Canada-China Relations Committee on Aug. 17th, 2020

[Stéphane Chatigny]

Thank you for the question.

Actually, I believe that the allies can succeed in changing China if they coordinate their efforts. The point I wanted to make is that we must keep China from changing us. That is one of the premises of my message.

Now, are we still able to change China? If we want to, we must stop being naive. As long as we remain naive, we will not change China.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Williamson.

Mr. Oliphant, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Before I follow up on Mr. Williamson's questions, which I thought were really very fine questions, there are just a couple of quick things.

Ms. Hom, I would appreciate something in writing from you with respect to some of your legal analysis: the translation issues, etc. If you would be willing to do that, the committee could really benefit from your legal mind on this. It's something a bit different; we've had some generic comments on the law, but you were getting specific and we don't have time here to do that. I want to make that request through the chair.

Mr. Chatigny, again, I would like to plumb the depths of your immigration knowledge. If you have some specific immigration suggestions for us, vis-à-vis this new context with Hong Kong, I think we'd very much appreciate your expertise at the committee. If you're willing to give us anything in writing, even a letter, of some of your key points on immigration, that could be helpful for us.

Following up on Mr. Williamson's very good questions, the other half of the goose with the golden eggs was that we are challenged to find a way that strongly condemns the actions of Beijing on Hong Kong. We have to find a way to do that with impact, yet we've heard before today that the impact obviously needs to be targeted and can't hurt the people of Hong Kong. Professor Ong, this morning, suggested that if in fact we went too far on that, we could actually ruin Hong Kong's advantages for Beijing to want to keep it successful.

I would like your comments on that, Ms. Hom, and maybe Mr. Kaeding's as well, if we could do that.

[Sharon Hom]

Thank you.

On July 5, Human Rights in China released a bilingual, annotated version with initial comments on the law, and we can send you that. We are now preparing an updated annotation on surfacing all of the translation problems, with comments. We'll be happy to send you that as well, because we think the devil is in the details. Particularly if you're being prosecuted under the law, the high-level stuff is not going to help, and as policy-makers you really need to get into the weeds.

Second, on the response of targeted sanctions, it is important that you know that when we say “targeted”.... One thing on Magnitsky-type sanctions is that Hong Kong groups, Hong Kong people and Hong Kong researchers have created massive databases and issued reports that have named individuals, in particular including the United Front, which was kind of more shadowy in the last five years. I would urge the committee to look at some of those reports. We can send you some citations, but the annex is very interesting, because individuals are listed.

When we think of targeted sanctions, they should be targeting individuals who have taken both a leadership role and the lead role in implementing the propaganda, in implementing the pressure, the intimidation, the surveillance of Canadians and of ethnic Chinese, not just in Canada. We know what that has been. This is not a new phenomenon for us, or for myself personally. I think that would be helpful—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I'm just going to cut you off there. Thank you.

Mr. Kaeding, you can comment on that as well if you like. I have a good answer, but I have another question for you as well. If you could be short, do you have any comments on that one?

[Dr. Malte Philipp Kaeding]

Just very briefly, I completely agree with Professor Hom that individual, targeted, wide-reaching...so the more people, the better. I disagree with Professor Ong that this will be detrimental to Hong Kong's economy.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Based on what evidence?

[Dr. Malte Philipp Kaeding]

That it's exactly what the movement is trying to achieve. We will not target normal banking operations; we will target red capital, which is the United Front people.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Sure. Thank you.

The main question I have for you is this: How homogenous is the movement in Hong Kong that you have talked about as localism? When I have looked at the world, in any kind of movement around anything there are usually people with different goals, but they coalesce around a movement to get their different goals. How homogenous is the Hong Kong movement, and what are the divisions?

[Dr. Malte Philipp Kaeding]

Very briefly, the localist movement is one part of the anti-extradition movement. I tried to say that it has inspired a large part of last year's movement, but the localist movement is not the same. Inside the localist movement, you have a spectrum of people: people wanting a referendum, people wanting independence, some people just wanting to go back 10 years. The movement last year was surprisingly homogeneous on the key main goals, these five demands we have heard quite a lot about.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Very good.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Oliphant.

Mr. Bergeron now has the floor for six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank the witnesses for once again providing extremely topical insight to inform our reflections on the current situation in China, particularly in Hong Kong.

I would like to give Mr. Chatigny some time to share his extensive experience in immigration matters.

After the events in Tiananmen Square, Canada worked to encourage activists to leave. We are now facing a number of hurdles. The first one is obviously the current pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, Canada has suspended most of its operations related to visas, settlement and so on. I would say that the second hurdle is the fact that the Chinese authorities are threatening to prevent activists from leaving. The third possible hurdle is that not everyone in Hong Kong will necessarily be able to afford to leave the area and come to Canada.

Based on your experience, through our committee, what would you recommend the Canadian government do to make it possible for activists to leave, given the various obstacles?

[Stéphane Chatigny]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Bergeron.

As I said in my presentation, my immigration expertise is primarily focused on the Quebec government's immigrant investor program.

With respect to the first obstacle, that is, the pandemic that has put all immigration programs on hold for the time being, that is in fact the case for all programs. So I don't have any specific recommendations to make on that.

When it comes to immigration, I believe that the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has a great deal of expertise. In my opinion, the main recommendation is to act swiftly and address this issue immediately.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chatigny.

I would like to go back to Mr. Kaeding's comments about what led the Chinese government to intervene in Hong Kong with the national security law. Apparently it was motivated by fear on a number of levels, including fear of the independence movement. However, I understand from what you said that the Chinese government's intervention made people, especially young people, more firm in their resolve to gain independence.

Did I understand your remarks correctly?

[Dr. Malte Philipp Kaeding]

Thank you so much for the question.

Yes, exactly, this is my main argument, that because of the ongoing suppression, going on for a couple of years now, the localist movement created the idea of independence as a hope to cling on to, as a psychological coping mechanism. More pressure now, through the national security law clampdown last year, will only fuel this independence movement.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I have to admit that I found what you said extremely refreshing. In fact, we often face the challenge of China being the emerging superpower and we cannot do much to force the Chinese government's hand. However, you identified the fundamental element: fear. With fear comes vulnerability, which, I believe, provides a way in for us.

I have one last question for you. You mentioned a survey that I found interesting. It showed that a lot of Hongkongers identify more with Hong Kong than China. That struck me, given that Hongkongers share a longstanding cultural heritage and history.

How would you explain the fact that many Hongkongers no longer feel Chinese?

[Dr. Malte Philipp Kaeding]

Yes, we can see that over time the Hong Kong identity has been rising, especially in these times when the pressures are felt more. Among young people, over 80% now completely identify as Hong Kongers, not Chinese at all. They even try to ethnically distance themselves.

There is often the idea that their core values are very, very different from those of mainland China. As you said, there's a different language, which is very important, a different historical experience and a different lifestyle. These all come together to create this Hong Kong identity. A lot of young people have this memory, through their parents, and now this has all been destroyed by the Chinese influence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Harris, you have six minutes, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the three witnesses for giving us this very penetrating and significant analysis.

I will start with you, Mr. Chatigny. You mentioned that you assisted over 2,000 business immigrants to come into Canada through Quebec and their program. Can I ask you whether or not their entry into Canada was part of, or was seen by them as part of, China's expansion throughout the world business-wise, or would they see that as an individual step for themselves? I'm sure it's an individual question, but is there a general trend there? Is this part of China's strategy of increasing its business interests elsewhere?

[Stéphane Chatigny]

No. I rarely had the impression that Chinese businesspeople were immigrating to Canada as part of an economic expansion strategy or philosophy. Most of the time, it's simply a matter of bringing their family members here and getting their children into the best schools and universities in the world. Canada is certainly an excellent product in that respect, in the eyes of the immigration industry.

As you probably know, the wife and children usually come to Canada, while the applicant stays in China to continue running their business there.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you. That answered my question.

We are looking at Hong Kong, the role of Hong Kong, and the 30 years during which China expanded rapidly to become a significant power. Obviously, to some extent that was dependent upon the finances raised in Hong Kong. Do you have a comment on whether that would change now? Is it needed, given the already rapid expansion that we have? Is China less dependent on Hong Kong and the finances there?

[Stéphane Chatigny]

Thank you for the question.

With regard to Hong Kong's economic ties with China, I do have some data. First of all, 70% of initial public offerings on the stock exchange still come from Chinese companies. In addition, the import-export business between Hong Kong and China is now down to around 5%. If memory serves, it was 29% a few years ago. So it has gone down considerably.

The immigrant investor program has very few applicants from Hong Kong, but that will likely change in the coming years.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Professor Hom, I was interested in your question regarding what Hong Kongers want versus what we want. You may have mis-characterized my suggestion. What we want to see is the rule of law playing a more important role, hopefully, in Canada's relation to the world. That would obviously include human rights to the strongest possible degree.

In terms of the list of things that people are campaigning for—universal suffrage, the five demands, the local government aspect, the legislative demands, freedom and all those things—they're all part of the same, as I see it. Are you suggesting that we ought to find specific things on the agenda and look for ways to support them?