Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is a wonderful opportunity for me to answer questions from your honourable colleagues and try to make my modest contribution to the current discussion about the China question. I am very glad of the opportunity and I sincerely thank the committee.
To begin, I have decided to focus on the subject proposed by the committee for this testimony. I am therefore going to address the issue of the allegations about the presence of Chinese police stations in Canada.
First, what is there that would prove that these stations exist in Canada and in the rest of the world? According to the report by the Spanish non-governmental organization, or NGO, Safeguard Defenders, there are as many as 102 overseas Chinese police stations in 53 countries, and three of those stations are located in the Greater Toronto region in Canada. More recently, however, the media also revealed the existence of two similar stations in Quebec: the Centre Sino-Québec on the south shore and the Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal. The managers of those organizations have denied those allegations, however, and have asked that they be presumed innocent.
That said, some observers think that there might be even more overseas agents of the Chinese police. The well-known American magazine Newsweek is of that view. Newsweek says that in addition to those agents of the Chinese police, it has identified at least nine other Chinese support centres in the United States alone. It should be noted that according to the Spanish NGO, some of those centres have sometimes been established with the help of the countries where they are located, even if that is not the case in Canada.
Chinese authorities and the Chinese media deny these allegations; rather, they talk about sites that are operated, sometimes on a volunteer basis, by local Chinese communities to help overseas Chinese nationals. The People's Daily, a press organ of the Chinese Communist Party, stated that in certain places in the world where there is inadequate law enforcement, for example in Africa or South America, these stations offer security teams, firefighters and ambulance attendants. In Canada, for example, the embassy of the People's Republic of China has confirmed the addresses of certain similar stations named by the media.
Second, why would China set about establishing these overseas stations? Among other reasons often cited, there is the anti-corruption campaign carried on by President Xi Jinping since he came to power. It must be noted here that more than 900,000 members of the Chinese Communist Party have apparently been disciplined to date and 42,000 of them have been expelled and prosecuted.
The covert police stations attributed to China are also said to contribute to achieving the objectives of this anti-corruption campaign. The objective of those stations is said to be to force citizens to go back home to face the Chinese judicial system. It is important to point out that according to a Chinese vice-minister of public safety, in 2021 alone, Beijing was able to dissuade 210,000 individuals to return to China to face telecommunications fraud charges. In one case cited in some media, even a Chinese citizen living in Canada is alleged to have been pressured to return to China to face charges of embezzling Chinese public funds amounting to $380,000 in Canadian dollars.
As a final point, why would the work of these covert stations be linked to the work of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party?
That is a question I believe to be of great importance. Historically, China has always demonstrated a desire to maintain control over the Chinese people both within and outside the country. The party describes the work of the United Front as a way for the Chinese Communist Party to unite all the sons and daughters of the party and contribute to the work of national renewal. The police stations attributed to China would thus also be linked to China's broader strategy of national and international influence.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.