings, in order to deter tourism and portray Sweden as vio-
lent and unstable, is exactly what Russian media have been doing for years, just like the
American alt-right (see Trump’s “Last night in Sweden”).75
Second, this convergence of views between Russian and Chinese authorities, and
the American alt-right – all pursuing the same objective of breaking the model of a per-
fect and happy Swedish liberal society – is backed up by the links with extremist parties
72. Ibid., 32.
73. Ibid., 33.
74. Ibid., 33.
75. Christian Christensen, “‘Last Night in Sweden’ was Figment of Trump’s Fox News-Inspired Imagination,” The
Guardian (20 Feb. 2017).
538
and movements. In Stockholm, the embassy has close ties with the nationalist and pop-
ulist far-right party Alternativ för Sverige (AfS representatives were present at the Chinese
embassy on the anniversary of Tian’anmen) which regularly relays pro-Beijing positions.
Then, of course, there is the Schiller Institute, as previously explained. Both are familiar
relations for Russia but relatively new ones for China, which confirms that China is
following the Russian path.
Finally, in light of all this, the diplomatic appointment of Gui Congyou to Sweden,
where Russia is very active, is less surprising than it seems. Indeed, Gui speaks flu-
ent Russian, is an expert on Russia, and is in fact pro-Russian (in 2014, he publicly
supported the annexation of Crimea).76 Besides, the ambassador admitted that his under-
standing of Sweden was limited to reading the Russian press (Chinese media in Sweden
generally simply republish translated RT and Sputnik articles). All this makes sense if we
see the ambassador as having been sent to facilitate a local rapprochement with the
Russians, to learn from them and perhaps even to work with them on information
operations in Sweden of the kind that Moscow has been conducting for a long time.
76. https://twitter.com/jichanglulu/status/1020787825619316736.
539
Chapter 5
CANADA
Why is China interested in Canada? Because of the Chinese diaspora first and
foremost, and for the large number of assumed or presumed dissidents that lives in
the country. Jonathan Manthorpe explained that “Canada has become a hunting ground for
the CCP’s agents […] because the country has attracted so many immigrants from greater
China intent on escaping the CCP.”1 Indeed, out of 1.8 million Canadians that identify
as of Chinese origin – nearly 5% of the population2 – there might be at least 500,000
Hongkongers, 100,000 Taiwanese, nearly 5,000 Tibetans (the largest Tibetan diaspora
outside of Asia),3 and 2,000 Uyghurs (with 300 relatives of people detained in Chinese
camps).4 Besides, Canada – which was the first country (in 1999) to publicly condemn the
persecutions of Falun Gong members by Chinese authorities – is also a popular destination
for the followers of this spiritual movement. In other words, because China has made the
fight against the “five poisons” a priority, hence silencing advocates of Tibet, the Uyghurs,
Taiwan’s independence, democracy in China, and the Falun Gong, part of this fight needs
to be carried out in Canada.
Furthermore, Canada is an interesting target for other reasons, including its multi-
form proximity to the great U.S. rival, its membership in military (NATO) and intel-
ligence (Five Eyes) alliances that have raised Beijing’s concern; its position as an Arctic
nation, a region of growing interest for China; its image as an exemplary liberal democ-
racy, making Canada a symbolic target; and its status as an average power, which limits the
potential fallouts. Beijing also believes it is in a strong position due to Canada’s dependence
on the Chinese market – and Canadian universities to Chinese students – especially in British
Columbia. It is therefore understandable why Canada was described as a “second priority” for
Chinese intelligence, after the United States, according to the defector Chen Yonglin. During
a visit in Ottawa and Montreal in 2007, he stated that no less than “a thousand spies, whether
official or unofficial and occasional informers,” were working in Canada.5
For all these reasons, China is interested in Canada, and, as Charles Burton sum-
marized it, it offered the following deal to the state: Beijing can help Canada dynam-
1. Jonathan Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada (Toronto:
Cormorant Books, 2019), 16.
2. Based on the 2016 census: Statistic Canada, “Ethnic and Cultural Origins of Canadians: Portrait of a Rich
Heritage,” Census (25 Oct. 2017).
3. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 16-17.
4. Karine Azoulay and Brendan Naef, What We heard: A Summary of Testimony on the Human Rights Situation of Uyghurs
and Others Turkic Muslims, Report prepared for the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of
Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Developments, Library of Parliament (19 Dec.
2018), executive summary, §4.
5. Fabrice de Pierrebourg and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs. Enquête sur les activités d’espionnage au
Canada (Nest of Spies: The Starting Truth about Foreign Agents at Work within Canada’s Borders) (Montréal: Stanké,
2009), 219.
540
ize and diversify its economy (to make it less dependent on the United States) by giving
Canadian companies a better access to the immense Chinese market and promising colossal
Chinese investments in Canada, but under certain conditions. To that end, Ottawa needs
to “1) remove Canadian restrictions on Chinese state acquisition of Canadian mineral and
energy resources; 2) remove restrictions on export of high technology (including with mili-
tary applications) to China; 3) allow the PRC to freely extradite Chinese nationals in Canada
to face Chinese justice; and 4) cease all criticism of China’s domestic and international pol-
icies and shape public opinion to support better understanding of the critical importance
to Canada of enhanced engagement with the PRC.”6 This deal is basically meant to incite
Ottawa to do Beijing’s work in Canada, so that the CCP “could be simply focused first
on suppression of discourse damaging to China’s international image and prestige and sec-
ond on neutralizing Chinese dissident voices in Canada.”7
As Canada refused the deal, particularly after the 2018 crisis strained bilateral rela-
tions (→ p. 544), Beijing has become more offensive. J. Michael Cole, a Taiwan-based
former analyst at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and one of the lead-
ing Canadian experts on Chinese influence, affirms that Beijing uses its entire rep-
ertoire of actions in Canada: China is not only engaged in traditional diplomacy but
also uses “instruments of political warfare to divide Canadian society, manipulate deci-
sion-making in Ottawa, co-opt or use potential partners in government or parliament,
sow confusion through disinformation and CCP-front organizations, interfere in elec-
toral processes, and, where it feels it is necessary, to undertake more direct, punitive
action, such as lawfare against Beijing’s critics and by ‘weaponizing’ both Chinese
students and trade.”8
The diversity and reach of Chinese interference make the Canadian case comparable to
Australia. And Canada and Australia are very often compared, for reasons that are as much
historical (the British crown) as geographical (large size, low density, uneven distribution of
the population over the territory), political (a federal system, a multicultural society, “First
Nations” or Aboriginals) or economic (GDP, growth, important raw materials, especially
ore, etc.). The two cases are also similar in terms of Chinese influence: Jonathan Manthorpe
noted that “the Australian experience of infiltration by the CCP is almost exactly
the same as that of Canada.”9 This similarity is tied to the comparable trajectory of their
Chinese diasporas which, in Canada like in Australia, were initially made up of former
Hong Kong and Taiwan inhabitants, and Chinese dissidents (the post-Tian’anmen wave of
immigrants), but the new generation, which is now more numerous, comes mainly from
mainland China, migrated for essentially economic reasons, and is therefore more likely to
be a target and vector of Chinese influence operations.
The CSIS has long tried to draw the attention of the government, and even of the
public, to this threat, through publications (a joint report on the Sidewinder Operation
with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1997, kept secret at first but eventually
disclosed (see below)10; a 1998 report on the strategy of the United Front in Hong Kong11;
6. Charles Burton, “Recent PRC Influence Operations to Counter Public Demands for a More Effective Response
to the Chinese Regime’s Political Interference in Canada,” Sinopsis (31 Jul. 2019), 1-2.
7. Ibid., 2.
8. Cole, Democracy on Fire, 28.
9. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 7.
10. Available here: https://www.primetimecrime.com/Articles/RobertRead/sidewinder.pdf.
11. Holly Porteous, Beijing’s United Front Strategy in Hong Kong, CSIS Commentary No. 72 (1998), https://www.
academia.edu/43400353/Porteous_Holly_Beijings_United_Front_Strategy_in_Hong_Kong_CSIS_Commentary_
No_72.
541
a 2006 report on Confucius Institutes after the first one was inaugurated in Canada (at the
British Columbia Institute of Technology)12; and, more recently, a 2018 report on China and
the Age of Strategic Rivalry13) but also several public interventions by its successive directors
(→ p. 543 and 549).
I. An old story
Chinese influence operations have deep roots in Canada.14 Surveillance, infiltration,
and harassment on college campuses, among other things, which are much talked about
today, were already used to monitor the fallout of Tian’anmen in 1989. “In Vancouver, for
example, Chinese students at the University of British Columbia who had participated in
protests complained publicly of being filmed, photographed, harassed, and blackmailed.
Some have even received threatening phone calls. For others, it was their families back in
China who were subjected to reprisals.”15 The same thing happened to pro-Tibet activists,
Falun Gong followers, and Taiwanese independentists – all have long been targeted.
The 1984 announcement of the retrocession of Hong Kong to China, in 1997,
created a climate of insecurity in the population (reinforced by the Tian’anmen massacre
in 1989), and provoked a massive wave of emigration, of which Canada was one of the
main destinations. In 1997, a secret report of the Canadian Mounted Police and the CSIS,
untitled Sidewinder: Chinese intelligence services and Triads financial links in Canada, highlighted
some of its consequences on Chinese influence in Canada.
By the end of the 1980s, Western intelligence services detected strengthening
UFWD activities in Hong Kong, notably tasked with establishing connections with
the Triads, which were already tied to business circles.16 Incidentally, more than 237,000
Hong Kong residents moved to Canada between January 1990 and March 1997, of which
70,000 were “entrepreneurs” and “investors.”17 In 1997, more than 500,000 Hongkongers
presumably lived in Canada, approximately 22% of the immigrant population.
Between January 1990 and March 1997, most of the newly-arrived Hongkongers registered
as “entrepreneurs” or “investors” settled in British Columbia (39.1%) – especially in the
Fraser Valley, in the Vancouver region – but also in Ontario, in Toronto especially (28.5%),
and, to a lesser extent, in Quebec (20.6%) and Alberta (7.3%).18
However, some of these rich businessmen and investors, witht ties to the Triads
and Chinese intelligence services, immediately bought a Canadian company,
through a Canadian relative as intermediary when necessary – “so as to obtain a ‘local iden-
tity,’ legally and subtly concealing their foreign identity.”19 Then, thanks to this first com-
pany, they invested massively, or bought additional Canadian companies in different
fields, “but always under the Canadian banner.” Moreover, they also took care to associate
12. CSIS, Ouverture d’Instituts Confucius (“Opening Confucius Institutes”), BR (27 Jul. 2006), declassified secret
report, quoted in Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 155.
13. The report is available here: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/csis-scrs/documents/publications/CSIS-
Academic-Outreach-China-report-May-2018-en.pdf.
14. See, for example, the chapters dealing with history in Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 2019.
15. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 189.
16. Sidewinder: Chinese Intelligence Services and Triads Financial Links in Canada, draft submitted to the RCMP-CSIS joint
review committee, Secret (24 Jun. 1997), 2.
17. Ibid., 1.
18. Ibid., 4.
19. Ibid., 4.
542
themselves with influential Canadian politicians – “offering them positions on their
boards of directors” – and to invest first in “soft” (non-sensitive) sectors such as real
estate, transportations, energy and travel agencies – in order to avoid drawing scrutiny from
Canadian intelligence. With time, they acquired companies in more sensitive sectors, such
as in high-tech. The CSIS noted that “over 200 Canadian companies [were] under
Chinese control” in 1997.20
This poses several problems, including the fact that these companies have allowed
Beijing to consolidate its influence in Canada by indirectly financing the two major
political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals – a practice otherwise commonly used
elsewhere in the world (especially in the United States, where more than 2,000 firms were
suspected of having been used by China to illegally finance the Democratic Party). But the
main problem, according to Canadian intelligence services, was that “some Chinese owners
are now able to use the Canadian companies they have purchased and some of the political
channels they have developed to obtain research assistance and even classified contracts.
Once access is obtained, few things are in place to prevent them from repatriating the fruits
of this research or classified information in China” because “most of this can be done
legally.”21 For instance, some of these Canadian companies controlled by Beijing are in the
security sector, including IT and video surveillance, and are likely to pass contracts with
the Canadian government. Furthermore, the report noted that “these triads now use their
Canadian acquisitions to engage in intelligence activities, such as intimidating individu-
als, identifying potential sources of facilitating visit of Chinese delegations on behalf of
China.”22
Drafted in 1997, this visionary report concluded that “China remains one of the
greatest ongoing threats to Canada’s national security and Canadian industry”
and that “the great difficulties in determining the threat is that it is diverse and
multi-layered. It diffuses itself through elaborated networks held by a cultural practice
that still is not well understood by Western services.”23
Chinese immigration to Canada has changed since 1997: Hongkongers are no longer a
majority of migrants. For diverse reasons, including an increasing living standard in China
(some Chinese settle in Canada to invest money), “the majority of Chinese-Canadians
in Canada are from mainland China” nowadays.24 Compared to previous generations
of Hong Kong and Taiwanese immigrants, they are alienated from Canada’s democratic
and liberal culture and are understandably more likely to support Beijing. In other words, if
only for demographic reasons, the risk of Chinese influence in Canada has increased
over the past two decades.
At the time, the Sidewinder report was coldshouldered by Canadian elected officials,
who refused to admit that Beijing was a threat – so much so that, according to testimo-
nies gathered by Fabrice de Pierrebourg and Michel Juneau-Katsuaya, “there was political
interference at the highest level to torpedo the report and discredit its authors.”25 As a
result, it “was simply thrown away in 1997 before being replaced, in 1999, by a softer and
more consensual version,” despite the fact that, in May 1999, on the other side of the
20. Ibid., 5.
21. Ibid., 13.
22. Ibid., 3.
23. Ibid., 14.
24. Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China & Amnesty International Canada, Harassment & Intimidation of
Individuals in Canada Working on China-related Human Rights Concerns (update, Mar. 2020), 20.
25. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 195.
543
border, the “Cox Report”26 came to the same conclusions on Chinese activities in
the United States: “shell companies, pseudo-research and cooperation institutes, joint
ventures between North American companies and China, use of student delegations,
journalists, etc., to gather data, often from open sources, all tactics that are also used in
Canada.”27
In the 2000s, bilateral irritants accumulated. Mei Ping, the Chinese ambassador
in Ottawa between 1998 and 2005 had already displayed an aggressive behavior – espe-
cially when dealing with Falun Gong members. He regularly penned letters and con-
tacted Canadian politicians to dissuade them from getting in touch with these “mentally
damaged” “heretics.”28 In 2001, the magazine The Chinese Press, based in Montreal’s
Chinatown, circulated a series of anti-Falun Gong pamphlets accusing the followers
of bestiality, vampirism and of being driven to suicide – despite a court order enjoin-
ing them to stop these attacks. The newspaper did it again in 2006 with a special edi-
tion of 100,000 copies. A Chinese “defector” previously tasked with persecuting Falun
Gong followers noted that an operation of such magnitude was probably “financed by
Beijing.”29 Besides, the frequent visits of the Dalai-lama (2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2012)
– the third person in Canada’s history to receive the title of honorary citizen in June
2006, after Nelson Mandela and Raoul Wallenberg – and the absence of the Canadian
Prime Minister at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games in August 2008
did not help either.
Likewise, China’s spying activities and influence operations intensified during
the 2000s. In April 2007, Jim Judd, then-director of the CSIS, admitted during a hearing of
the Senate Permanent Committee on National Security that Chinese operations took no
less than half the Canadian counterespionage’s time.30 One symptom of this dispro-
portionate spying activity is the growing number of employees working at the embassy: it
suggests that many are “diplomats” in-name-only. In 2008, the Chinese embassy in Canada
had 120 accredited diplomats, twice as much as the U.S. embassy, Canada’s main economic
partner. This number went “beyond the traditional needs of an embassy”31 and indicated
that many of the employees were apparently intelligence officers working under a diplo-
matic cover.
Despite recurring alerts from the CSIS and cases that regularly come out in the
press, political resistance – i.e. the propensity of elected officials to see China as
a partner more than as a threat – remains important in Canada, for reasons that
are both historical and cultural; this is more blatant than in Australia, where a consensus
emerged in the political sphere circa 2017 on the importance of the Chinese threat (see
the box below).
26. Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s
Republic of China, named after Rep. Christopher Cox, who reported it to the House of Representatives.
27. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 194-195.
28. Ibid., 184.
29. Ibid., 226.
30. Ibid., 161.
31. Ibid., 153.
544
II. The 2018 Crisis and Its Aftermath
For several reasons, Canadians have become more aware of the problem since
2018. First, as pointed out by Charles Burton, the situation in Australia created a prec-
edent that rippled onto Canada.32 Because both countries are particularly similar, they
watch each other, compare each other, and Australia’s actions to counter Chinese influence
in 2017-2018 (see the box below) sparked a debate in Canada about whether to do the
same. Some, like the former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney, praised the
Australian efforts and asserted that “much of what Australia has done could be applied in
Canada.”33 Yet, many proponents of appeasement have opposed such measures and
instead emphasized the particularities and, therefore, the non-replicability of the Australian
case; the need to be reasonable and avoid anti-China hysteria demonstrated by both
Australia and the United States; the fact that the Chinese-Canadian relationship should not
be reduced to its sole security dimension; and the efficiency of the current counter-intel-
ligence mechanism.34 All arguments that can be found among those, especially in Europe,
who still underestimate the threat posed by Chinese influence nowadays.
The Australian Awakening
China was a decisive actor in the economic growth of Australia for the past three decades.
As such, Australia’s awakening to the fact that China is not (only) an opportunity, but
(also) a threat for the country has emerged gradually. In 2015 first, when a controver-
sy erupted over a 99-year lease granted by the government of the Northern Territory to a
Chinese company over the port of Darwin (a strategic infrastructure). The United States,
who keep a Marines contingent not far, protested, and a polemic ensued, with some voices
calling for the renationalization of the port. Hence, Australians took notice of the importance
of protecting critical infrastructures, and the government created a Critical Infrastructure
Center in January 2007, among other measures.
The Sam Dastyari affair, in 2016, was another step. This Labor senator, who adopted certain
pro-Beijing positions (“The South China Sea is China’s own affair. On this issue, Australia
should remain neutral and respect China’s decision”), admitted that he had accepted financial
contributions from Chinese companies.35 It wasn’t a lone case and several parties were blamed:
between 2014 and 2016, the Liberal and Labor parties presumably received $5.5 million
from individuals and companies tied to China. “Chinese donors are by the far the first
donors coming from outside of the country.”36
In August 2016, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull commissioned a secret investiga-
tion on foreign interference, the results of which “galvanized” the government and con-
vinced it to adopt a targeted strategy. And the tempo accelerated in 2017. In May, Defense
Secretary Dennis Richardson publicly declared that “it is no secret that China is very active in
intelligence activities directed against us. […] It is more than cyber. The Chinese government
keeps a watchful eye inside Australian Chinese communities and effectively controls some
Chinese language media in Australia.”37 As his Canadian counterpart, the executive direc-
tor of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), Duncan Lewis, noted
32. Burton, “Recent PRC Influence Operations,” 3.
33. David Mulroney, Shining a Brighter Light on Foreign Influence in Canada, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Commentary
(Oct. 2019), 3.
34. Burton, “Recent PRC Influence Operations,” 3-5.
35. Caroline Taix, “Les liens des élus australiens avec la Chine font polémique” (“The Polemical Ties of Australian
Elected Officials to China”), Le Monde (10 Sept. 2016).
36. Ibid.
37. Katharine Murphy, “‘Chinese Are Spying on Us’: Veteran Mandarin Dennis Richardson Bows Out,” The
Guardian (12 May 2017).
545
that foreign interference was an “existential threat,” “by far and away the most serious
issue going forward,” even more than terrorism.38
More and more articles, investigations, and reports on Chinese influence have been released,
including for the general public, such as a TV documentary on “the hard edge of China’s soft
power” which was broadcast in June 2017. It revealed that ASIO had disclosed to the two main
Australian political parties that two generous donators were tied to the CCP.39-40 “One of them
leveraged a $400,000 donation in an attempt to soften the Labor Party line on the South
China Sea.”41
In June 2018, Australia passed two laws against espionage and foreign interferences,42
and it created a national coordinator to counter foreign interference. Australia also be-
came the first country to exclude Huawei from its 5G network that same year.
The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 was another step forward, with Canberra questioning Beijing’s
responsibility and demanding an independent investigation into the origin of the virus. In re-
sponse, Beijing deployed a range of retaliatory measures, including trade sanctions (→ p. 246).
In December 2020, the Australian parliament adopted a bill to endow the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs with the power to scrutinize international agreements signed by the federated
states (incidently, the federal government announced the cancellation of the Victorian Labor
government’s BRI agreement with China in April 2021), but also by the municipalities and
the universities (which obviously targets Confucius Institutes → p. 299).43
In May 2018, and with that context in mind, Canadian authorities decided to deny
a visa to 200 Chinese citizens planning to attend the 9th Conference of the World
Guangdong Community Federation (第九届世界广东同乡联谊大会) in Vancouver.
Jointly organized by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of China of Guangdong and
the Guangdong Community Association of Canada, it was set in North America for the
first time. The organizers expected 2,000 participants from around the world but 200
of them, including some 20 Chinese officials from Guangdong, were denied access to
Canada, which displeased Beijing. This unusual and daring decision, from a Canadian
government that had long avoided offending China, was interpreted as a measure
of reciprocity to the practice, common on the Chinese side, of denying visas to
Canadian citizens.44 It could be also be interpreted as an attempt to draw a limit on
the activities of the United Front in Canada, as this meeting was of a particular mag-
nitude. That said, the event was still a success for the United Front, partly due to the par-
ticipation of the province’s prime minister but also to the forceful images of Vancouver
policemen in uniform saluting the Chinese flag. Moreover, retired Canadian sol-
diers were seen carrying the PRC flag (see pictures). The Canadian decision weighted
on the bilateral relationship nevertheless.
38. Jade Macmillan, “Foreign Interference More of ‘An Existential Threat’ to Australia than Terrorism: ASIO
chief,” ABC News (5 Sept. 2019).
39. “Power and Influence: The Hard Edge of China’s Soft Power,” ABC News (5 Jun. 2017).
40. Ibid.
41. John Garnaut, “How China Interferes in Australia And How Democracies Can Push Back,” Foreign Affairs (9
Mar. 2018).
42. The Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act and the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage
and Foreign Interference).
43. Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act of 2020 (8 Dec. 2020).
44. Xiao Xu, “Two Hundred Chinese Citizens Denied Visas for Vancouver Conference,” The Globe and Mail (7 Jun.
2018).
546
During the 9th Conference of the World Guangdong Community Federation in Vancouver, the presence
of Vancouver policemen in uniform on the stage, saluting the Chinese flag, did not go unnoticed.45
Retired Canadian soldiers carrying the PRC flag during the 9th Conference of the World Guangdong
Community Federation in Vancouver, in May 2018.46
The turning point came six months later with the Huawei affair, which remains the
most serious crisis in the history of the Sino-Canadian bilateral relationship. Meng
Wanzhou (孟晚 舟), the vice-chair of the board of directors and chief financial officer
of Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver on December 1, 2018, following a U.S. arrest war-
rant. Beijing immediately retaliated, first by arresting two Canadians living in China nine
days later, the “two Michaels” (Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat turned advisor to the
International Crisis Group, and Michael Spavor, head of an organization promoting tours
of North Korea) without justification. They were held in inacceptable conditions (no con-
sular access, and at least one, M. Kovrig, in a cell with no access to daylight). They were
formally charged with espionage on June 19, 2020, a few weeks after (so presumably in
response to) Meng Wenzhou’s failed appeal to the Canadian courts. And they were released
on September 25, 2021, the same day that Meng Wanzhou, who was under house arrest in
Vancouver, was allowed to return to China – which confirms that Beijing has been exercis-
ing against Canada an hostage diplomacy it is familiar with (→ p. 411).
45. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1046047857088888832.
46. “第九届 ‘世粤联会’ 在温哥华举行” (“The 9th Conference of the World Guangdong Community Federation
Took Place in Vancouver”), 中新网 (29 May 2018), https://archive.vn/MlrU.
547
The Abduction of Canadian Citizens
There are precedents for the “two Michaels,” including Sun Qian, a Canadian citizen kid-
napped during one of her trips to Beijing; another took place in a third country: Huseyincan
Celil, a Uyghur imam who fled to Canada with his family in 2001 and obtained the Canadian
citizenship. In 2006, as he visited the family of his spouse in Uzbekistan, he was arrested by
the Uzbek police and handed over to Chinese authorities, who sentenced him to fifteen
years in jail for terrorism. They branded him a member of the Islamic Movement of Eastern
Turkestan, despite official protests from Canada.47
Beijing also adopted trade sanctions: they barred almost all Canadian exports of canola
seeds, and seriously limited those of soy, peas, pork meat and beef. Finally, the aggravated
situation of several Canadian citizens already detained by Beijing can also be interpreted
as part of the Chinese response to the arrest of Meng: Robert Schellenberg, serving a
fifteen-year sentence for drug trafficking, was suddenly sentenced to death, followed by
Fan Wei, another Canadian, several months later.48 Sun Qian, a Canadian member of Falun
Gong who had been detained for three years, was subsequently sentenced to a particularly
hefty eight years in prison.49
During this crisis, the Chinese ambassador in Canada, Lu Shaye, who became ambas-
sador to France in July 2019, showed notable aggressiveness, on a par with his colleague
in Stockholm (→ p. 523). Both were precursors of the so-called “wolf warrior” diplomacy
described in part three (→ p. 222). For instance, in an op-ed published in January 2019 in
the Hill Times, he attacked “Western egotism and white supremacy” and criticized what he
called “double standards” because Canada was demanding the release of its two citizens
detained in China as a retaliatory measure but refused to release Huawei’s CFO (who was
in fact released on bail and whose rights were protected, unlike the two Canadian hostages
in China).50 He failed to convince however: public perception of China has dramatically
worsened since the beginning of the crisis. A poll conducted between December 30 and
January 5, 2019 showed that more than 80% of Canadians viewed Chinese authorities
negatively.51
Likewise, the publication of Jonathan Manthorpe’s book, Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s
Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada, in 2019, provoked a debate and contrib-
uted to a growing mistrust of Beijing among Canadian politicians and citizens. Overall,
revelations in recent years about espionage, influence operations, mass deten-
tion and even, according to some, a Uyghur genocide, along with the violent
repression of pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong have, during this
period, considerably damaged China’s image in Canada, as elsewhere in the
world.
As a consequence, Beijing hired a PR company to improve its image, as shown by the
Karen Woods case. Karen Li Woods, a cofounder of the Canadian Chinese Political
47. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 29.
48. “China Sentences Second Canadian to Death,” BBC News (30 Apr. 2019).
49. Tom Blackwell, “Canadian Citizen Sentenced to Eight Years by China is Latest Victim of Huawei Feud, Beijing
Lawyer Says,” National Post (30 Jun. 2020).
50. Lu Shaye, “China’s Ambassador: Why the Double Standard on Justice for Canadians, Chinese?” The Hill Times
(9 Jan. 2019).
51. Robert Fife and Steven Chase, “Canadians Support Ottawa’s Decision to Arrest Huawei Executive, Poll Shows,”
The Globe and Mail (8 Jan. 2019).
548
Affairs Committee (CCPAC), is a well-known commentator of Sino-Canadian relations,
and she was all-the-more visible after Meng Wanzhou’s arrest. She published a tribune
in the Toronto Star, the most widely-read newspaper in the country, to explain that the
Huawei case constituted “a dark cloud shrouding the psyche of many Chinese Canadians”
and that people should be alert to the rise of “a new wave of Sino-Phobia.”52 But she
failed to disclose that her employer, the lobbying firm Solstice Public Affairs, listed
the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto among its clients, notably tasked with
organizing meetings with Canadian congressmen to “promote various economic and cul-
tural relations” between the two countries.53 At the time, it was the sole known case of a
foreign government hiring a private company in Canada to improve its image, something
usually tasked to diplomats.54 Following the ensuing polemic, the Toronto Star decided to
add a “clarification” on her op-ed, disclosing the link tying the author to the Chinese
General Consulate. Jonathan Manthorpe described the affair as “a good example of the
vigilance needed not only by Chinese-Canadian communities, but [the] Canadian society
in general to identify United Front operations, and the difficulties of being certain of the
evidence.”55
China’s responsibility and behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic continued to
heighten tensions in 2020. In April, the MP Erin O’Toole – who was elected leader of the
Conservatives in August, thus the chief opponent to Justin Trudeau’s government – said
that Canada was “on the brink of a new Cold War with China,”56 while Peter MacKay,
another conservative, demanded that laws akin to the “Magnitsky Act” and others be used
to target the Chinese responsible for the pandemic.57
That said, these hardliners are opposed by supporters of appeasement with
Beijing. In June 2020, 19 eminent Canadians, including two former ministers of foreign
affairs, Lloyd Axworthy and Lawrence Cannon, published an open letter to Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau calling for the release of Meng Wanzhou – a unilateral end to the extradition
process – to incite China to release the two Canadian hostages (the “two Michaels”). In
fact, the letter insisted on the need to “redefine the Canadian strategy toward China”
to avoid antagonizing it. Trudeau wasn’t convinced and explained that “releasing Meng
Wanzhou to resolve a short-term problem would endanger thousands of Canadians who
travel to China and around the world by letting countries know that a government can have
political influence over Canada by randomly arresting Canadians.”58 In other words, yield-
ing to the kidnappers’ demands would encourage more kidnappings. In another
open letter published on September 18, 2020, a hundred anonymous former diplomats
also called for the release of Meng in exchange for the “two Michaels.”59 In any case, the
proponents of the transactional approach were successful, confirming the effectiveness of
52. Karen Woods, “Huawei Crisis Has Chinese Canadians Worried,” The Star (18 Dec. 2018).
53. Anna Desmarais, “Lobby Wrap: Chinese Consulate Hires its First Lobbyist to Improve Relations,” iPOLITICS
(21 Aug. 2018).
54. Ian Young, “How China’s Canadian Lobbyists Blurred the Lines of PR, Journalism and Political Activism,”
South China Morning Post (18 Apr. 2019).
55. Jonathan Manthorpe, “United Front Main ‘Soft-Power’ Tool for China’s Governing Communist Party,”
iPOLITICS (21 Mar. 2019).
56. Erin O’Toole, “We are on the Brink of a New Cold War with China,” National Post (23 Apr. 2020).
57. “Peter MacKay Suggests Magnitsky Act Should be Used Against China for COVID-19,” CTV News (8 May
2020).
58. John Paul Tasker, “Trudeau Rejects Calls to Release Meng Wanzhou,” CBC News (25 Jun. 2020).
59. Steven Chase and Robert Fife, “More than 100 ex-diplomats Urge Trudeau to Swap Meng for Kovrig and
Spavor,” The Globe and Mail (18 Sept. 2020).
549
the Chinese hostage diplomacy: the two Michaels were released on September 25, 2021 in
exchange for the release of Meng Wanzhou (→ p. 411).
Separately, the Uyghur question has grown more prevalent in the Canadian public
debate, with notable political consequences: on January 12, 2021, Canada, along with the
United Kingdom, announced measures “to address human rights abuses in Xinjiang.”60
Among the seven measures announced by the Canadian government are increased controls
on exports to China and a ban on the import of forced labor goods. This move, while
symbolic (unlike the British, the Canadians do not provide for financial sanctions against
companies that do not comply with these rules), confirmed that the bilateral crisis, which
is multi-faceted, is likely to last. David Vigneault, director of the CSIS, said as much on
February 9, 2021, when he acknowledged that the Chinese government was “using all ele-
ments of state power to carry out activities that are a direct threat to our national security
and sovereignty.” He mentioned the special Chinese operation Fox Hunt (猎狐专项行
动), for instance, which, in the name of the fight against corruption, has been “used to
target and quiet dissidents to the regime. […] Those threatened often lack the resources to
defend themselves or are unaware that they can report these activities to Canadian author-
ities, including us. Moreover, these activities are different from the norms of diplomatic
activity because they cross the line by attempting to undermine our democratic processes
or threaten our citizens in a covert and clandestine manner.”61
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét