A Piping hot Canadian tea publication
December 31, 2018
This article charts the increasing and deepening strategy of Chinese political warfare in Canada in 2018. We show that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) now interferes in Canada on many levels, using a sophisticated and non-transparent framework of command and control.
Across the board, Canada is struggling to understand the implications of this, and in many ways our ethos of tolerance and openness simplifies the CCP’s work at exerting its core values and strategic objectives.
While Canada has many good reasons to maintain a good relationship with such a large country and trade partner, we must keep in mind that Canada’s core democratic values and identity will always be incompatible with the political objectives of a one-party dictatorship with increasingly ambitious plans for regional hegemony.
Specifically in 2018, the CCP did its work in Canada through use of defamation lawsuits, United Front meetings in British Columbia, a developing network of Beijing-controlled front organisations working in Canada, media manipulation and even direct interference in Canada’s municipal elections.
We need to be alert, as Australia and New Zealand have already realised, that some elected politicians in Canada owe their prime allegiance to a foreign power whose values are incompatible with Canada’s way of life.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
UNITED FRONT BACKGROUND
The CCP for decades has had a vast political warfare apparatus. United Front work expanded in 2012 and again in 2018, in Canada and throughout the world.
HUAWEI CFO MENG WANZHOU
Since Meng was arrested, Canadians are still learning how far China is willing to go to ensure its core strategy goes unchallenged. We also learned China has groups at its disposal in Vancouver it can call on to work when needed for its strategic aims and objectives.
LAWFARE
Again this year we saw examples of CCP United Front figures abusing Canada’s legal system in attempts to silence our media and politicians, and conceal their own un-Canadian behaviour.
MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Chinese-Canadians who exercised their right to free speech in defense of hard-won Canadian values face real threats and paid the price again this year. CCP mechanisms of media control are sophisticated, aggressive and effective and warrant greater scrutiny in 2019.
NEW SYSTEMS
As China restructures itself under Chairman Xi Jinping, so too do China’s proxy groups in Canada. This year we saw signs of CCP interference in groups that have been in Canada for decades, and new meta-groups that flaunt their connection to the CCP’s political warfare apparatus.
EDUCATION AND PROPAGANDA
In a year that saw Confucius Institutes close in several American states, operations in Metro Vancouver continue uninterrupted. We observed the emergence of a ‘Confucius Institute 2.0’ strategy, noting that it targets Canadian children with Communist propaganda.
2018 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
Vancouver had a vote-buying scandal in 2018, and nobody in ‘Chinatown’ would talk to police about it. On top of that, a CCP United Front group donated $26,000 to 8 favourable candidates.
CCP UNITED FRONT CONFERENCE IN VANCOUVER
With CCP United Front work happening all around, naturally we saw actors in this network cross borders and converge in Vancouver. It was an encouraging sign when 200 high-ranking officials were denied visa to join their counterparts in Vancouver this past summer.
WOKE TO A SILENT INVASION
Clive Hamilton’s book Silent Invasion was finally published despite CCP efforts to quash it. Evidence of CCP United Front political warfare efforts exists in abundance and Hamilton’s book is simultaneously distressing and motivating.
WANG DIANQI AND THE REUNIFICATION COUNCILS
At the core of CCP United Front strategy is the campaign to bring Taiwan under CCP control. Vancouver now has three groups devoted to this cause, with unacceptably close ties to Canadian politicians on our end and CCP United Front officials on the other.
PICKING CANADIAN FLOWERS TO MAKE COMMUNIST HONEY
A remarkable piece of research from Australia documented how People’s Liberation Army scientists conceal their backgrounds as they take part in treasured research in Canada and other Western countries — part of China’s forced transfer of tech and intellectual property. Several Canadian universities were named, and our media and government barely had a response.
CENTURY OF HUMILIATION CAMPAIGN
The CCP in recent years has built its legitimacy on nationalist patriotism, and at the centre of that is a narrative of victimhood and humiliation at the hands of foreigners. Now we are seeing this narrative erected in Canada, and very nearly in Parliament.
THE TED ZHOU AFFAIR
The CCP United Front effort strives to deliver the ‘Chinatown’ vote as part of its political warfare strategy, and to do so it needs both polished political operatives and Canadian candidates who don’t understand or care at what price those votes come.
RUSSIAN FOR BLIND SPOT
Hooplah around Russia is undoubtedly warranted, but must not distract us from slow-burn political interference with Canada that originates in Beijing.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
We’ve demonstrated that a larger and well-resourced force is working to bend Canadian will along its desired political, cultural and economic lines, and identified specific ways to mitigate this in 2019.
To preserve our identity and way of life, the general public needs to better understand what forces are at play. Responsibility for this falls to politicians, academics and media. Most of all, Canadians of Chinese descent must not be left vulnerable to CCP interference.
UNITED FRONT BACKGROUND
In the 1920s, the CCP developed a strategy of political warfare via the United Front, a CCP-controlled framework of organisations with Leninist overtones. This strategy was found to be successful during the civil war in China.
The war ended in 1949, but the United Front Work Department (UFWD) has kept the strategy in operation. Core components include: making allies in overseas Chinese communities, managing and buying off Chinese-language media, sidelining critics and courting foreign economic and political elites.
In 1989, having already abandoned class struggle, the CCP turned to patriotic nationalism — at home and overseas — to rebuild legitimacy after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) slaughtered thousands of students and Beijingers in and around Tiananmen Square.
The work was then to advance economic reforms and manage closer affairs in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. In 2012, new president Xi Jinping elevated the importance of the United Front’s work and in 2017 dramatically expanded the bureaucracy that oversees it.
Which brings us to 2018.
CCP efforts to penetrate and sway our Canadian democracy and society using the UFWD “magic weapon” ran hot this year, and the growing efforts of the United Front to achieve a range of political, economic and cultural goals are detailed below.
As nearly all of this happens within ‘Chinatown’, more use of Chinese-language sources is needed to grasp a fuller picture.
From New Zealand to Australia and the United States, the United Front strategy exploits vulnerabilities in society — too often when valid concerns are raised, for instance, the strategic response is to call it racism — and engages in coercive, covert and corrupt dealings in order to achieve Chinese Communist Party political goals.
Here in Canada, despite severe budget cuts and layoffs in recent years our media have done a good job in investigating United Front activities in Toronto and Vancouver. and overall public awareness of CCP interference operations and agendas continues to grow. That this report has a Vancouver bias is incidental, and not meant to minimise the extent of CCP United Front activity throughout Canada.
Notably, a flurry of research on the United Front Work Department was released this year in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, compiled for your reference at the end of this 2018 review.
In Canada, we saw the MacDonald-Laurier institutes release ‘The Hard Edge of Sharp Power: Understanding China’s Influence Operations Abroad’ and ‘China’s Influence Activities: What Canada can learn from Australia’. We also saw the Canadian Security Intelligence Service release their report ‘China and the Age of Strategic Rivalry’ that documents United Front interference in New Zealand and other Western countries.
Unlike Australia and New Zealand, however, academics in Canada have yet to make a major contribution to the growing body of CCP United Front literature, and from Ottawa to municipalities where United Front work is concentrated, political will to resist this interference remains to be seen.
In short: the CCP’s United Front declares its intention to carry out political warfare around the world. The evidence presented below shows this is underway in Canada, and little is being done about it.
Perhaps things will improve in 2019. In the meantime, we can expect CCP United Front workers in Canada and China to feel empowered to expand pursuit of their political, economic and cultural goals. As documented below, plenty of CCP United Front activity in Canada exists for us to continue to monitor.
HUAWEI CFO MENG WANZHOU
Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, needs no introduction, but with her arrest we can illustrate how, when China’s core strategy is challenged, the CCP is prepared to undermine Canadian institutions in a way it would not tolerate within its own system.
Shortly after Meng was detained, the CBC interviewed a group, the United Association of Women and Children in Canada (加拿大妇女儿童联合会) which, perhaps more accustomed to CCP arbitrary injustice than Canadian rule of law, put forward the straightforward request Meng be treated fairly.
Hong Guo, involved in the BC municipal election vote buying scandal mentioned below, is part of the group. Heading the Women and Children group is Han Dongmei (韩冬梅), a CCP United Front organiser in Vancouver from way back.
A group Han has led in the past, for instance, is the Canada China Chamber of Industry and Commerce Association (加拿大中国工商联合会), which has direct ties to the CCP United Front as well as the Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society, about which we also learn more below.
And then we discovered Han’s interest in interfering with BC politics:
China’s response to the arrest is perhaps unsurprising, but what we did learn and must emphasise is that when this incident slid into public view, China already had a significant network of operators in BC that it could call on to work for its aims and objectives. These operators prioritise the concerns of Beijing over the independent institutions of their host country.
Incidentally, also (successfully, it turned out) fighting proportional representation in British Columbia was a whole lineup of United Front figures [zh] from Metro Vancouver.
LAWFARE
Pan Miaofei is Canada’s highest-profile agent of influence doing work along United Front Work Department strategy lines. Most know Pan for hosting a fundraiser at his home for Justin Trudeau in late 2016 at which the Prime Minister was lobbied on various matters.
Others know of Pan because his West Vancouver heritage mansion mysteriously caught on fire late last year and sat exposed to weather for four months.
Pan really came to our attention, and prompted the entire effort that follows — tracking CCP United Front political warfare — when he filed a defamation lawsuit against Vancouver journalist Huang Hebian. Like many others, we saw this as an act of lawfare against a critic of the Chinese Communist Party — a trademark tactic of the United Front and its agents.
We saw something similar in 2016, when Ontario cabinet minister Michael Chan sued Globe and Mail publisher Phillip Crawley, editor-in-chief David Walmsley and reporter Craig Offman, for reporting the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had identified Chan as having “unusually close ties” to China, seeking $4.55 million in damages. Chan also sued Brock university professor Charles Burton for $50,000 over an editorial he wrote.
Chan later upped his demand to $4.85 million, and that same year threatened to sue MLA Jason Kenney, then a Conservative MP, for stating he personally saw Chan pumping his fist at a Chinese community event and shouting “long live the Motherland” in Mandarin.
Ted Jiancheng Zhou, about whom we learn more below, also made a legal threat [zh] early last month in response to accusations made on WeChat [zh] the previous month, which saw the author delete her post and issue a formal apology. Issues she raised were then reported in English by the Globe and Mail.
Liberal MP Geng Tan also demanded an apology and deletion after a Chinese-language article [zh] was published earlier this year summarising an English-language article regarding Tan’s actions on behalf of a close associate accused of serious fraud.
As a sign that the CCP is not the only voice of Chinese Canadians, instead of complying with the deletion order, the Chinese-language website put it to readers: should we delete? Of votes cast, 78.1% of readers said no, and the article remains online today.
As one would expect, in the Chan case the Globe and Mail has defended the accuracy of its reporting, and as of today a ruling has yet to be issued.
Although Huang eventually lost in the legal fight mentioned above, in her judgment Justice Neena Sharma dismissed Pan’s claim to $450,000 in damages and a permanent injunction against Huang, and in fact rebuked Pan as evasive, contemptuous and lacking credibility.
“I am disturbed by the plaintiff’s lack of candour with the court, manifested both in his testimony and his lack of document production in this litigation…the plaintiff demonstrated on a number of occasions throughout his testimony an attitude that he should not have to answer to the defendant, and indirectly to this court, about his business affairs”.
Following the fundraiser-lobby scandal, Pan has laid low but resurfaced in recent months. We expect to see more of him and United Front lawfare tactics in 2019.
MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Chinese-language media in Canada have long been under considerable pressure to toe the CCP line. Many newspapers are funded by the CCP’s Ministry of Propaganda, others see their advertisers threatened and cancelled when editorial stance strays, and journalists have been fired for crossing the invisible line.
Canadian journalist Huang Hebian, mentioned above, lost his columnist position after criticising Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for berating another Canadian journalist who asked Wang, in Ottawa, about human rights in China.
Last year, Raymond Lei Jin, former Global Chinese Press editor-in-chief, says he was fired after trying to publish an article about the death of a Chinese dissident.
In Toronto, former Chinese Canadian Post editor Helen Wang was also allegedly forced out of her position after the PRC consulate and pro-Beijing groups complained about a column she published critical of Michael Chan, whose lawfare activities are detailed above.
Do Chinese-language media workers enjoy the same Charter rights and freedoms as English- and French-language media? Evidently not, yet.
In 2014 a group of pro-Beijing Chinese-language media in North America and around the world were (briefly) united under the CCP-backed, Vancouver-based International New Media Cooperation Organization (国际新媒体合作组织). The methods of control have evolved, but the MOs have not and traces remain that fit the United Front profile. The address at which the International New Media Cooperation Organization was registered is also the registered address for the World Anti-Fascist War Memorial Site Cooperation Alliance and World Chinese Entrepreneurs Foundation, trademark CCP and United Front causes.
In May, a number of Canadian media attended the Third Overseas Chinese New Media Forum held in Hangzhou, a keynote speaker at which was the deputy director of the United Front Work Department himself, Tan Tianxing.
Canadian media at the forum were instructed on 2018 CCP propaganda and foreign influence techniques by executives from CCP overseas propaganda organ People’s Daily Overseas Edition and other high-level propaganda officials.
At the Forum, these Canadian media 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. [zh]
Canadian media at the Form included Canadian Mandarin Economics Television, China News Group, Red Maple News, Today Commercial News, and West Canada Weekly.
In August, unnamed Canadian media joined People’s Daily, Xinhua, CCTV and Chinese-language media journalists from 9 western countries on a United Front Potemkin tour of Tibet, as boasted by the CCP’s main propaganda outlet:
To top it off, in the closing months of 2018 we also saw media banned from events hosted by Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo and the CCP United Front-connected Canada China Business Council.
Professional spin was something new we saw in 2018.
In September we learned the PRC consulate in 2018 hired a lobbying firm to “promote various economic and cultural relations” between Canada and China. So far results are mixed — Solstice employee Karen Lin had a Twitter meltdown after being called out when a Toronto Star article she had published neglected to correctly identify her.
Lin went on to deny she works for the PRC and call Australian academic Kevin Carrico “fat and creepy”, unworthy of pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po’s time despite the obvious evidence to the contrary.
Days later, Lin was quoted [zh] by Radio Canada International’s Chinese-language service as saying Chinese-Canadian ‘community leaders’ must be vetted and approved by the CCP United Front Work Department, and suggesting that those not officially sanctioned are liars and frauds.
NEW SYSTEMS
Many United Front groups in Vancouver have been for around a decade. Some go back several decades and were only recently infiltrated by pro-CCP members.
Globally, for instance, the historic Hongmen/Freemasons is now an entirely new type of beast.
The “harmonious” Federation of Transoceanic Chinese Canadian Association (FTCCA), for instance, was formed this year by Toronto businesswoman Benny Cheung and a group of (pro-CCP) patriotic colleagues, with the mission to bring Canada and China closer together along the United Front’s three main lines of work: economically, culturally and politically.
The FTCCA’s logo, above, borrows from CCP United Front imagery, and the FTCCA website front page shows the group had official CCP United Front blessing before it even launched.
In late October when the FTCCA finally had its hard launch, not only were the PRC consulate in-house United Front attachés Yang Baohua (杨葆华) and Li Sining (李斯宁) and other PRC consulate officials there, but in the same room were Canadian politicians from all three levels of government.
Vancouver’s Wang Dianqi, who at the time of writing is simultaneously head of three CCP United Front groups in Vancouver — Canada Chinese Peaceful and Unification Association, Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, and the Canada China City Friendship Association — found it necessary this year to start a fourth group, the Chinese Cultural Harmony and Unity Society of Canada, whose declared purpose is to study and spread a specific facet of Xi Jinping thought (和合文化).
Shortly after the group launched in October, however, its mandate suddenly seemed to include trade negotiations and Wang — alongside former UBCM president Al Richmond — was off to China where he met with CCP United Front officials.
Back in October, when the new group’s purpose seemed more benign, there were already warning signs that we quickly picked up on, such as the participation of Hu Qiquan (胡启全), the PRC consulate general’s in-house CCP political warfare attaché.
In the quiet days leading up to Christmas, two new groups discreetly popped up. Minister of Citizens’ Services Jinny Sims gave the opening speech at the Canada-China New Era Cultural and Economic Development Association (加拿大中国新时代文化经贸促进会) launch party in Chinatown, attended by members of the Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society (CWFS), about which we’ll see more below.
Note the BC politicians in attendance, a similar United Front group in Toronto with names you’ll recognise, the connection to artist and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) United Front worker Shi Yanxi (石砚洗), and that the ‘new era’ referred to in this new group’s name began with Chairman Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in 2012 and the radical authoritarian policies he then introduced.
In Richmond last week, we saw the launch of the Canada Fujian Industry & Commerce Association (CFICA) and appointment of realtor and businesswoman Wendy Lin (林淑如) as chairwoman.
One question frequently raised in Chinese-speaking Canada is why there is a need for groups with seemingly overlapping purposes. To pick one example from many, Vancouver already has a Canadian Fujianese Friendship Association with firm CCP United Front links.
As another example, in September we also saw the launch of a Chinese-only Rotary Club. Burnaby city councillor James Wang, whose CCP United Front ties are well-documented, is the redundant new club’s charter president.
Wendy Lin (no relation to Grant) has previously served as head of a number of Metro Vancouver CCP United Front organisations. At the launch of her new group, MLA John Yap gave a speech and congratulated Lin on her important achievement.
EDUCATION AND PROPAGANDA
In Vancouver and around the world, Chinese Students and Scholars Associations work closely with the nearest PRC consulate and monitor the political views and statements of ethnic Chinese students. New research has found China’s ‘social credit system’ applies to PRC citizens living abroad, as well as to foreign businesses operating in China.
Although this year we learned that infamous CCP Confucius Institutes are shutting down in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Texas, ours at BCIT and Coquitlam’s School District №43 not only remain open but also made welcome.
Recently we discovered what appears to be a Confucius Institute 2.0 strategy of launching publishing houses attached to Confucius Institutes in various countries. Eight new ‘Nishan Book House’ operations were launched this year, including in Germany, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates.
The Nishan book series target children with CCP Department of Propaganda material, and we not only gained a Nishan House here in Vancouver this year but it was welcomed by several of our elected officials and CCP United Front workers alongside them.
2018 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
The Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society mentioned above made many headlines in the run-up to BC’s municipal elections this October when it was discovered they had donated $26,000 to candidates who fit their CCP United Front agenda, and allegedly offered members $20 and free transportation to go vote:
The RCMP were unable to lay charges as nobody stepped forward to provide proof votes were bought. Richmond councillor Chak Au claims he didn’t accept the money, but along with the other candidates in question provided no documents to prove it.
One of those CWFS-banked candidates, Wei Qiao Zhang, was soon after this dumped by his party with no clear explanation, and then in true CCP style photoshopped out of their Twitter banner image.
Another United Front scandal we saw during the election began with Chen Yongtao’s appearance at a Richmond Farmland Owners Association BBQ which “mistakenly” turned into a stealth fundraiser for a slate of pro-monster home candidates.
CCP UNITED FRONT CONFERENCE IN VANCOUVER
In April, we noticed the Party Secretary for a Guangdong province UFWD office had invited a prominent San Francisco agent of influence to a large United Front conference to be held in Vancouver in late May.
We looked into it, and discovered the PRC consul general to Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, had begun preparations for the conference in 2017.
In early May 2018, Vancouver United Front regulars MLAs George Chow and Teresa Wat, despite being political foes as far as English-speaking Canada is concerned, held a joint press conference to announce their attendance at the upcoming United Front conference with its stated mission of allegiance “to the motherland”.
As the conference approached, we saw Vancouver United Front group Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations travel to Beijing to meet with core CCP United Front group China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification and pledge to carry out CCP propaganda and other political warfare work back in Canada.
In May we also learned 200 people from China had been denied visas [zh] to attend the conference. Shortly after it wrapped up, we then learned those denied visas included dozens of high-ranking CCP United Front officials. While most of us applauded the move to keep Communist Party China political warfare officials out of Canada, in Parliament Vancouver MP Jenny Kwan declared the move “more than embarrassing” and complained through several official channels.
In the months that followed, we have seen MP Kwan’s talking points picked up by Chinese-language media, working with the assumption that the decision to deny senior CCP political warfare officials entry was based on racial and not security considerations. Far more often than not, the official identity of those denied visas conveniently goes unmentioned in Chinese-language reports.
The visa incident wasn’t enough to keep BC Premier John Horgan away from the CCP event, however, as well as MLA Wat and other BC politicians. Also in attendance was Vancouver Police Department Staff Sergeant Terry Yung, who sits on the Non-Partisan Association board and chairs the board of UF partner group S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
Shortly after the conference we learned that CCP Politburo member Wang Chen and other high-ranking CCP officials had recently travelled to Vancouver and dined privately with Lieutenant Governor Janet Austin and five BC cabinet members: Trade Minister Bruce Ralston, Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Carole James, Advanced Education Minister Melanie Mark, Minister of State for Trade George Chow, and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth.
As was noted at the time, this meeting was not made known until after the fact and a press release was not issued.
Then on July 11, co-chair of the United Front conference, Lam Siu Ngai, travelled to Guangzhou to report back on the event to United Front officials from the Guangdong Province Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. At that meeting, party secretary Li Jing passed on directives from the CCP Central Committee, and in return Lam promised to strengthen ties with the UFWD-linked Federation.
Nearly six months after the May conference, organisers David Choi, James Chu, Johnny Fong, Lam Siu Ngai and Hilbert Yiu reconvened at the Westin Bayshore for no other apparent purpose than to celebrate their success in building CCP influence in BC. Joining them were MLA Richard Lee, Catherine Yuen from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office and Richmond city councillor Chak Au.
WOKE TO A SILENT INVASION
Also this past March, Australian author and professor Clive Hamilton finally released his book Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia. The book was delayed as Hamilton’s original publisher, Allen & Unwin, cancelled publication as it feared retaliation from Beijing.
This reinforced the thesis of Hamilton’s book, which exhaustively examines instances of CCP influence in Australia. As a talking point, his critics insist no such evidence exists, despite all documentation to the contrary.
Some key points from Silent Invasion:
• The United States never had the kind of economic leverage over Australia that China has, nor made threats to damage us if we did not toe its line.
• Australia’s openness, relatively small population, large number of Chinese immigrants and commitment to multiculturalism have weakened our capacity to recognise and defend against this threat.
• Australians of Chinese heritage who are deeply worried about the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the million-strong diaspora in this country. They are worried about the coming backlash, when Anglo-Australians wake up to what is happening.
• China is using fake history to position itself to make a future claim over Australia.
• The Chinese have a whole section, the PLA’s Liaison Department, devoted to ‘planning and executing external influence’. Its effective motto is ‘make the foreign serve China’.
PICKING CANADIAN FLOWERS TO MAKE COMMUNIST HONEY
Alex Joske, Hamilton’s research assistant for Silent Invasion, published a paper of his own in October on People’s Liberation Army (PLA) scientists doing research in Western countries, often under false pretense.
In addition to specific research projects and the names involved, we learned Canadian tax dollars are funding stealth tech transfer to the PLA at UBC, SFU, McMaster, Waterloo, McGill, Polytechnique Montréal and the universities of Calgary and Toronto, and that the PLA maintains profiles of doctoral supervisors for its scientists to target.
As far as we could determine, the Globe and Mail was the only Canadian media outlet that reported on this report, in contrast to the wide coverage it received around the world.
WANG DIANQI AND THE REUNIFICATION COUNCILS
“All the Chinese United Front groups should be registered as agents of China including ‘Councils for the Promotion of peaceful Reunification of China’”
— Former PRC diplomat Chen Yonglin, 26 December, 2018
A growing number of countries have at least one China Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China, or an organisation of a similar name. These groups work directly under the United Front Work Department of the CCP Central Committee and their purpose is to build political support for the CCP’s mission to make Taiwan part of China, among other causes decided by the ‘motherland’.
Vancouver has two of these groups. The China Unification Promotion Council (CANADA) (加拿大中国统一促进会), formed in 1999, comprises Chinese Canadians with some history in Canada. The Canada Chinese Peaceful and Unification Association (加拿大中国（友好）和平统一促进会) was formed in 2013 to unite CCP supporters newer to Canada. In fact there’s a third, the North America China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (北美温哥华中国和平统一促进会), founded in 2016 by Lin Jueding (林决定) as more of a national-level structure.
The leaders of these Vancouver-based groups carry out their United Front work in a variety of ways, and this includes appearing to partner with our politicians. The current president of the newcomer group, Wang Dianqi (王典奇), for instance, is perhaps best known in English for arranging the PRC flag to be raised outside Vancouver city hall while our mayor wore Chinese Communist Party insignia. Wang has been particularly active in 2018, and we were able to document a lot of his work this year, included as an appendix below.
CENTURY OF HUMILIATION CAMPAIGN
Similarly, United Front-linked groups in Vancouver appeared to be part of a coordinated campaign to make the Chinese Communist Party’s nationalist propaganda (‘safeguard China’s territorial integrity (祖国和平统一保卫领土完整)’ ) around the Nanjing Massacre into an official day of commemoration in Canada when, this past August, they made the same call at the same time:
MP Jenny Kwan has been working with United Front groups in Vancouver and Toronto to make this happen, but so far she has not been successful.
Undeterred, Chinese state TV and various CCP political warfare groups assisted in fundraising earlier this year for the Toronto-based Nanjing Massacre Monument Foundation, which erected a memorial in Toronto earlier this month.
In Vancouver, Wang Dianqi and his CCP United Front associates held a ceremony of their own:
THE TED ZHOU AFFAIR
On November 13, Leader of the Official Opposition Andrew Scheer tweeted photos of himself at the inaugural gala of the Federation of Chinese Canadian Conservatives (FCCC) next to Senator Victor Oh in one photo, next to a ruddy-cheeked new face in others.
With him was Ted ‘Jiancheng’ Zhou (周建成), the ambitious businessman and political figure who immigrated to Canada in 2008, whom we briefly mentioned above.
On seeing Scheer’s tweet, we pulled together a few notes:
The Globe and Mail was first out the door in reporting on Zhou’s background, and properly explained his CCP United Front connection at the same time breaking the news that Zhou had set up 10 separate non-profit organisations for the apparent purpose to fundraise for the Conservative Party of Canada.
It didn’t escape our notice that while the federal Liberal and NDP parties zeroed in on campaign finance regulations, the CCP United Front connection for whatever reason was not raised.
Two more Globe and Mail articles followed:
RUSSIAN FOR BLIND SPOT
We hear a lot about Russian interference in US politics, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau notably called Putin out on it early this year. What we don’t hear a lot from Prime Minister Trudeau, however, is proportionate criticism of the CCP’s slow-burn interference activities around our elections and within our Chinese communities.
At Macleans, this past March Terry Glavin wrote:
Beijing’s vast and varied media organisations — newspapers, movie production companies, television stations, digital “news” networks — are all coming under one Communist Party roof. Another big change: a ramped up role for an expanded United Front Work Department, the shadowy agency that Xi calls his “magic weapon.”
It was the United Front Work Department that boasted in a document unearthed by a Financial Times investigation last October that 10 Beijing-friendly politicians in Canada had been elected to office in 2006 alone. In 2010, Richard Fadden, who was then director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency, was upbraided for merely pointing out that several Canadian politicians in Canada were Beijing-friendly to the point that they had fallen under “at least the general influence of a foreign government.”
CLOSING THOUGHTS
What’s documented above is a baseline for us to continue scrutinising CCP United Front activity in Canada in 2019. Media need more resources to investigate these kinds of stories, and our politicians need to face more repercussions when they involve themselves with a foreign authoritarian regime’s political warfare effort.
It is clear China has taken advantage of Canada’s system to work towards its strategic objectives. At this stage it’s difficult for us to identify significant harm to Canada, but it is important not to be naïve here — the CCP is setting up an infrastructure in Canada which is incompatible with our norms and has the potential to cause long term damage to our way of life.
Things we will look for in 2019 include:
• More public debate of CCP United Front political warfare activity in Canada — in media, academia, our school systems and in government.
• Full transparency of CCP United Front front organisations: what exactly they do, who controls them and the source of their funding. This is not about shutting them down, but rather enabling Canadian institutions and individuals to know who they are dealing with.
• Earlier, more robust public challenges to CCP interference in Canadian affairs when lines are crossed.
• When a robust challenge is made, our collectively wiser response to counter-accusations of meddling and racism.
• Greater understanding of the links between Canadian politicians and China, particularly when loyalties come into question. In particular, we need transparency on the financial and logistical support given to politicians by foreign governments and arms of foreign political parties.
• Incorporation of best practices and learnings developed in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. In particular, we need to have a debate about what it is to be an agent of a foreign government and how that is to be handled in an open and mature democracy.
• Zero tolerance of any attempts by China to gain or build influence over Canada’s Chinese diaspora that contravenes Canada’s laws. Canadians are not an internal Chinese matter.
• Zero tolerance of CCP efforts on Canadian soil to project its strategic hegemony in respect of relations with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and other regional neighbours.
As an example of where we can begin in 2019, let it be said that a provincial cabinet minister simply should not be allowed to meet freely with CCP United Front officials.
Most importantly, what cannot be stressed enough is that Chinese-Canadians need greater integration into Canadian society, culture and values. In the current state of ‘Chinatown’, the Chinese Communist Party essentially moves unrestricted, and alienation of Chinese newcomers and students only broadens CCP inroads.
— — — — — — — — — — — —
APPENDIX 1
In May, Wang Dianqi led a group to Beijing to discuss their ‘One-China’ work in Canada with CCP United Front official Sun Lingyan.
In June, we also saw a gathering of Peaceful Reunification Councils from around the world held in Panama. CCP United Front groups from Vancouver, Toronto and around the world flew in just to celebrate their global anti-Taiwan independence work, renew their commitment to the great rejuvenation of motherland China and its people, and pass a formal Declaration to carry out CCP policy/Chinese state sovereignty work back in their home countries.
An example of this was the successful global campaign to have Taiwan reimagined as part of China. We saw Air Canada begin to refer to Taiwan’s capital as “Taipei, CN”, Royal Bank of Canada designate Taiwan a “province of China” on outgoing wire transfers, and the Canada Border Services Agency refuse to explain how it came to adopt the CCP moniker “Chinese Taipei”.
Vancouver’s Wang Dianqi delivered a speech at the Panama gathering in June, calling on ethnic Chinese around the world to fight Taiwanese independence, and Toronto’s Junhua Ding, head of the aforementioned Canada China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification, gave a speech calling for all ethnic Chinese to speak with one voice (the CCP official narrative) on Taiwan’s future, fight the “clowns” behind Taiwan independence, and asserting that all those who stand in the way of the historic inevitability of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people will be crushed like bugs.
In September, Wang popped up again in Beijing at the 10th National Congress of Returned Overseas Chinese, where he sang the PRC national anthem Ode to the Motherland for Xi Jinping and Wang Qishan.
As happens at this Congress, “consultants” were appointed and sent back to their respective countries to carry out United Front political warfare work for the CCP. Wang Dianqi was one of these deputies; also among those from Canada were Vancouver’s Lily Pang (庞燕), Ottawa’s Deng Jiachang (邓家昌) and Zhao Bingchi (赵炳炽), Montreal’s Zhang Shigen (张仕根), Toronto’s Dr. Ming-Tat Cheung (張明達), Chen Fu (陈福) and Ou Yang Yuansheng (欧阳元森), and Edmonton’s Mei Hung (洪陈美兰).
On top of that, United Front Work Department head You Quan (尤权) released another list of his own, ideological agents sent back to Canada (and other vulnerable countries) with a formal mission (his words) to do “combat” for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, bring honour and enhance their usefulness to the (CCP) motherland, win more friends for the motherland, and act on behalf of Chairman Xi Jinping.
Note our friend Wang Dianqi is also on the list of You Quan’s Canadian agents:
• Alex Wang (王文康), Vancouver
• Jilin Wang (王吉林), Calgary
• Wang Dianqi (王典奇), Vancouver
• Wang Jiaming (王家明), Toronto
• Wen Weijian (文伟建), Calgary
• Dr. Xiaochun Chris Le (乐晓春), Edmonton
• Kuang Jianmin (邝健民), Edmonton
• Feng Rujie (冯汝洁), Vancouver
• Xu Jianlun (许健伦), Vancouver
• Sun Ruijuan (孙瑞娟), Montreal
• Li Jinghui (李景辉), Toronto
• Eric Xiao (肖楚强), Toronto
• Yu Zhuowen (余卓文), Toronto
• Shen Yi (沈毅), Toronto
• Thomas Chan (陈德光), Victoria
• Grant Lin (林广场), Vancouver
• Xingyong Lin (林性勇), Toronto
• Jeannie Cheng (郑小玲), Vancouver
• Duan Luwen Kevin, (段律文), Toronto
• Hilbert Yiu (姚崇英), Vancouver
• Jimmy Jia (贾明), Montreal
• Rudy Gao (高如东), Ottawa
• Guo Taicheng (郭泰诚), Vancouver
• Jin S. Xue (薛金生), Ottawa
In late September, we also saw the CCP United Front organisation China Overseas Exchange Association publish a list of its 60 domestic and 41 overseas member organisations, four of which are Canadian.
Lin Jueding, head of the North America China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification introduced above, is a radical pro-Beijing nationalist who (along with Pan Miaofei, James Chu, Ing Jun and Hilbert Yiu) has defended China’s territorial sovereignty on the streets of Vancouver. [zh]
This past October, Lin led a team from his United Front organisation to Guangzhou to meet with CCP United Front handlers, where among other things they made plans to indoctrinate Canadian youth with CCP patriotic ideology in the coming years.
A bit of research shows that such summer camps already exist in the United States, in which American children of ethnic Chinese descent are to ideology camps all across China run directly by the CCP United Front Work Department itself.
On November 1, the older of the two Vancouver ‘Councils’ mentioned above formally congratulated their mother organisation, the United Front Work Department’s own Beijing-based Council, on the 30th anniversary of its founding.
A lot of its sister organisations around the world did the same:
When the pro-Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost most local elections throughout Taiwan in November, many saw it as a success of United Front efforts in the preceding weeks to sway the election outcome:
The month before the election, president of Vancouver’s China Unification Promotion Council (CANADA), David Teng (滕达), assembled his members to review Taiwan talking points in pointed response to new US China trade policy:
• Taiwan is a pawn the US uses to contain China
• The US makes Taiwan anti-China
• The US sells Taiwan shoddy and outdated arms
• Taiwan sacrifices its own people as cannon fodder by siding with the US
• Taiwan must vote out the DAB in the upcoming election to save themselves
Immediately after the election, the Toronto-based Canada China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (加拿大中国和平统一促进会) abruptly declared that History is over, the DPP is annihilated, Taiwan independence is no more, and the people of Taiwan have spoken.
Bizarrely (or not), sister ‘Councils’ from around the world simultaneously made the same dramatic claims:
APPENDIX 2 — UNITED FRONT AGAINST THE UNITED FRONT
On Twitter, a community of writers, intellectuals, academics and journalists has formed to track and expose United Front interference activities where it occurs. This list is incomplete but is enough to get started. Any omissions are unintentional.
Alexander Bowe @boweconstrictr
Alex Joske @alexjoske
Anne-Marie Brady @Anne_MarieBrady
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian @BethanyAllenEbr
Bob Mackin @bobmackin
C.A. Yeung @WLYeung
Charles Burton @cburton001
Chen Yonglin @chen_yonglin
Craig Offman @Craigoffman
Daisy Xiong @xiong_daisy
Elsa Kania @EBKania
Geoff Wade @geoff_p_wade
Gerry Groot @zuoluogu
Graeme Wood @WestcoastWood
Jenny Peng @JennyPengNow
Jeremy Nuttall @Nuttallreports
Jichang Lulu @jichanglulu
Joanna Chiu @joannachiu
John Garnaut @jgarnaut
Kevin Carrico @kevincarrico
Mark Stokes @Stokes2049
Nadège Rolland @RollandNadege
Nathan Vanderklippe @nvanderklippe
Paul Macgregor @paulmacgregorCH
Peter Mattis @PLMattis
Rachael Burthon @RBurton_
Robert Fife @RobertFife
Russell Hsiao @lcrhsiao
Sam Cooper @scoopercooper
Steven Chase @stevenchase
Terry Glavin @TerryGlavin
Xiao Xu @xiaoxuyvr
APPENDIX 3 — READINGS FOR FURTHER STUDY
China and the Age of Strategic Rivalry, CSIS
Australia’s China reset, John Garnaut
China: magic weapons and “plausible deniability”, Graeme Smith
China Has a Vast Influence Machine, and You Don’t Even Know It, Yi-Zheng Lian
Understanding the Role of Chambers of Commerce and Industry Associations in United Front Work, Gerry Groot
China’s Political Influence Activities: A Conversation with Anne-Marie Brady, ChinaPower Podcast
China’s cosmological Communism: a challenge to liberal democracies, Didi Kirsten Tatlow
Magic Weapons: China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping, Anne-Marie Brady
Chinese Influence Operations in the Democratic World, Jonas Parello-Plesner and Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
New Zealand politics: foreign donations and political influence, Simon Chapple
Picking flowers, making honey: The Chinese military’s collaboration with foreign universities, Alex Joske
The Hard Edge of Sharp Power: Understanding China’s Influence Operations Abroad, J. Michael Cole
China’s Influence Activities: What Canada can learn from Australia, Clive Hamilton
Controlling Foreign Influence in Canadian Elections, Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs
China threatens the democratic world order — and Canada can’t be a weak link, J. Michael Cole
Spotting China’s Influence Operations, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Carnegie Council
Canada’s media is in thrall to China, Terry Glavin
My Name is Wu. James Wu., Jichang Lulu
A new Comintern for the New Era: The CCP International Department from Bucharest to Reykjavík, Jichang Lulu and Martin Hála
The People’s Liberation Army General Political Department: Political Warfare with Chinese Characteristics, Mark Stokes
How Democracies Can Fight Authoritarian Sharp Power, Christopher Walker, Shanthi Kalathil, and Jessica Ludwig
Manipulation, Chinese style, Bilahari Kausikan
China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States, Alexander Bowe
A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence and Interference Activities in American Higher Education, Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic
Countering Comprehensive Coercion: Competitive Strategies Against Authoritarian Political Warfare, Thomas G. Mahnken, Ross Babbage and Toshi Yoshihara
Advisory Report on the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2017, Commonwealth of Australia
Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018, Commonwealth of Australia
Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, Commonwealth of Australia
Foreign Influence Transparency Act, United States of America
An American Lens on China’s Interference and Influence-Building Abroad, Peter Mattis
U.S. Responses to China’s Foreign Influence Operations, Peter Mattis
The Interference Operations from Putin’s Kremlin and Xi’s Communist Party: Forging a Joint Response, Laura Rosenberger and John Garnaut
The Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Interference Operations: How the U.S. and Other Democracies Should Respond, Jonas Parello-Plesner
Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance, Larry Diamond
Authoritarian advance: Responding to China’s growing political influence in Europe, Thorsten Benner, Jan Weidenfeld, Mareike Ohlberg, Lucrezia Poggetti and Kristin Shi-Kupfer
What We Talk About When We Talk About Chinese Communist Party Interference in the Public Square, Peter Mattis
China Defense & Security Conference — Panel 3: The United Front and CCP Overseas Influence, Jamestown Foundation
