III. The Efforts to Silent Dissenting Voices
There are many well-documented cases of harassment and intimidation of
Canadian citizens and residents that Beijing sees as dissidents or threats. They
mainly, but not exclusively, concern people closely tied to what the CCP considers as the
five poisons (Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong followers, pro-democracy and Taiwanese
independentists).
In 2009, Fabrice de Pierrebourg and Michel Juneau-Katsuya already wrote that “for
years, China’s main objective in Canada has been to control anything that is perceived as a
dissent. Its intelligence services, along with its diplomats, spend time, energy and money
discrediting or intimidating its opponents, conducting clandestine operations to infiltrate
and manipulate pro-democracy, community and student groups.”62 Indeed, several affairs
had previously underscored the role of Chinese diplomats in the surveillance, infil-
tration, and harassment of a number of groups branded as dissidents, especially
Falun Gong members. In 2004, for example, the Chinese vice-Consul General in Toronto,
Pan Xinchun, was convicted of defamation against a businessman tied to Falun Gong.
Elsewhere, the police saw two members of the Chinese consulate in Calgary distributing
“heinous literature,” during a conference at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton: two
60. Government of Canada, “Canada Announces New Measures to Address Human Rights Abuses in Xinjiang,
China,” press release (12 Jan. 2021); “UK Government Announces Business Measures Over Xinjiang Human Rights
Abuses,” Gov.uk (12 Jan. 2021).
61. Remarks by Director David Vigneault to the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Ottawa (9 Feb.
2021), https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/news/2021/02/remarks-by-director-david-vigneault-
to-the-centre-for-international-governance-innovation.html.
62. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 192.
550
pamphlets, including one with an explicit title (Falun Gong is an evil cult), “illustrated with
bloody images of immolations, crimes and suicides.”63
In 2006, the visa of Wang Pengfei, Deputy Secretary to the Bureau of Education at the
Chinese embassy in Ottawa, wasn’t renewed, and he was invited to leave Canada after it
became known that he “was specifically tasked with documenting Falun Gong practitioners
in Canada and making life difficult for them.”64 Actually, he not-so-discretely relied on “the
twenty or so Chinese student associations established in the country’s main universities,” as
illustrated by an article published in 2004 by the Chinese Scholar Abroad Magazine in which he
thanked the president of a UQAM student association for its “propaganda activities […]
and its brave and resourceful activities against Falun Gong.”65
In March 2017, the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China, to which Amnesty
International belongs, released a report “to draw attention to an organized and sustained
campaign of intimidation and harassment aimed at activists working on China-
related human rights issues in Canada, in circumstances suggesting the involve-
ment or backing of Chinese government officials.”66 In an update released in March
2020, the same organizations concluded that, three years later, “the situation is worsen-
ing, […]: incidents of interference have become increasingly pervasive across dif-
ferent spheres of society, including a growing array of tactics and have expanded
beyond traditional targets.”67
A. Systematic, Aggressive Counter-Demonstrations
The pro-democratic Hong Kong protests organized in Canada in 2019 nearly system-
atically led to particularly aggressive pro-Beijing counter-demonstrations that mobi-
lized at least dozens (often hundreds) of protestors in cities (clashes occurred in Toronto,
Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa and Richmond, in British Columbia) and on cam-
puses. But these demonstrations usually were not the “spontaneous actions of individuals.”68
There was evidence of “coordination and organization between [counter-] protes-
tors and Chinese officials.”69 The counter-demonstrations usually begun on WeChat,
with messages “suggesting that marchers should be followed, confronted and beaten up”
– such as during the 2019 Montreal Pride. On that occasion, pro-Beijing demonstrators
attacked LGBT marchers favorable to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.70
Some pro-democracy demonstrators are sometimes intimidated, or even dissuaded, by
an invisible, more pernicious threat: photos of them could be shot during demonstra-
tions, then identified, in particular through facial recognition technologies and, once their
identities are known to Beijing, there would be consequences for them (risk of arrest
if they travel to China) or for their relatives (pressure or intimidation of various
kinds).71 Distance is no refuge here: even on the UBC campus, in Canada, pro-democracy
63. Ibid., 201.
64. Ibid., 199.
65. Ibid., 202.
66. Canadian Coalition, Harassment & Intimidation, 2.
67. Ibid., 50.
68. Christopher Rea, quoted in Cheryl Chan, “‘Overseas Chinese’ Urged to be More Vocal in Support of Beijing,
Says Chinese Cultural Historian,” Vancouver Sun (21 Aug. 2019).
69. Canadian Coalition, Harassment & Intimidation, 3.
70. Ian Young, “Montreal Pride Expels Gay Hong Kong marchers, Blaming ‘Threats by pro-Communists’ to
Sabotage Parade,” South China Morning Post (29 Aug. 2019).
71. Canadian Coalition, Harassment & Intimidation, 27.
551
students wore masks to hide their identity when they demonstrated, like their counterparts
in Hong Kong.72
B. Targeted Campaigns of Harassment and Intimidation
The fate of actress Sheng Xue (her real name is Zang Xihong) is exemplary of such
attacks. She fled China after Tian’anmen and settled in Canada in 1989 to study journalism.
She subsequently remained there and became a writer and human rights activist. In 1996,
she understood that Beijing had blacklisted her as she attempted to travel to China and was
arrested, interrogated, and turned away at the airport.
In 2012, a month after receiving a medal from the Canadian government, she was
elected president of the Federation for a Democratic China. From that moment on, she
was targeted by a systematic and very sophisticated slander campaign that started
the very day of her first conference as the president of the federation, in front of hun-
dreds of persons that came from all over the world. As she was on stage, her colleagues
received emails with – fake – naked pictures of her. More came later: doctored images
of her naked were posted on Twitter and many stories on her purported unrestrained
sexual life were relayed online by anonymous blogs. This organized campaign, which
involved fake accounts on social networks pretending to be those of other pro-de-
mocracy activists, apparently sought to create divisions within the movement, and it
succeeded: membership in the Federation for a Democratic China rapidly fell from 3000
to 100, as the group split into two organizations in 2017, and Sheng Xue resigned. When
a Chinese-Canadian human rights lawyer, and friend of Sheng Xue, tried to gather evi-
dence of this slander campaign in 2016, his computer was hacked and “all the documents
disappeared.”73
There are many other, less publicized, examples that targeted leaders of the Hong
Kong community in Canada, such as Cherie Wong, executive director of Alliance Canada
HK. She claimed to have been targeted by “coordinated attacks on social networks,”
including rape and death threats. Once more, WeChat was used to incite hatred and
to relay calls to harass the woman dubbed “Mrs. Hong Kong Independence” by
pro-Beijing activists. Cherie Wong received threatening calls, and explained that she had
been followed and photographed while walking in Ottawa.74 Gloria Fung, president of
Canada-Hong Kong Link, was presumably victim of the same intimidation techniques.75
These techniques are neither recent nor limited to the events in Hong Kong. Phone calls,
often in the middle of the night, are a common means of intimidation. These messages,
often pre-recorded, include insults, sometimes death threats, or play nationalistic songs
praising the Party.76 In September 2010, Tao Wang, a NTDTV reporter who had settled
in Canada three years earlier, disclosed to the press that he had received phone calls from
MSS agents uttering death threats.77 Owner of a company in China, he explained that
his clients there had been visited by MSS agents telling them that he “was taking part to ille-
72. Marie-Danielle Smith, “In the Battle Over Hong Kong, the Surveillance State Knows no Boundaries,” Maclean’s
(3 Feb. 2020).
73. Catherine Porter, “Chinese Dissidents Feel Heat of Beijing’s Wrath. Even in Canada,” The New York Times (1
Apr. 2019).
74. Canadian Coalition, Harassment & Intimidation, 30.
75. Ibid., 30.
76. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 22.
77. Andrea Woo, “RCMP Probing Death Threat,” Regina Leader-Post (23 Sept. 2010).
552
gal activities in Canada that were damaging to the national security of China, and they asked
them to cease doing business with [his] company.” When he refused to sign a written state-
ment barring him from taking part to political activities in Canada, Tao received another,
more threatening, phone call: “they told me ‘do you seriously think that we can’t do
anything to you because you are in Canada?’” Or, “if you speak publicly, you’re playing
with death.’” That same day, his company’s bank accounts were frozen in China and his ten
employees threatened with unemployment. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investi-
gated this case.
Similarly, in May 2016, the Toronto-based writer Xin Feng published on the Chinese-
speaking website sinophone51.ca an article critical of the Chinese minister of foreign
affairs, Wang Yi, during the latter’s visit to Canada. He was subsequently victim of a cam-
paign of hatred. Among the many comments posted below his article, one could read: “‘Be
careful that your whole family does not get killed, be careful when you walk outside!’
or ‘Butcher this pig. He’s an animal, not a human.’”78
C. Family and Friends in China Used as Leverage
It is well known that an effective way to get someone to give in is the indirect
strategy of threatening to harm their loved ones. And it is even easier when they live in
China. The threats are varied: they risk losing their jobs, being arrested, assaulted, or even
– in the case of the Uyghurs in particular – simply disappearing.
Anastasia Lin’s case is well-known because she is a Chinese-born celebrity who immi-
grated to Canada at age 13, became a recognized actress and model, won the 2015 Miss
World Canada pageant and now works as a human rights advocate. In a profile by The
Washington Post, she explained how her father, the CEO of an important Chinese company,
received threats and how, “no doubt fearing for his livelihood and business,” he asked her
to cease being an activist.79 Chinese authorities wielded both the stick (they confiscated
her father’s passport, revoked her family’s visas to visit Hong Kong) and the carrot (they
brought baskets of fruits and flowers to her grandparents hoping that they could convince
her to keep quiet).80
Coercing relatives is very commonly used against Uyghurs. One night in 2004,
Mehmet Tohti, the president of the Uyghur Canadian Association, received a phone call
from his mother, who lived in Kargilik, in Xinjiang, and whom he had not seen since he
fled China sixteen years earlier. His mother quickly passed him on to a man who identified
himself as an officer from the Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs. He enjoined him to stop
defending the Uyghur cause in Canada and to avoid taking part to a conference planned in
Germany with other groups of exiled Uyghurs. He added that he held his brother and
mother in the police headquarters in Kasghar – from where they called – some 300 kilome-
ters away from their home, and that he could ultimately do “whatever [he] want[ed]”
with them.81
78. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 182.
79. Anastasia Lin, “I Won Miss World Canada. But my Work Puts my Father at Risk in China,” The Washington Post
(6 Jun. 2015).
80. Tara Francis Chan, “China Uses Threats About Relatives at Home to Control and Silence Expats and Exiles
Abroad,” Business Insider France (31 Jul. 2018).
81. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 29.
553
Elsewhere, a Uyghur refugee in Montreal told a journalist: “I received a Facebook mes-
sage telling me that the Chinese government had arrested my mother, my brother, and my
father. During their transfer to jail, my mother had a heart attack. My sister was incarcerated
in a special prison where prisoners were tied up in a cell full of water. [Then,] I received
another message telling me that my father had died. No one in my family was authorized
to attend the funeral. Only six Chinese officials were there.”82 The Uyghur community in
France speaks of similar tactics: “We receive phone calls during which we are told that they
know everything about our family and that, if we say bad things about the government,
something bad will happen to them….”83
D. Permanent Surveillance
The members of the tiny Uyghur community in Montreal have repeatedly explained
that they feel under permanent surveillance. One of them added that they have all
“received strange phone calls from the Chinese embassy. A prerecorded message tells
them to go pick up a package at the Chinese embassy immediately. We never go because
we know that there is not anything to pick up there. Once, I checked the phone num-
ber on Google and found that it was the number of the Chinese consulate in Texas,
and not the one in Toronto as told in the message. Sometimes, they use fake numbers.
I think they want us to know that, even if we live abroad, they can control us
and gather information on us.”84 Another said that his car was robbed, his official
documents ostensibly stolen, that he was taken in tail from his home by “a Chinese per-
son” and that, ultimately, that kind of things happens “very often.”85 Even in France,
Uyghurs feel under permanent surveillance: “when we protest, there is always someone
filming to spy on us.”86
E. Cyberattacks
Chinese has well-known cyber offensive capabilities. In 2018, at a seminar on cyber-
security, the text of CSIS Director Vigneault’s speech presented China as “one of the
biggest threats facing our countries” in this area (“one of ” was truncated in the tran-
script, meaning that China was presented as the greatest threat).87 On top of recurring
attacks against state institutions and large companies – retaliation or espionage
– Beijing knows how to use its cyber capabilities against identified dissidents.
In June 2013, for instance, Canadian Tibetan organizations received an email allegedly
82. “Les Ouïghours de Montréal sous pression” (“Uyghurs in Montreal Are Under Pressure”), Radio Canada, ICI
Première, Désautels le dimanche (26 Jan. 2020).
83. Farida Nouar, “‘Les consommateurs ont du sang sur les mains:’ le travail forcé des Ouïghours derrière les
articles ‘made in China’” (“‘Consumers Have Blood in their Hands:’ Forced Uyghur Labor behind ‘Made in China’
Goods”), France Info (3 Feb. 2021).
84. The Chinese consulate in Houston, which was closed down by American authorities on July 23, 2020, was
known as a “nest of spies” tasked with intimidating dissidents, among others things. See U.S. Embassy in Georgia,
“China’s Houston Consulate a Center of Malign Activity,” https://ge.usembassy.gov/chinas-houston-consulate-a-
center-of- malign-activity/. Hence, it is not unconceivable that some of its activities were conducted throughout North
America – including Canada – and not solely in the United States.
85. “Les Ouïghours de Montréal sous pression.”
86. Nouar, “Les consommateurs ont du sang sur les mains.”
87. Douglas Quan, “‘Significant and Clear’ Threat: What Canada’s Spy Chief Says about China behind Closed
Doors,” National Post (13 Aug. 2019) (for all the quotes in this paragraph).
554
sent by a known member of the community, through a mailing list, with three Word
documents (.doc) attached to it. Citizen Lab, a laboratory at the Munk School of Global
Affairs of the University of Toronto, determined that these documents contained a
malware of the “Surtr” family which had been used against the Tibetan community
since at least November 2012. Once activated, this spying software is capable – among
other things – to record keystrokes on a keyboard, explore the content of the infected
computer, and execute commands at a distance. Analysts concluded that “attackers
actively monitor mailing lists and discussion groups used by the Tibetan com-
munity and repurpose the content for use in targeted malware attacks.”88
This is not an exception: Citizen Lab presented similar cases in a report published
the following year.89 According to one of the Tibetan groups targeted by several of
these attacks, at least a few of them are attributable to the infamous APT1, known as
PLA Unit 61398.90 On March 24, 2021, Facebook announced it had blocked another
group of Chinese hackers, known as “Earth Empusa,” or “Evil Eye,” which – hid-
den behind fake identities (human rights activists, students, journalists, etc.) – used the
social network to approach, and then infect, the computers of their targets, Uyghurs,
by sending them links to booby-trapped websites (containing viruses or malwares)
some of which looked like Uyghur media. Most of the targeted Uyghurs lived abroad,
in Canada for instance (but also in Turkey, Kazakhstan, in the United States, Syria or
Australia as well).91
F. Identity Thefts
Attackers sent insulting emails to MPs and government officers while imperson-
ating Falun Gong members to discredit them.92 This is a common practice not lim-
ited to Canada, as explained by a member of the Canadian association of Falun Gong:
“Government officials at all levels in numerous countries have been systematically and
repeatedly targeted by fraudulent emails from persons claiming to be Falun Gong practi-
tioners. The emails often portray the sender as obsessive, irrational, and rude, thus lending
legitimacy to the Chinese regime’s claims that Falun Gong is a menace to society […] Some
of the emails have been traced to IP addresses originating in China.”93 In Canada, such
offensive – sometimes threatening – emails were sent by individuals introducing themselves
as Falun Gong members to politicians, including to MPs Judy Sgro in December 2017 and
Peter Julian in March 2019.94
88. Katie Kleemola and Seth Hardy, Surtr: Malware Family Targeting the Tibetan Community, The Citizen Lab (2 Aug.
2013).
89. Communities @ Risk: Targeted Digital Threats against Civil Society, Citizen Lab Report No. 48, University of Toronto
(Nov. 2014).
90. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 18.
91. Mike Dvilyanski and Nathaniel Gleicher, “Taking Action against Hackers in China,” Facebook (24 Mar. 2021),
https://about.fb.com/news/2021/03/taking-action-against-hackers-in-china/.
92. Ibid., 21.
93. Limin Zhou, “Fake Letter Sent in Trudeau’s Name Not Isolated Case in China’s Disinformation Campaign,”
The Epoch Times (7 May 2019).
94. Canadian Coalition, Harassment & Intimidation, 46.
555
G. Travel restrictions
Several Canadian activists were denied a Chinese visa, or werearrested, detained
and intimidated in Chinese airports – and ultimately “forced to leave China despite
entering the country legitimately.”95 In 2019, Chinese-born Canadian politician Richard
Lee revealed that, in 2015, when he was a MP and vice-president of the Legislative
Assembly of British Columbia, he was detained by Chinese authorities after landing at
Shanghai Airport. He was kept away from his wife for eight hours, his professional phone
(property of the government of British Columbia) confiscated and hacked, and they
called him a “threat to the national security” of China.96 They eventually cancelled his
visa and sent him back to Canada. His case shows that Beijing can turn its surveillance
and counter-measures against any Canadian citizen or resident, whatever their status
may be. Indeed, Lee was not an activist, but an elected official who did not hesitate to
defend the democratic and liberal values of his country, Canada. He commemorates the
Tian’anmen massacre every year for instance – something that may have angered Chinese
authorities (the Chinese consul in Vancouver, Liu Fei, had told him as much, directly and
through his Liberal Party). The fact that even an MP, vice-president of a provincial
legislative assembly, could be targeted really means, as he acknowledged it, that
“it could happen to anyone.”97
H. Conclusion
To sum up, “the attacks range from abusive midnight phone calls to character assas-
sinations in social media, intimidation of Chinese students attending Canadian col-
leges and universities, holding hostage in China the family members of Canadian
dissidents, and hacking the communications networks of dissident groups […]. In
all cases, however, the aim is to smother the voices of dissent in Canada, either by
intimidating Canadians into silence or by so discrediting them that what they say or
do no longer has public or political impact.”98
According to Hao Fengjun, a former agent who “defected” from the 610 Office (610
办公室), an entity fighting against Falun Gong (→ p. 78), the CCP operates an anti-Fa-
lun Gong spying network of more than one thousand agents in Canada – Chinese
Canadians recruited in Canada, professional agents from China, businesspersons and stu-
dents – with activities seemingly concentrated in Vancouver and Toronto.99 According to
Zhang Jiyan, the wife of an accountant at the Chinese embassy in Ottawa who, in 2007,
“defected” and sought asylum in Canada, the embassy had, at the time, “a special unit of
about ten people ‘in charge of collecting information on groups that could present a threat,
especially on Falun Gong practitioners.’”100 She added that they infiltrated Tai-chi and
Qigong clubs to find them. She also explained that the unit produced “material inciting
hatred against Falun Gong” transmitted by the ambassador himself to “members of parlia-
95. Ibid., 3.
96. Sam Cooper, “B.C. Politician Breaks Silence: China Detained Me, is Interfering ‘in Our Democracy,’” Global
News (29 Nov. 2019).
97. Ibid.
98. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 13-14.
99. Ibid., 22.
100. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 210.
556
ment, officers in the Canadian government, and to the former Governor General.” Zhang
Jiyan also disclosed a confidential memo (see below) to the press stating that one of the
goals of this unit “was to use members of the diaspora and students to block the licensing
of the Mandarin-language television station New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) by
sending petitions and letters of protest. […] Pressure was also put on a Canadian cable
company to discourage it from providing NTDTV to its subscribers.”101 Zhang Jiyan was
eventually granted refugee status in Canada.
Confidential note produced by Zhang Jiyan in 2007. She stated that it had been written by “a member of the embassy and detailed
the pressure carried out by Beijing agents to prevent the broadcast in Canada of a television channel of the Falun Gong” (source:
archives of Fabrice de Pierrebourg and Michel Juneau-Katsuya).102
The overseas representatives of Beijing, here its ambassador and consuls in
Canada, are directly involved in the intimidation campaigns because they them-
selves pen letters to members of government, elected officials, media outlets asking
them to avoid any contact with such and such groups labeled as dissidents. In 2005, for
instance, following the announcement of an imminent visit of the Dalai-lama, Chinese
Consul General in Toronto Chen Xiaoling personally wrote a “warning letter” to 44 city
councilors asking them to “neither authorize, nor facilitate” the visit, unless they did not
want to maintain good relations with China.103 “Most of these letters concludes with a
not-so-subtle warning. [One] coarse strategy, which can be assimilated to harassment
because of its magnitude.”104
Canada is but one example: similar cases testifying to the harassment and intimi-
dation methods used against human rights activists have been documented in the
United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand for example105 – in
other words, in all the liberal democratic countries with a significant Chinese diaspora. As
we saw in the previous part, Beijing set up the largest transnational repression cam-
paign in the world (→ p. 166).
101. Ibid., 211.
102. Ibid., 212.
103. Ibid., 215.
104. Ibid., 215.
105. Canadian Coalition, Harassment & Intimidation, 7-8.
557
IV. A Chinese Willingness to Influence Politics
A. Politicians under influence
Beijing keeps close tabs on foreign politicians with Chinese roots: a training manual for
executives of the United Front “notes approvingly the success of overseas Chinese candi-
dates in elections in Toronto, Canada. In 2003, six were elected from 25 candidates but by
2006 the number jumped to 10 elected from among 44 candidates.”106 And the CCP does
not stop at observing a situation, it acts on it.
1. MPs and Ministers
The then-CSIS director, Richard Fadden, caused a commotion in 2010, the day before
president Hu Jintao was set to land in Ottawa for an official visit, when he deplored
that “there are several municipal politicians in British Columbia and in at least
two provinces there are ministers of the Crown who we think are under at least
the general influence of a foreign government.” He believed that they weren’t con-
scious of being used but, nonetheless, their close ties with the said-government ended
up “shifting their public policies” over the years.107 Fadden did not mention China but
his speech was largely interpreted as targeting Beijing implicitly, so much so that a par-
liamentary committee demanded that the government “apologize[s] to the Chinese
Canadian community.”108
In 2015, an article in The Globe and Mail disclosed that one of the ministers targeted by
Fadden five years earlier was Michael Chan, minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and
International Trade in Ontario.109 In response, the Canadian Chinese community orga-
nized a defense of the minister, with help from Beijing. Helen Wang, editor-in-chief of
the Chinese Canadian Post, reported that the Chinese consulate in Toronto pressured the
newspaper to publish more articles defending Chan. It also asked them to participate in
a press conference with the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations
(which president, Wei Chengyi, was none other than the newspaper’s owner) to demand
an apology from the Globe and Mail. But Helen Wang was eventually fired, and Michael
Chan invited to write a weekly column for the Chinese Canadian Post, a newspaper so
tightly aligned with the CCP that it was previously named the Red Army Post and printed
in Beijing.110 More recently, in August 2019, Chan intervened during a pro-Beijing event
and denounced the protests in Hong Kong. This event, as many others in Canada and in
Australia, was probably organized with some support from the CCP, and some partici-
pants were paid ($100) to attend.111
106. James Kynge, Lucy Hornby, and Jamil Anderlini, “Inside China’s Secret ‘Magic Weapon’ For Worldwide
Influence,” Financial Times (26 Oct. 2017).
107. David Ljunggren, “Foreigners Influencing Canada Politics – Spy Chief,” Reuters (23 Jun. 2010).
108. Report on Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director Richard Fadden’s Remarks Regarding Alleged
Foreign Influence of Canadian Politicians, Report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security,
Kevin Sorenson, MP (chair) (Mar. 2011), 6, https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/403/SECU/Reports/
RP5019118/ securp08/securp08-e.pdf.
109. Craig Offman, “CSIS Warned This Cabinet Minister Could be a Threat. Ontario Disagreed,” The Globe and
Mail (16 Jun. 2015).
110. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 181.
111. Tom Blackwell, “Former Ontario Liberal Cabinet Minister Headlines Pro-Beijing Rally Near Toronto,”
National Post (22 Aug. 2019).
558
To seduce Canadian politicians, as with economic or intellectual figures, Beijing noto-
riously offers trips to China, all expenses paid. Local politicians are targeted, under
the pretext of exchanges between municipalities and for the development of commercial
relations between regions, but also members of parliament. Between 2006 and 2017,
MPs from the Senate and the Commons took a total of 36 trips to China. Many
of them were financed by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA),
a United Front organization. On its own, the Liberal MP John McCallum took trips
worth CA$73,300 (€47,600) between 2008 and 2015, all paid by the Chinese government
or pro-Beijing groups such as the Canadian Confederation of Fujian Associations.112
McCallum later became minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (2015-2017)
and was appointed ambassador to China. As he was nominated, he stressed his proxim-
ity to the country, noting his wife’s Chinese roots and his electoral district, Markham,
in the suburbs of Toronto, which had a majority of electors of Chinese descent.113 In
Beijing, in January 2018, as he welcomed the Quebecois prime minister, ambassador
McCallum started a controversy when he declared that “in some important policy areas
such as the environment, global warming, free trade, globalization, the policies of the
government of Canada are closer to the policies of the government of China than they
are to U.S. policies.”114 Similarly, in January 2019, in the midst of the Huawei scandal,
ambassador McCallum started another controversy when he publicly opposed the extra-
dition of Meng to the United States, providing Chinese media outlets with arguments
helping out the defense of Meng. Likewise, he endorsed a “deal” between the United
States and China to free the two Michaels (→ p. 546). Several days later, Prime Minister
Trudeau asked for, and received, his resignation.115 Chinese media outlets subsequently
criticized Trudeau’s decision, which the Global Times described as “political interfer-
ence.”116 As James Palmer, who worked at the Global Times for seven years, explained,
China’s disappointment confirmed that its leaders “clearly saw McCallum as an asset,
as somebody who they very successfully wooed through this program.”117 It took
until September to announce a replacement, and the Canadian embassy in China was led
for seven months by a “mere” chargé d’affaires.
The previously mentioned figure of 36 trips to China between 2006 and 2017 only
accounts for the trips publicized by MPs, who are bound to disclose any trip paid for by a
third party – as with any gift. But Senator Victor Oh was sanctioned by the Office of the
Senate Ethics Officer because he had not disclosed a two-week trip to Beijing and to the
Chinese province of Fujian in April 2017.118 In December 2019, Senator Oh also attended
an event in Toronto celebrating the 70th anniversary of the PRC, and which was co-or-
112. Robert Fife, Steven Chase, and Xiao Xu, “Beijing Foots Bill for Canadian Senators, MPs to Visit China,” The
Globe and Mail (1 Dec. 2017).
113. Catharine Tunney, “John McCallum Fired as Ambassador to China amid Diplomatic Crisis,” CBC News (27
Jan. 2019).
114. Robert Fife and Steven Chase, “Trudeau Defends Ambassador under Fire for China Trade Comments,” The
Globe and Mail (25 Jan. 2018).
115. Catharine Tunney, “John McCallum Fired as Ambassador to China amid Diplomatic Crisis,” CBC News (27
Jan. 2019).
116. “Resignation Reveals Political Interference,” Global Times (27 Jan. 2019).
117. Perrin Grauer, “John McCallum Fell Victim to Beijing’s ‘Influence Campaign,’ Say Former Ambassadors,” The
Star (29 Jan. 2019).
118. Robert Fife and Steven Chase, “Senator Broke Ethics Rules by Accepting Free Travel to China,” The Globe and
Mail (18 Feb. 2020).
559
ganized by Lin Xingyong, who, several months before, was one of the delegates to the
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing.119
Senator Oh intervened at an event celebrating the 70th anniversary of the PRC in December 2019.120
The MP Vincent Ke
In 2018, Vincent Ke became the first immigrant from mainland China to be elected MP with
the Progressive Conservative Party and to seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. His
past is not very well known (he refused to answer questions from the National Post when it
prepared a long profile on him121) except that he was born in Quanzhou (China), and that
he was a student “cadre” at Fuzhou University (according to Alex Joske, student “cadres”
“often act as informants to monitor students and lecturers for politically questionable
behavior”122). He later moved to Beijing and was selected as an “outstanding young per-
son” by the Haidian District (a title that “would likely be administered by the Communist
Youth League and given to someone on a ‘fast track’ for party membership,” according to
Charles Burton).123 Ke later studied in Germany, at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum where
he “participated in the work of organizing the Ruhr region Chinese overseas students so-
ciety”124 (which seemsto be the local CSSA → p. 280). In 1998, he immigrated to Canada
and settled in Ontario. Having to justify himself on his professional past, he declared that
he worked as an electronic engineer for the German company Conec (which had a factory
in Shanghai) between 1999 and 2018 in Brampton – even though the professional associa-
tion of Ontario engineers couldn’t confirm it because he had never been registered.125 He
was, however, registered as an insurance salesman. In 2013, he was selected by the Chinese
consulate in Toronto to receive one week of training in China, the 14th Chinese Overseas
119. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1203841550674989062
120. “庆祝中华人民共和国成立七十周年图片展今日隆重开幕” (“The Photo Exhibit Celebrating the 70th
Anniversary of the PRC’s Founding Opens Today”), 传奇文化 (The Legends Magazine) (8 Dec. 2019).
121. Alex Joske, quoted in Tom Blackwell, “MPP’s Ties to China Raise Questions about How Close Canadian
Politicians Should Get to Foreign Powers,” National Post (6 Sept. 2019).
122. Ibid.
123. Charles Burton, quoted in Tom Blackwell, “MPP’s Ties to China.”
124. Blackwell, “MPP’s Ties to China.”
125. Blackwell, “Regulator Looks at Ontario MPP after Accusations He Improperly Claimed to be An Engineer,”
The Chatham Daily News (19 Sept. 2019).
560
Societies Youth and Middle-aged Immigrant Leader’s Research Training organized by the
Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO) – which became part of the UFWD in 2018.
Since he was elected MP in 2018, Ke seems to have maintained “a close relationship
with the consulate and Beijing-leaning groups like the Toronto Confederation of Chinese
Canadian Organizations.”126 He was the only MP to take part to the inauguration of the
new pro-Beijing Tibetan association that got notorious for being linked to a fake Justin
Trudeau letter (→ p. 575).127
14th Chinese Overseas Societies Youth and Middle-aged
Immigrant Leader’s Research Training.128
2. Municipal politicians
“Municipal politicians are often the prime target,” according to Stephanie Carvin, an
academic and former analyst at the CSIS.129 They are indeed more accessible and dis-
crete targets. And there are occasions when many of them can be hooked at once, such
as during the annual convention of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities
(UBCM), that brings together 190 regional and municipal districts, as well as 8 First
Nations of British Columbia. In 2012, the Consul General in Vancouver, Liu Fei, decided
to organize an invitation-only reception during the event, which eventually became a
tradition – so much so that, some years, the consulate was not only a sponsor but the
main co-sponsor of the convention, along with the provincial government of British
Columbia.130 China was the only foreign government to sponsor the UBCM. That
said, it ended in 2019 as the Huawei scandal and the worsening of the bilateral rela-
tion made China less socially acceptable, and several mayors, including Brad West (Port
Coquitlam) condemned the sponsorship. In a letter to the UBCM executive members,
West explained, for instance, that collaborating with the PRC “brings the UBCM into
disrepute and reflects horribly on all members” because “the Government of China
is engaged in a number of actions that are hostile to our country’s interests and the
interests of every Canadian, and are completely at odds with our values, the rule of
law and the very principles that we were all elected to uphold.” He gave three exam-
126. Blackwell, “MPP’s ties to China.”
127. Tom Blackwell, “Activists Say New Canadian Group Supporting China’s Control of Tibet is a Front for
Beijing,” National Post (24 Apr. 2019).
128. The picture was taken from this now-inactive web page: http://116.62.246.242:8087/NewsDetail.php?id=319.
129. Joanna Chiu, “‘Prime Targets’: Are Canada’s Local Politicians in the Sights of Beijing’s Global PR Machine?”
The Star (8 Aug. 2020).
130. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 256.
561
ples: the two kidnapped Michaels, repression in Hong Kong, and Uyghur detention
in camps.131 UBCM eventually yielded and barred foreign governments from sponsoring
future events.132
Consul General Liu Fei and executive members of the UBCM
at the consulate in Vancouver (26 Nov. 2018).133
For Jonathan Manthorpe, “the aim of the CCP’s diplomats is clearly to turn social
relationships with B.C. municipal officials and politicians into ones where the Canadians
feel a sense of obligation.”134 And some deliver quite well. For instance, Al Richmond,
a former regional president in British Columbia, who was UBCM vice-president in 2012,
became a friend to China. He actually acknowledged having grown closer to the Chinese
government over the years “with the goal of facilitating trade, tourism and business
connections” for his constituents.135 During the Covid-19 pandemic, in March 2020, he
told Xinhua that China was “successful in containing the virus” and that Ottawa could
learn a lot from Beijing. With its enormous global firepower, Xinhua catapulted this
otherwise unremarkable comment from an obscure local politician to the global stage.
In June 2019, in the midst of the Huawei case, Xinhua quoted the same Al Richmond
in an article untitled “Canadian small Internet suppliers like to use Huawei technology:
local official.”136
This CCP interest in local Canadian politics is now well known and has led to sev-
eral testimonials, including that of Alan Harris, who recounted how, while running for
municipal office in Clarington, Ontario in 2018, he had been approached by the Canada
China Industry Promotion Association. This organization invited him to Xining, China,
to enhance their “friendship” but also to talk about investment and trade – a tempting
proposal for this rural, poorly connected municipality in need of infrastructure. This
time it didn’t work out because Harris was already aware of the dangers of Chinese influ-
ence. “I knew enough to ignore the email, but how many candidates across this country
replied?”137
131. “PoCo Mayer Brad West’s Letter to UBCM Executive,” Scribd, https://bit.ly/3ara2o2).
132. Chiu, “‘Prime Targets.’”
133. “Consul General LIU Fei Met with UBCM Executive Members,” Consulate General of the PRC in Vancouver
(1 Dec. 2015), https://archive.vn/isa2Y.
134. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 257.
135. Chiu, “‘Prime Targets.’”
136. “Canadian Small Internet Suppliers Like to Use Huawei Technology: Local Official,” Xinhua, China.org.cn
(26 Jun. 2019).
137. Alan Harris, “Running for Municipal Office, I was Targeted by China,” The Star (24 Aug. 2020).
562
B. Elections under influence
Electoral interference is harder in Canada strictly speaking than it was in Australia
and New Zealand before they adopted measures against it, and for two reasons. First, a
great deal of influence materializes through money, and Canada has adopted stricter reg-
ulations on contributions to political parties, with an $1,000 annual individual limit. Then,
the Chinese in Canada are not too interested in politics compared to other communities,
such as Indians, who are very politicized for they share an appetite for democracy with
Canadians. Now, that could change because Chinese newcomers in Canada are more polit-
ically active than their parents and grandparents.
That said, there are cases of Chinese electoral interference in Canada. In Australia,
like in Canada, this risk is inversely proportional to the level of education: elites are informed
and politically conscious but, locally, the working-class population is vulnerable. This is the
reason why Ottawa fears local elections more than parliamentary elections. In 2014,
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former head of the Asia-Pacific Office at the CSIS, noted that
“CSIS found evidence that the Chinese Consulate in Toronto was directly interfering
in elections, by sending Chinese students into the homes of Chinese-language-only house-
holds and telling residents which candidate the Consulate wanted voters to choose.”138
The Chinese embassy uses local media outlets, but also money, to support certain
candidates during local elections, hoping to rally Chinese communities on a pro-Beijing
platform. They target communities where the density of Chinese Canadians is important
enough to have an electoral impact, in the Richmond-Center district of Vancouver, for
instance, where more than half (54%) of the population has Chinese roots.139 Richmond
is the “most Chinese city in the world outside of Asia.”140 In this district, the Chinese
consulate is regularly accused of endorsing candidates with a Chinese background.
The Richmond-based Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society is an organization cre-
ated in 2001, ostensibly to help newly-arrived Chinese migrants. It is also a member of the
Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, a platform of more than 100 associations with
the common objective of building a stronger Chinese-Canadian relationship (the group is
known to be tied to Chinese authorities). In October 2018, the Society drew attention when
it offered CAN$26,000 (€16,900) to eight candidates141 and encouraged voters – through its
WeChat group – to vote for specific candidates with a Chinese background in the districts
of Richmond, Vancouver and Burnaby, in exchange of a financial retribution – $20 offered
as a “transportation subsidy.”142
138. Sam Cooper, “Is China Influencing B.C.’s politicians? Court case, CSIS documents suggest pressure to suppress
Falun Gong protests,” The Province (14 Sept. 2014).
139. According to the official statistics of the 2016 census available on the Statistics Canada website.
140. Ian Young, “‘I Love My Homeland’: Canadian School under Fire after Screening Trailers for Patriotic Chinese
Film ‘My People, My Country’ to Mandarin pupils,” South China Morning Post (25 Oct. 2019).
141. Bob Mackin, “Update: Vancouver City Hall Refers WeChat Vote-Buying Scheme to Police,” The Breaker (11
Oct. 2018).
142. Jenny Peng, “Vancouver Society at Centre of Vote-Buying Allegations Has Ties to Chinese Government,” The
Star (16 Oct. 2018).
563
On the left, David Teng (滕达), a founding member of the Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society,
as he made a donation to James Wang, city councilor of Burnaby, BC.143
V. An Influence on Media Outlets
Beijing’s global takeover of Chinese-language media outlets – North America included – is
a problem that has been known for some time.144 Nowadays, nearly all Chinese-language
outlets in Canada are controlled by the CCP: all that remains for Chinese-Canadians
hoping to read information not censored by the CCP are Falun Gong-aligned outlets (the
newspaper The Epoch Times and the TV channel New Tang Dynasty (NTDTV)), which can’t
be described as models of professionalism.145 And both are restricted by Chinese (which,
for instance, cancelled the visas initially granted to their journalists covering the visit of PM
Paul Martin in China in 2005) and Canadian authorities, trying to avoid angering Beijing
(when Hu Jintao visited Ottawa in 2005, The Epoch Times and NTDTV were denied access
to the events; and during a second visit in 2010 as well).146
To model journalism in Chinese to its own image, the CCP uses its traditional tools:
the carrot (encouraging newspapers to censor themselves in exchange of business
benefits) and the stick (intimidating, threatening, harassing, pressuring relatives
in China, firing journalists who resist this pressure, or putting an end to programs
deemed dissident). The CCP also tries to supervise and train journalists, in Canada (a local
United Front organization based in Vancouver, the International New Media Cooperation
Organization (国际新媒体合作组织), convened pro-Beijing Chinese-language outlets
from North America in 2014)147 or in China (numerous Canadian outlets participated in the
3rd Overseas Chinese New Media Forum in Hangzhou in May 2018. The deputy director
143. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1050970653430505472.
144. See Mei Duzhe, “How China’s Government is Attempting to Control Chinese Media in America,” China Brief,
1:10 (21 Nov. 2001).
145. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 173.
146. Ibid., 176-177.
147. The International New Media Cooperation Organization’s headquarter is listed at 1555, 22 Street West,
in Vancouver (https://www.ic.gc.ca/app/scr/cc/CorporationsCanada/fdrlCrpDtls.html?corpId=9110283). The
address is shared with the headquarters of the World Chinese Entrepreneurs Foundations, the World Chinese Weekly
Publishing Company, the World Anti-Fascism War Memorialwebsite Cooperation, and of the KF Times Group.
564
of the UFWD, Tan Tianxing (谭天星), was a keynote speaker at the event and the outlets
“signed the Hangzhou Declaration (杭州宣言), a pledge to uphold ‘Xi Jinping Thought
in the New Era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ (习近平新时代中国特色社
会主义思想), strengthen the Chinese nation, advance the Belt and Road Initiative, and
use their influence as media to spread ‘positive energy’ in Canada”).148 In May 2019, sev-
eral Canadian media, including the Ontario-based CCTVmedium (加拿大视传媒), Chinese
Canadian Times (加中时报), and New Start Times (星星文化传媒集团)) attended a training
in Beijing with 88 media in Chinese from thirty countries, once again led by Tan Tianxing.149
On the left, an intervention by the deputy director of the UFWD, Tan Tianxing, during the 3rd Overseas Chinese
New Media Forum, in Hangzhou, in May 2018.150 On the right, a training for foreign media outlets
in Beijing, in May 2019, under the guidance of Tan Tianxing.151
Journalists who do not play by the rules are systematically dismissed. For exam-
ple, the Vancouver journalist Huang Hebian (黄河边) (his real name is Gao Bingchen)
was a columnist for one of the most widely-circulated Chinese-language Canadian news-
papers, the Burnaby-based Global Chinese Press (British Columbia), for over a decade. But,
after Huang published two critical messages on a personal social media account in June
2016, one targeting Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, the other Ontario
minister Michael Chan, the newspaper was pressured into firing Huang.152 In 2017, its
editor-in-chief, Lei Jin, was also fired because he wrote, and tried to publish, an obituary
of the academic, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Liu Xiaobo, who died in
a Chinese jail.153 Another example: Kenneth Yau, host of the Chinese-language station
Fairchild Radio in Ontario, was fired in October 2019 for being too critical of China: the
week before, he had asked a guest how he could be “100% Canadian” and respect the
CCP at the same time. The station received numerous complaints from pro-China listen-
148. UFWD YVR, “Reds vs. Reds: CCP Political Warfare in Canada in 2018,” A Piping hot Canadian tea publication,
medium.com (31 Dec. 2018).
149. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1131948011615973376.
150. “[图文快报] 第三届海外华文新媒体高峰论坛杭州启航 凝聚华媒正能量 助力传播中国新时代声
音” (“The 3rd Overseas Chinese New Media Forum Opened in Hangzhou to Bring Together the Positive Energy of
the Chinese Media and Help Outlets Make the Voice of China’s Renaissance Heard”), 红枫林传媒 (Red Maplewood
Media) (29 May 2018), https://archive.vn/AaEZq.
151. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1131948045971599360/photo/1.
152. Craig Offmanet and Nathan Vanderklippe, “Columnist’s Firing at B.C.-based Chinese Paper Stirs Press-
Freedom Concerns,” The Globe and Mail (20 Jun. 2016).
153. Xiao Xu, “Dismissed Chinese Newspaper Editor Files Human-Rights Complaint in B.C.,” The Globe and Mail
(10 Sept. 2017); On Liu Xiaobo, see Pierre Haski, Liu Xiaobo: l’homme qui a défié Pékin (“Liu Xiaobo: the Man Who
Defied Beijing”) (Paris: Hikari/Arte éditions, 2019).
565
ers.154 A month before, a host of Fairchild Radio in Vancouver, Anita Lee, had already
been into trouble after playing the Hong Kong protesters’ anthem on the air (“Glory to
Hong Kong”). Several days later, she announced that she was taking a break, supposedly
because her son was entering school – which did not convince anyone.155 Then, her show
was officially cancelled in May 2020.
The fact that almost all Chinese-language media are controlled by the CCP means that
Chinese immigrants who speak little or no English or French have relatively little expo-
sure to democratic and liberal values and are therefore unlikely to change: many of them,
“even though they have lived in Canada for many years, still have the same communist
mentality.”156
Furthermore, there are cases of information manipulation, including doctored
translations. For instance, the Sing Tao (星島), a daily Chinese-language Canadian news-
paper jointly owned by the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao News Corporation and the
Canadian media group Torstar Corporation (owner of the Toronto Star, the most widely
circulated newspaper in the country) had a deal to translate and publish articles from
the Toronto Star. But, on several occasions, it became clear that the Sing Tao doctored
the articles it took up “to conform with the CCP’s view of the world.” In 2008,
for example, articles on Tibet “bore very little relation to the original Toronto Star stories,
which contained vehement criticism of Beijing.”157 Another example: the Vancouver Sun
launched its Chinese version in 2012, named Taiyangbao. But those reading the newspa-
per in both its English and Chinese versions quickly called out the differences between
them. It appeared that the translators, provided by the consulate, were also cen-
sors that cleaned the Chinese version from everything they deemed unacceptable.
Hence, the Vancouver Sun found new translators but, within hours, the readership of the
Taiyangbao website dropped spectacularly: Beijing had decided to block access to it from
China.158
154. Tom Blackwell, “Host on Chinese-Language Station in Toronto Says He Was Fired for Criticizing Beijing,”
National Post (8 Oct. 2019).
155. Valerie Leung, “(Video) Hundreds Sing for Hong Kong in Aberdeen Centre,” Richmond News (14 Sept. 2019).
156. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 173.
157. Ibid., 171.
158. Ibid., 176.
566
C
A case of doxing
On October 28, 2018, Beijing published a wanted notice for an economic fugitive, Cui
Xuewen (崔学文) – who is also a Canadian resident – in a Canadian subsidiary of the Hong
Kong-based newspaper Ming Pao. According to Canadian officials we met, this was the first
known case of doxing (i.e. it disclosed private information about an individual to harm them
→ p. 397). Until then, efforts to arrest fugitives had been more discrete and kept away from
the public. The announcement highlights how unlikely Cui is to avoid being found by au-
thorities, both in Canada (when his official documents lapse) and China. He was targeted by
an official program set up by the Central Committee to catch state officials suspected of a
crime who have fled abroad.
567
VI. An Influence on Education
A. At the university
Canada has always been a prime destination for Chinese students. In 2015, out of the
523,700 Chinese studying abroad, 119,335 (nearly 23%) were in Canada.159 Two years later,
there were already more than 140,000 Chinese students in Canadian universities, accord-
ing to the Canadian Bureau for International Education160 – including 10,000 at the sole
University of Toronto. And the restrictions implemented by U.S. universities made Canada
even more attractive. The problem is that, in Canada as elsewhere in the world, some of
these students are working for Beijing (→ p. 273).
In a speech to the presidents of the 15 largest Canadian universities (U15) in April
2018, CSIS director David Vigneault declared that “CSIS assesses that China represents
the most significant and clear challenge for (human-enabled espionage) targeted
against Canada’s universities,” because Chinese services actively “monitor and influ-
ence” students and teachers. Hence, students and researchers are “non-traditional collec-
tors” of information for Beijing inasmuch as they “have little-to-no formal intelligence
tradecraft training but are often in a position to acquire vast quantities of data or knowl-
edge.”161
Two types of problems should be considered separately: first, Beijing targets
Canadian universities specialized in sciences and technology to spy and steal
technologies, using not only students, but also researchers, teachers, and collabora-
tions between Canadian and Chinese laboratories. In at least nine Canadian universities,
Canadian academics have taken part to dozens of research projects with Chinese
military researchers, on topics ranging from satellite imagery or secured communications
to drones. In some cases, Chinese researchers revealed their military affiliation (because
they were tied to military universities such as Zhengzhou, the Changsha University of
Science and Technology, or Xi’an Jiaotong University). In other cases, however, they hid
it, pretending to be affiliated to institutions that, in some cases, do not even exist,
such as the “Zhengzhou Information Science and Technology Institute,” a cover used in at
least 1,300 scientific articles, according to Alex Joske. He noted that this cover was used by
PLA researchers to travel abroad and, for one of them, to work at McMaster University, in
Canada.162 Between 2006 and 2018, at least 687 scientific articles were jointly published by
Canadians and Chinese military researchers. As in the Australian case, which is very similar,
it raises the problematic question of knowing to what extent “Canada inadvertently
helps China modernizing its armed forces”163 (→ p. 295).
Second, Beijing also uses Canadian universities to political ends: to control what
is said on China (content of conferences, lists of speakers) and to monitor dissidents
who are invited to speak. In that case, Chinese students are the main actors.
159. Ibid., 39.
160. Gerry Shih and Emily Rauhala, “Angry Over Campus Speech by Uyghur Activist, Chinese Students in Canada
Contact Their Consulate, Film Presentation,” The Washington Post (14 Feb. 2019).
161. Quan, “‘Significant and Clear’ Threat” (for all the quotes in this paragraph).
162. Alex Joske, Picking Flowers, Making Honey: The Chinese Military’s Collaboration with Foreign Universities,
ASPI, Policy Brief, Report No. 10 (2018), 15-16.
163. Christinne Muschi, “China’s Military Scientists Target Canadian Universities,” The Globe and Mail (29 Oct.
2018).
568
Increasingly aware of these risks, the attitude of universities with which China has
long-standing ties, sometimes going back several decades, is changing: five or ten years
ago, China was the largest source of foreign students and was seen as an opportunity. For
the past five years or so, universities have been concerned that Chinese students are very
(too) numerous, that they largely live among themselves, do not participate in university
life, do not integrate, and too often mobilize to defend the interests of Beijing. So there is
a growing awareness of the problem. During the annual meeting of the U15, in 2019,
one session was dedicated to it and their unanimously acknowledged the risk raised by
Chinese influence in Canadian universities.
Evidence of the embassy’s intervention in student demonstrations
In 2010, as they prepared for the upcoming visit of President Hu Jintao in Ottawa, about fifty
Chinese students who had received scholarships from the Chinese government to study in
Canadian universities were invited at the embassy. Liu Shaohua, the first secretary for educa-
tion, gave a speech that was clandestinely recorded by the Epoch Times164 and in which he ex-
plained that the embassy would bring 3,000 persons to Ottawa from Ontario, but also Quebec,
all expenses paid (hotel, food, transportation, even clothes), so as to organize a welcome party
for the president. Some testimonies also mentioned a CA$50 daily compensation. He present-
ed the visit as a “political struggle” to defend “the reputation of our motherland” against the
“Falun Gong, Tibetan separatists, Uyghur separatists, democracy people [who] have already
moved onto Parliament Hill.”
After reminding students that their expenses would be covered, even those without a scholar-
ship, Liu asked them not to “talk about it outside […] to anyone.” He told them of the impor-
tance of being numerous because, during the visit of President Hu Jintao in 2005, opponents
dominated and Chinese officials were furious. Hence, they needed to organize a better welcome
party this time. Then, in case someone asked them why they were there, Liu explained that
they should respond that “We are here to welcome President Hu. Long live the Canada-China
friendship.” That same day, Zhang Baojun, in charge of education at the Chinese Consulate
in Toronto, delivered the same message, by email: she demanded that students “comply with
the plan and act in unity.” Students with a scholarship who faced “exceptional difficulties that
prevent[ed] them from participating,” were required to “provide an explanation.”
Chinese students do not hide their nationalism on Canadian campuses: they are orga-
nized in associations with a near-military discipline, sometimes raising the Chinese
flag and singing the Chinese national anthem on university campuses of British
Columbia for instance. Some act as de facto representatives of Beijing: they play a role in
monitoring and, if necessary, intimidating students and faculty members on matters tied
to China. They also regularly organize demonstrations to defend Beijing’s interests (see
examples below).
This raises another question: is it possible to demonstrate that Chinese authorities in
Canada (embassy and consulates) effectively mobilize Chinese students, which would
constitute a proven case of foreign interference? In Canada, as in other countries where
the mobilization of Chinese students is a problem (i.e. in Australia and New Zealand), the
link is hard to establish, either because Chinese authorities exercise a very discrete
control, or because they do not need to be involved as the constraint is internalized:
164. Jason Loftus, “Tape Reveals Embassy Footing Bill for Hu Jintao’s Welcome Rally,” The Epoch Times (23 Jun.
2010), (for all the quotes in the paragraph).
569
students, who arrive indoctrinated, indebted (scholarships), and worried about their future
in China and about what might happen to their families, are spontaneously zealous. Most
of the time, it is impossible to show an interference and, in a democratic context in which
freedom of expression is protected, the universities and host countries can’t stop these
mobilizations.
1. The Role of CSSAs
The global role of CSSAs was introduced in Part Three (→ p. 280) but Canada provides
additional examples. There are indeed many testimonies of students being pressured
by a CSSA to dissuade them from doing this, or on the contrary to incite them to
do that. For example, a student at the University of Ottawa received a threatening e-mail
from the CSSA of her university: “according to reports from some other students and
the investigation done by the association’s cadre,” the message read, “you are still a Falun
Gong practitioner. Watch out.”165 At the University of Calgary, CSSA members received
en email from someone presenting themselves as an agent of the Chinese Public Security
Bureau, instructing them not to attend a movie projection organized by the Friends of
Falun Gong club, “otherwise your name and photo will be submitted to the Central gov-
ernment.”166
The CSSAs’ rhetoric often shows that they are merely proxies for Chinese authorities.
When the CSSA of the University of Toronto lobbied the municipality not to recognize a
Falun Gong Day in 2004, or the University of Ottawa’s intervened to block the TV chan-
nel NTDTV, in 2005, they used exactly the same sentences, the same expressions in
their messages as Chinese diplomats do in their letters of protest.167
The CSIS confirmed the control exerted by Chinese authorities over CSSAs in Canadian
universities. In certain cases, it labeled their activities as espionage. This was the case
of Yong Jie Qu for instance, a Chinese student who registered at Concordia University in
1991, took part to the activities of the university’s CSSA the following years, and applied for
permanent residency in Canada in 1994.168 His application was transferred to CSIS which
denied it because, as explained in his rejection letter:
There were reasonable grounds to believe that you had engaged in acts of espionage and subversion
against democratic institutions […]. By your own admission […] you had communicated repeatedly
with the PRC Embassy in Ottawa, provided information on the activities of members of a Canadian
student organization [the CSSA] and attempted to corrupt that organization to meet the goals and
objectives of a foreign government. […] you readily acknowledged your numerous contacts with
Chinese diplomats over an extended period of time during which you helped “reorganize” the CSSA.
You also acknowledged that you provided information to Chinese diplomats about certain members
of the CSSA and that you openly disagreed with the pro-democracy students in the organization,
identified these students and reported them to the embassy, and sought to change the direction of
the CSSA using funds provided by the embassy to support certain activities, to make it “responsive
to the Chinese government and Chinese officials.”169
165. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda.
166. Ibid., 189.
167. Ibid., 189.
168. Ibid., 190.
169. Quoted in Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 207.
570
A more recent example helped to establish a link between a university’s CSSA
and Chinese authorities: Rukiye Turdush, a Uyghur Canadian activist, gave a talk
at McMaster University in February 2019. The discussion between Chinese students in
a WeChat group as they anticipated the conference, showed that they had warned the
embassy which, in return, asked them to verify whether university leaders attended, to
take pictures of the conference and send them to Chinese officials. A Chinese student
filmed it and, as he questioned the speaker, insulted her before leaving the room. The
coordination among Chinese students and with Chinese diplomats is visible on
the screenshots of the WeChat group they had created for the occasion (see below,
on the left). We also know that the Chinese consulate in Toronto asked whether Chinese
citizens had taken part to the organization of the conference (on the right).
On the left: A: “I’m here” / B: “Started to react?” / C: “Recording?” / A: “Yes” / C: “Record and sent it directly to the official
website of the embassy.”170 On the right: D: “the consulate called me back” /
A: “Great” / D: “Basically, they told us to be attentive” / D: “to check if there are university people there” /
D: “and if there are Chinese people among the organizers of the event” / A: “I mean, of course…”171
The following day, the university’s CSSA released a statement
denouncing the conference as an invitation to racial hatred
and separatism, and asking the university to ensure that in the
future “the dignity” of Chinese students is not violated.
Suspected of having intervened because the message was
written in the usual style of official CCP communiqués, the
embassy denied it while considering the students’ approach
“just and patriotic.”172 The Washington Post, which copied and
translated the WeChat messages, noted that it was “unusual
to find written evidence of apparent coordination with
[Chinese] officials.”173 David Mulroney, the former Canadian
170. Source: https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1096159156061589504/photo/1.
171. Source: https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1096165952264331264/photo/1.
172. Holmes Chan, “Exclusive: How Uighur activist Rukiye Turdush felt the long arm of the Chinese Communist
party, in Canada,” Hong Kong Free Press (3 Mar. 2019).
173. Gerry Shih and Emily Rauhala, “Angry Over Campus Speech by Uyghur Activist, Chinese Students in Canada
Contact Their Consulate, Film Presentation,” The Washington Post (14 Feb. 2019).
571
ambassador to China added that “the fact they want to know which academics attend hints
at desire to stop academic freedom.”174
On February 16, the embassy released a statement affirming that “what happened
recently at the University of Toronto [see below] and McMaster University has nothing
to do with the Chinese Embassy and Chinese Consulate General in Canada” but also that
(in the following sentence) “we strongly support the just and patriotic actions of Chinese
students.”175
Acting on a demand from other students, some of whom found “extraordinarily
terrifying […] to know that an organization – in its capacity as an [student union]-rat-
ified club – reported activity on campus to the Chinese government,” the CSSA was
finally dissolved on September 2019, with 22 student representatives out of 35 voting
in favor.176
Another interesting case occurred at the same time, on the Scarborough campus
of the University of Toronto: that of Chemi Lhamo, a 22-year-old Canadian student
of Tibetan origin. In February 2019, as she had recently been elected president of a
students’ association, she was targeted by a pro-Beijing and anti-Tibetan hatred
campaign. An Instagram picture of her was the object of thousands of heinous
and threatening comments such as “China is your daddy – you better know this,” or
“Ur not gonna be the president of UTSC […] Even if you do, we will make sure things
get done so u won’t survive a day. Peace RIP.” A petition demanding her resignation,
and promoted by the CCP’s English newspaper Global Times,177 received almost 10,000
signatures. A message also circulated on WeChat asking Chinese students to do every-
thing they could to prevent the student association from being “controlled by Tibetan
separatists.”178
Michel Juneau-Katsuya believed that “it [was] beyond plausible” that the Chinese gov-
ernment was involved in the campaign: “It is their strategy to try to undermine, to try to
mute any form of opposition or dissidence that could at one point or another gain access
to a mic.”179
Chinese authorities do not always wait and use students as proxies: they some-
times intervene directly. For instance, the day before a conference with the president
of the World Uyghur Congress, Dolkun Isa, at Montreal’s Concordia University, in
March 2019, the organizer, Kyle Matthews, who headed the Montreal Institute for
Genocide and Human Rights Studies, received en email from Consul General Xing
Wenjian asking for an “urgent meeting” to which he did not answer. The consulate
also contacted Montreal officials to try to cancel the event.180 But it was not met with
success.
174. Ibid.
175. “Remarks of the Spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Canada on Some Media’s Hyping Up the Tibet and
Xinjiang Related Issues,” PRC Embassy to Canada (16 Feb. 2019), https://archive.vn/aWk1b.
176. Owen Churchill, “Chinese students’ Association Loses Status at Canadian University After Protest of Uygur
activist’s Talk was Allegedly Coordinated with Chinese Consulate,” South China Morning Post (26 Sept. 2019).
177. Deng Xiaoci, “Chinese Students Slam Union Candidate Over Separatist Posts,” Global Times (12 Feb. 2019).
178. “‘China is your daddy’: Backlash against Tibetan Student’s Election Prompts Questions about Foreign
Influence,” CBC News (14 Feb. 2019).
179. Ibid.
180. Marie-Danielle Smith, “Chinese Diplomat Accused of Trying to Shut Down Montreal Event in Third Incident
of Alleged Campus Interference,” National Post (28 Mar. 2019).
572
B. In Secondary schools
Chinese influence is not limited to higher education: High schools are also
affected, not only by the problem of aggressive counter-demonstrations, harassment
and intimidation of student human rights activists (there have been several incidents,
with torn down posters, anonymous letters, etc., in high and secondary schools across
the country, particularly in British Columbia).181 Controls and censorship over academic
content is also a problem. And, once again, Confucius Institutes (CIs) are blamed
(→ p. 299) because the 13 Canadian institutes are “typically affiliated with postsecondary
education institutes and K-12 schools.”182 The first Canadian CI opened at the British
Columbia Institute of Technology in 2006. In February 2009, there were at least five
others: in Edmonton (Alberta School for the Deaf), Waterloo (University of Waterloo –
twinned to Nanjing University), Moncton (Atlantic Education International), Montreal
(Dawson College) and Sherbrooke (Université de Sherbrooke).183 And they sometimes
received official support: “the Quebecois Ministry of Education granted CA$65,000
[42,230 euros] for the launch of Confucius Institutes in Quebec during the 2007-2008
academic year.”184
In 2019, the New Brunswick Ministry of Education cancelled the contracts that tied
the CIs to two dozen middle schools in the province after parents complained about
restrictions on the freedom of expression of the pupils on topics related to China.
Some teachers, for instance, forbade any discussion of the Tian’anmen mas-
sacre and used maps that integrated Taiwan into China. The minister acknowl-
edged that the “school system [was] being used [by Beijing] as a conduit for extending
[its] influence.”185 Before that, several universities (McMaster, McGill, Manitoba, and
Sherbrooke) had done the same, or altogether refused to host a CI for these reasons
(censorship or a control by the Chinese government that was seen as incompatible with
academic freedom and so on).
In October 2019, in a Chinese language course at a Richmond high school, in British
Columbia, the fifteen-year-old pupils were shown a propaganda film untitled My
People, My Country (2019) on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the PRC,
and were tested with a questionnaire untitled “I love my country.” The question-
naire was politically oriented, with questions such as “which words, or sentences from
the movie made you feel good?” Following the ensuing controversy, the test was
cancelled.186
181. Angela Jung, “Hong Kong-China Tensions Intensify at Local Demonstration, High School,” CTV News (4
Oct. 2019).
182. Parliament of Canada, National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, Annual Report 2019
(2020), §174, 71.
183. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 158.
184. Ibid., 158-159.
185. Tom Blackwell, “New Brunswick Turfs China-backed Confucius Institute Out of Elementary Schools to Curb
Beijing’s Influence,” National Post (27 Aug. 2019).
186. Young, “‘I Love My Homeland.’” The letter sent by the high school to explain the decision is available here:
https://twitter.com/ ianjamesyoung70/status/1187781644620402688/photo/1.
573
Questionnaire on the propaganda film My People, My Country
that was shown to Richmond students.
The Chinese title, at the top of the sheet, was
“I love my country” (whereas the Chinese title of the movie
is more neutral because it could be translated
as “Me and my country”).187
Even young children are targeted: in October 2018, for instance, a Nishan
Bookstore (尼山书屋, see below) opened at the Richmond Public Library, in
Vancouver,188 and targeted children with its “China Tales” book collection. One watch-
ful observer noted on Twitter “the Nishan House’s stated propaganda mission: Inviting
foreigners to tell China’s story to other foreigners (请外国人讲中国故事给外国人看).
In this new decentralized strategy, CCP propaganda targets our children, spread through
Nishan’s books instead of a central Confucius Institute. In other words, local politi-
cians have welcomed the CCP’s Propaganda Department to publish propaganda
kids’ books here in Vancouver.”189
Presentation of the “China Tale” book collection dedicated to children.190
187. https://twitter.com/TheFallingStar/status/1187192661976829956.
188. “Shandong Opens Nishan Book House in Canada,” Shandong China Daily (30 Oct. 2018), https://archive. vn/
Kix10.
189. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1059299475058053120.
190. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1059299471060697088/photo/3.
574
The Nishan Bookstores
More than thirty Nishan bookstores (尼山书屋) have been created in two dozen countries
since 2013.191 They are overseen by the Jinan-based Shandong Friendship Publishing House
(山东友谊出版社), created in 1986 in the administrative center of Shandong. This publish-
ing house produces content to introduce foreign publics to the Chinese culture,192 a form of
“external propaganda” (对外宣 传).193 The company is owned by the Shandong Publication
Group Co., Ltd (山东出版集团),194 an entity financed by the Financial Bureau of Shandong
(山东省财政厅).195
The Nishan bookstores – from the name of the mountain where Confucius was presumably
born – are the overseas editors of the publishing house, tasked with promoting cultural ex-
changes between China and the rest of the world.196 It began with two bookstores in China in
2012, at the Confucius Research Institute (曲阜孔子研究院) and at the Nishan Shengyuan
Academy (尼山圣源书 院).197 Then, three dozen foreign antennas have opened since 2013,
including in Valletta, Moscow, Warsaw, Auckland, Macerata, Buenos Aires, Canberra, Gdansk,
New York or Los Angeles.198 After 2018, others were opened at the Richmond Public Library,
in Vancouver,199 at the Confucius Institute of Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest,200 at the
Confucius Institute in Dusseldorf,201 in Dubai,202 and in Kampala, at the Confucius Institute
of Makerere University.203
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