Evidence of meeting #23 for Canada-China Relations in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Carolyn Bartholomew  Chairman, United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Marie-France Lafleur
Michel Juneau-Katsuya  Expert in National Security and Intelligence, As an Individual
Anne-Marie Brady  Professor, University of Canterbury, As an Individual
Steve Waterhouse  Captain (ret'd), Former Information Systems Security Officer, Department of National Defence and Cybersecurity Specialist, As an Individual
Christian Leuprecht  Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual

7:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

Thank you very much, Mr. Juneau-Katsuya.

Now we have Ms. Brady.

By the way, before I ask you to start, if you happen to know your colleague Therese Arseneau, please say hello for me.

We'll go over to you for five minutes, please.

7:40 p.m.

Anne-Marie Brady Professor, University of Canterbury, As an Individual

Tena koutou katoa.

Warm Pacific greetings from Tahuna, the traditional land of Ngai Tahu.

I'm going to give you a very short overview of the geopolitical context to China's political interference activities, which get called “united front work“. They can also be known as “grey zone” or “political warfare”.

I'm encouraging you to start calling them China's active measures, because when we talked about the Soviet Union's active measures, we understood that they included intelligence operations. They included united front work, which is a basic Soviet technique; it's not just unique to China. They included disinformation. They targeted the elite and they targeted diaspora dissident groups. Often when we talk about united front work, we can't really make sense of it, because we don't have an equivalent, but if we understand that what is going on is China's active measures, I think it will be very helpful.

Also, we're used to talking about the party-state system in China. I urge you to think about the party-state-military-market nexus to better understand those intertwined relationships, such as those with Huawei or in the ways that universities are doing the work of the PLA to access sensitive technology.

I'll go on to the backdrop. I have sent my PowerPoint presentation that I wanted to talk to. You are going to look at it later, and I understand it can't be seen because of your broadcasting.

7:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

Ms. Brady, I'm sorry to interrupt you, and I'm just pausing the time for a moment. I've been asked to ask you to hold your microphone. Of course the challenge for us is that we have interpreters to interpret for those members who are francophones.

Thank you so much.

7:45 p.m.

Professor, University of Canterbury, As an Individual

Anne-Marie Brady

I understand. I'm in a hotel room with very limited facilities. My apologies.

On the geopolitical backdrop, I've sent you some maps to look at. One of them is the new official map, the vertical world map. It's a China-centred world. It is a literal reorientation, the thinking behind China's very aggressive foreign policy, which Xi Jinping has inherited. He didn't invent it. The thinking behind it started in the 1980s and could even go back to 1949, but the change in direction came in the 1980s, and there will be some names you might be familiar with. Alfred Mahan talked about what a rising power needs to become influential. One is developing a blue-water navy and protecting sea lanes of communication, because China is obsessed about choke points.

Another is Halford Mackinder, the founding figure of modern geopolitics.

U.S. Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles are third influence. They talked about two concepts that are very important to what's happening now. One of them is the idea of the island chain—the first, second and third island chains—which form the basis of theories of hub-and-spoke defence pacts that link the United States with allies like New Zealand, Korea and Japan. The second concept is peaceful evolution. This is the idea that Communism would be undermined in the eastern bloc by greater contact with the outside world, with the western world, through culture, education and so on. The CCP has been very influenced by that thinking, and under Xi Jinping we're seeing not just a defensive response but a very aggressive response, because China believes the west is weak and divided.

These are the four vectors of CCP active measures, as I've preferred to use this term, that you can look for and find in Canada as elsewhere. One is efforts to control the overseas Chinese communities and their media in our society and use them as agents of Chinese foreign policy, and also sometimes for espionage. Number two is “elite catcher”, targeting our political and economic elites; three is a global information strategy to try to control the international narrative about topics China is interested in; four is the belt and road Initiative, which is a military-political-economic block.

You can see how political interference fits within China's much more aggressive foreign policy as a tool of that foreign policy. It's a means to achieve China's goals without military force; to weaken opposition to China's objectives; to establish client or asset relationships with the elite, and even to establish collaborators within our elite; to access sensitive information and technology—in other words, espionage; to control the diaspora discourse; and to control the international discourse on issues of interest to China.

If you wish, I can talk later about a resilient strategy, but that's enough for an overview.

Thank you very much for your attention.

7:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

Thank you, Ms. Brady.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you now have the floor for six minutes.

7:45 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening to the two witnesses.

Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, you have recently commented on the ties between the leadership of CanSino Biologics and the Chinese government with respect to the thousand talents plan.

I asked Dr. Halperin from Dalhousie University about this and he expressed no concerns about those ties.

I also asked Iain Stewart, president of the National Research Council of Canada. He responded that CanSino Biologics was a private company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and that he did not really see a problem.

In your opinion, are the senior officials of our agencies wilfully blind? Are they not rather misinformed by the national security agencies about the relationships with CanSino Biologics?

7:50 p.m.

Expert in National Security and Intelligence, As an Individual

Michel Juneau-Katsuya

They are very poorly informed by the national security agencies.

Unfortunately, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has had a policy for a number of years of providing as little information as possible to Canadian companies. This is our biggest failing. It is our greatest weakness, and it is self-imposed.

I agree with all of Ms. Brady's comments today. When it comes to espionage, prevention is the one and only way to defend ourselves. Once the fox is in the henhouse, it is too late.

The Security Intelligence Review Committee also made a bad decision at one point when it chastised CSIS for trying to make Canadian companies more aware. The committee is also misguided, in my view.

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

On that note, I'd like us to talk about Huawei and university funding.

We learned in the Journal de Montréal that Huawei donated $3.9 million to the computer science department of the University of Montreal and $5.4 million to McGill University. The former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, has raised some concerns about this.

What do you think about this company funding our universities?

7:50 p.m.

Expert in National Security and Intelligence, As an Individual

Michel Juneau-Katsuya

I think he is absolutely right to be concerned. In the mid-1990s, my unit published a report on project Sidewinder; we examined the influence exerted by Chinese companies, specifically through diplomatic channels. For instance, Elections Canada reporting revealed that the Chinese embassy had given money to all the political parties during the election campaign, in clear contravention of the Canada Elections Act.

The Chinese government's ploy is to gain influence, either by buying goodwill or by recruiting people to become agents of influence. Stalin had a name for people like that: useful idiots. China wants to acquire a lot more influence with politicians, as well as academic and business leaders, so it can influence our country's political and trade destiny.

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

You have said in the past that all Chinese foreign national associations in Canada were infiltrated by the Chinese secret service. Can you give us more details on that?

Does the RCMP have the capacity to deal with complaints made by Canadians who are being harassed by China?

7:50 p.m.

Expert in National Security and Intelligence, As an Individual

Michel Juneau-Katsuya

The RCMP does not necessarily have the resources and expertise required when it comes to the various influence- and harassment-based activities China engages in. Bear in mind that suppressing dissent, especially controlling what is said outside the country, is of capital importance to the Chinese central government—hence the efforts by agents at the United Front Work Department to penetrate and infiltrate the organizations you mentioned.

Since we're talking about infiltration, you may be interested in a Global News report by journalist Sam Cooper. It's an excellent piece in which he reveals the extent to which the Chinese government used diplomatic channels and agents that had infiltrated diaspora associations, before the global pandemic was declared, to acquire 2.5 billion pieces of protective equipment around the world and send them back to China in preparation for the pandemic. That was well before we knew we would be confronted with a pandemic. That gives you a sense of the long reach China has successfully built over the years and its great capacity to mobilize its diaspora.

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

For the benefit of the committee, I would like to point out that the Prime Minister received 45 cheques, each in the amount of $1,500, from Chinese people in Vancouver. That is another way to exert influence.

My last question is for Ms. Brady.

Ms. Brady, you said that Canada should be concerned about China's nuclear submarine and icebreaker plans. You said that, if Chinese submarines equipped with nuclear weapons could move about the Arctic Ocean undetected, it would change the nuclear balance between China and the United States.

Talk, if you would, about China's presence on Canadian soil.

7:55 p.m.

Professor, University of Canterbury, As an Individual

Anne-Marie Brady

That's a big question to answer, but I think the passion we've seen is similar to what I have documented in my paper, “Magic Weapons: China's political influence activities under Xi Jinping”, that was put up on the website of Wilson Center.

I used the template in that paper to look at a number of other countries, ranging from Albania to Iceland to Japan to many nations in the Pacific, and I have also been following the conversations about the influence in Canada.

I would say that we find the same passion, but each society is a bit different. As with a block of limestone, Russia and China will find the cracks.

7:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Now we'll go to Mr. Fragiskatos for six minutes.

7:55 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON

Thank you, Chair; and thank you to the witnesses.

Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, could I begin with you?

In listening to your presentation and reading your articles that have been cited in the media in recent years, I see what you basically describe as an asymmetrical security relationship. You talk about the fact that, if I can use the metaphor, democracies basically have a hand tied behind their backs because they are limited in what they can do because of the rule of law and because we subscribe to certain norms.

Taking that into account, what can democracies like Canada do to ensure that we are protected and that our system of ensuring national security at various levels is protected against threats posed by authoritarian regimes like China's government?

7:55 p.m.

Expert in National Security and Intelligence, As an Individual

Michel Juneau-Katsuya

I totally agree that we are in a disbalanced situation. We are not fighting equally.

One of the reasons for this situation is that we must return to the ballot every five years, while there is a perennity with the Chinese government. They know that they don't have to change their course of action. The next government will not necessarily have different priorities; they will simply continue.

Their planning, when it comes to strategic planning, as has been said in the past by their own officials, is not planned over years; it's planned on generations. They are planting seeds today that they will be capable of harvesting later on because of this capacity to go on forever.

What can we do in that perspective? Ask for reciprocity. Ask for more balance between what they offer to us and what we offer to them.

I will give you an example. A few years ago we sold the Nexen company to a Chinese government-led company for $15 billion. Try to buy a corner store in China if you can. I challenge you to be capable to even do such a thing. We won't be able to do it.

When you have an energy company led by government officials who are capable of setting foot in a province like Alberta, if they need to call the premier, they will do it directly. I am a Canadian; if I call the premier in Alberta, I'll probably be put on hold forever.

In that perspective, it's that disbalance we are talking about that exists, which we must correct ourselves.

7:55 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON

Thank you very much.

Before I turn to Ms. Brady, I think it's also encouraging that under this government, at least, we've seen investment in federal policing specifically in the area of national security capabilities, but your points, Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, are very well taken.

Professor Brady, thank you again, for participating all the way from New Zealand. That's very kind of you to take part in tonight's meeting.

I want to ask you a very straightforward and blunt question. In terms of lessons learned from New Zealand's experience with respect to Chinese efforts at social, political and economic influence, what are one or two that you would point to that Canada can look to and seek to implement here?

7:55 p.m.

Professor, University of Canterbury, As an Individual

Anne-Marie Brady

I have recently written a paper assessing, over the last four years, changes that New Zealand has made since this topic of China's political interference has come into our public conversation.

What we have seen that has been effective is the public conversation, a series of of inquiries into our Parliament having these conversations, and that led to passing new legislation looking at the weak spots within our society.

I'd really highlight the legislation, because in some sectors there is a real tendency to say that we can fix it and that we don't want legislation because we don't want to offend China.

I will highlight that typically the universities don't want to have some kind of foreign FARA legislation, like the U.S. has, but we need these kinds of things. We need both legislation and the conversation about that sunlight being the best disinfectant, as they say, and we also need public awareness. If the public knows what is going on, they can also make good choices in their interactions.

The problem we have had is that our Minister for National Security has barely talked about the issues at all. That is our Prime Minister. You have to take the lead from the very top.

We also saw what happened to Australia, about how they started the debate first of all, and the bluntness with which it was raised perhaps was difficult.

What I would say is that you have the public conversation in Parliament, which is really important, because you have Hansard to protect people. Parliamentary privilege protects people in saying things that could be difficult outside Parliament. Then there's the media understanding the seriousness of the issue and legislation that will properly deal with the weak spots that China is exploiting.

8 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON

Thank you very much.

I think I have 20 seconds left, so I won't ask you another question, but at some point in your testimony I wonder if you could comment on how to guard against any consequent rise in anti-Chinese racism or hate incidents. If a government recognizes China as a threat—and certainly I take all your points here very seriously—my worry is that we would see a consequent rise in anti-Asian hate in Canada. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

8 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos. We'll have to wait for that.

Mr. Bergeron, it is your turn. You have six minutes.

8 p.m.

Bloc

Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again to the witnesses for their fascinating and extremely relevant insight.

Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, in my many years in Canada's Parliament, I have seen the Canadian way at work: francophone witnesses speak in both official languages, while anglophone witnesses speak in English. You have proven the rule this evening. Thank you for your insight.

In your book, Nest of Spies: The Startling Truth About Foreign Agents at Work Within Canada's Borders, you talk about the creation of front companies, businesses whose sole purpose is to gather information for the Chinese government.

Can you give us any examples of these companies in Canada?

8 p.m.

Expert in National Security and Intelligence, As an Individual

Michel Juneau-Katsuya

Many companies were created, especially in the 1990s, before Hong Kong's handover to mainland China in 1997. Many of them were front companies that came here to gather information. They expressed a desire to work with Canadian companies, but once they had obtained the information they were looking for, they would disappear.

Similarly, another witness talked about the Confucius Institute and its branches, which are doing exactly the same thing right now. They are essentially spy satellites sent out by China. In fact, the head of the Confucius Institute in New Brunswick was asked to leave Canada after engaging in activities that looked a lot more like espionage.

I, myself, recall investigating a case where, once again in New Brunswick, a previous director had asked a provincial government employee for an official email address for himself, so he could access provincial government information. That would have been a gateway to all of the provincial government's information, and that's not the only example I could give you.

Numerous incidents around the world are raising doubts about organizations like the Confucius Institute and companies that come to steal technology and information. In some cases, they also work with Chinese organized crime. When we see incidents where the Chinese government is to some extent colluding with organized criminals to carry out certain activities, it's especially disturbing.

The phenomenon is currently being studied in British Columbia in relation to casinos. The situation was exposed by a defector in the 1990s. The defector told the Australian intelligence service that, in the early 1980s, when he worked for the Chinese intelligence service, his job was to go to Hong Kong to recruit triads to ensure the 1997 handover went off without a hitch. That's another example of the collusion going on right now between Chinese organized crime and the Chinese intelligence service.

8:05 p.m.

Bloc

Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC

Thank you, Mr. Juneau-Katsuya.

Ms. Brady, you recommended that the New Zealand government create a foreign agent registry to prevent foreign interference. That was in 2019.

What criteria should the registry be based on? Could foreign agents who are allies of Canada end up on the list?

What do you have in mind? What else could Canada put in place?

8:05 p.m.

Professor, University of Canterbury, As an Individual

Anne-Marie Brady

Thank you for your question.

I think New Zealand, Canada and Australia have many similarities in our parliamentary systems and laws, and I think we would benefit from exchanging information on what works and what mistakes we want to avoid.

I do think that we need the system of registering of foreign agents. We need transparency, greater transparency, to enable the public and companies to make good decisions about who they're partnering with in China, but we also have to be careful that we don't damage our democracy in the process.

I would recommend exchanges between Canada and Australia, which has already set up such a system, and the United States, which already has a well-established system in place.

Thank you.

8:05 p.m.

Bloc

Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC

Isn't that exactly what the Five Eyes partnership does?