New Electoral Interference for China: This Time in Canada

Nuha Yousef | a year ago

12

Print

Share

Last November, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned of China’s interference in the Canadian elections, but right now he is under attack for being backed by China in the last elections.

Trudeau’s recent comments followed a report by local broadcaster Global News that Beijing had “funded a clandestine network of candidates” in a recent election.

More recently, last week, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly warned her Chinese counterpart that foreign influence in Canadian domestic affairs would not be accepted, amid calls for a wide public probe into China’s suspected meddling in the last two elections.

According to Global News, which cited anonymous sources, Canadian security agencies advised Trudeau’s cabinet that “China seeks to influence or sabotage the country’s democratic process.”

 

Interference Reports

This discussion occurred only after a flurry of criticism triggered by recent revelations in the Canadian media in February, which reported intelligence sources confirming the existence of Beijing-led efforts to meddle in the recent Canadian elections.

Trudeau and security officials would not affirm the accusations, but they did recognize the existence of Chinese intervention attempts and insisted that they had no effect on the election outcome.

The Global and Mail newspaper published a report saying that China used a sophisticated strategy to undermine Canada’s democracy during the 2021 federal election campaign.

Chinese diplomats and proxies supported Justin Trudeau’s Liberals’ re-election—but only to another minority government—and worked to defeat Conservative politicians seen as unfriendly to Beijing.

The entire scope of the Chinese interference effort is revealed in papers obtained by The Globe and Mail from the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency (CSIS).

These documents cover in detail the time period before and after the September 2021 election that the Liberals won.

The website’s report claimed that the Chinese Communist Party transferred funds through an Ontario lawmaker and others to at least 11 election candidates, as well as Chinese agents who were active in their election campaigns.

“Sympathetic donors were also encouraged to provide campaign contributions to candidates favored by China,” the report said.

The CSIS findings were shared with top government officials as well as Canada’s Five Eyes intelligence partners, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

 

Candidates and Elections

The entire scope of the Chinese interference effort is revealed in papers obtained by The Globe and Mail from the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency that cover the time before and after the September 2021 election that restored the Liberals to power.

The documents, gleaned from a series of CSIS intelligence-gathering operations, show how an orchestrated machine was operating in Canada with two primary goals in mind: to ensure the return of a minority Liberal government in 2021 and the defeat of certain Conservative candidates identified by China.

According to the confidential files, China’s previous consul-general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, boasted in 2021 about how she assisted in the loss of two MPs.

Despite being considered China’s optimum candidate to govern Canada, Beijing also wanted to make sure that Trudeau had a fairly power-balanced authority, favoring a Liberal minority in Parliament as the ideal outcome.

One consular official at an unnamed Chinese diplomatic mission in Canada stated in early July 2021, eight weeks before election day, that Beijing “likes it when the parties in Parliament are fighting with each other, whereas if there is a majority, the party in power can easily implement policies that do not favor the PRC.”

While the Chinese envoy was disappointed that the Liberals had recently turned critical of China, the official said that the party was superior to the alternatives.

After December 2018, when Beijing detained two Canadians in apparent retribution for Ottawa’s arrest of a Chinese Huawei executive on an extradition request from the U.S., Canada–China ties reached their lowest rate since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

 

Rising Tensions

The public condemnation of Chinese interference led to rising tensions between the two countries, affecting the economic sector as well.

Last November, the Government of Canada instructed three Chinese companies to divest from Canadian companies engaged in the extraction of important minerals, particularly lithium, on national security pretexts.

Beijing protested Ottawa’s restrictions on three Chinese companies’ investment in lithium mining in Canada.

Companies requested to divest include Sinomine Hong Kong Rare Metals Resources Co. Ltd., Chengze Lithium International Limited, and Zangge Mining Investment Co. Ltd.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman said his country firmly opposes Canada’s measures that “disrupt normal trade cooperation between Chinese and Canadian companies and obstruct it under the pretext of safeguarding national security.”

Previously, in 2018, Huawei’s director was arrested in Canadian lands. These latest allegations have thus added to their tension.

Earlier this month, on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie told her Chinese counterpart that “Canada will never tolerate any form of foreign interference in our democracy and internal affairs by China.”

Just this week, Canada prohibited the use of the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on government-issued smartphones earlier this week, citing privacy and security concerns.

Over the last month, a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down over the United States and Canada.

But another kind of fiercer response came from the Canadian opposition, as they attacked Trudeau and accused him of conspiring with China.

Canadian opposition parties increased their call for a thorough public probe into the suspected foreign election meddling,

In response, Trudeau rejected that his office was advised by Canada’s intelligence agency to remove a Chinese Canadian candidate in 2019 due to his links to Beijing.

The largest opposition party in Canada has asked for an independent and public inquiry to be chaired by a commissioner chosen with the unanimous approval of all federal parties in Parliament.

“We want to know exactly what the Chinese authoritarian government did, and whether there were political parties aware of those actions or not,” Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters in Ottawa.

It is also a demand made by the New Democrats, which supports the Liberal minority government, whose parliamentary bloc has proposed a “public investigation” into allegations of Chinese interference. Trudeau refused to accede to these demands before preferring to appoint a rapporteur to look into the matter.

At the popular level, recent polls have revealed that two out of three Canadians believe Beijing has actually interfered in the electoral process and are therefore expecting a strong response from the prime minister.