Canada-China Relations Committee on Oct. 25th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I call the meeting to order.

Good evening, and welcome to meeting number five of the House of Commons Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship.

Pursuant to the order of reference of May 16, 2022, the committee is meeting on its study of the Canada-People's Republic of China relations. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely by using the Zoom application.

I would also note that everybody appearing by Zoom, especially our witnesses, have had their sound checks done, so everybody should be able to hear everybody properly.

If you are one of our witnesses, make sure that your microphone is spaced between your nose and your upper lip. That way the interpreters will be able to hear you.

I have a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. If you're participating by video conference, you click on the microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking.

For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece with the selected channel.

I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair. The chair of another committee that I sit on also reminds people that they cannot take pictures of your screens while the session is under way.

For members in the room, we have the speaking order—at least most of it. I will look to Mr. Chong to fill me in as to who his lineup is going to be, because we don't have it yet. We'll manage the speaking order as best we can, particularly because we will be into committee business in the third hour.

Now I'd like to welcome our witnesses for the first hour.

Clive Hamilton is a professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, Canberra campus; and Jeremy Youde is dean of the college of arts, humanities and social sciences, University of Minnesota Duluth. We have yet to connect with our third person in the first panel, and that's Jonathan Manthorpe, former foreign correspondent, China watcher and author of Claws of the Panda.

With that, we'll have our witnesses provide us with up to five minutes of an opening statement.

Mr. Hamilton, we still start with you. Your five minutes starts now.

[Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, Canberra Campus, As an Individual]

Thank you, Chair.

It's a pleasure to appear before the committee this evening. I'd like to make some—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Hold on. That audio is not good at all.

I think we're going to have you sign off and then sign back in again, Mr. Hamilton. We'll try to get you more properly attached here.

With that, Mr. Youde, we'll go to you for five minutes.

[Dr. Jeremy Youde, Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, University of Minnesota Duluth, As an Individual]

Thank you so much for the invitation. I hope my sound is coming through okay for everyone.

I come to you today to speak as the Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth. I'm also a political scientist who is particularly interested in questions of global health governance and international responses to infectious disease outbreaks.

When we're thinking about global health governance, we're thinking about the system for responding to cross-border health issues that arise, and that is an issue in which Canada has long been a leader. The People's Republic of China has a very important potential role to play, but it's a role that has been called into question in recent years.

In many ways, we are in a paradoxical moment when it comes to global health governance. On the one hand, particularly over these past few years, we have seen more than ever the importance of having a co-operative arrangement that brings together countries across the globe in order to address issues and concerns that necessarily cross borders. No country is going to be able to deal with an issue like COVID-19 on its own.

However, at the same time, we are also seeing a moment in which there is more resistance than ever to engage in these sorts of processes. Many of these sorts of challenges have come up in the context of the relationship between the global health governance system and the Government of the People's Republic of China.

In many ways, the People's Republic of China is a vital element of any effective system of global health governance, for a number of different reasons.

One is that it is obviously an incredibly significant geopolitical player. Any sort of international system that isn't including China is going to have major gaps in it.

Second, the sheer number of people and the movement of those people mean that there are particular challenges that come up when we're talking about the control of infectious diseases and their spread, be they new diseases or diseases that we've previously seen.

Third, the degree of human-animal interactions that can exist within Chinese society, particularly as we see more people moving into areas where there has not been sustained human residence, causes great challenges. We know that zoonotic diseases—diseases that spread from animals to humans—are one of the most important causes of new disease outbreaks.

Finally, China also has a history of what we could call “health diplomacy”: engaging in health activities as a way of trying to build bilateral and multilateral relations with other countries.

The system we've seen over these past few years has really called into question the ability of the system to function in a cohesive manner. As I mentioned before, COVID-19 is perhaps emblematic of that. When we're looking at global health governance, we have a system that's largely based on notions of trust and shared norms of how things are going to operate, and this is where we have run into problems, particularly in these last few years when it comes to COVID-19.

We can talk in more detail about this in the questions, but the resistance comes from a number of different areas, including fears about surveillance that could come into play, the relationship between Taiwan and other elements of global governance, and just the general wariness that we've seen within the Government of the People's Republic of China to engage with global governance systems in general, not just in health.

The system was largely built in the aftermath of World War II, and it is not necessarily the most reflective of the sorts of challenges and needs of the contemporary international system's demands. In many ways, this is a moment of reform and opportunity for global health governance, but as I mentioned before, if there is not the inclusion of the People's Republic of China in this sort of process, we're going to have significant gaps, and those gaps are going to put us in danger.

Canada is a country that has long been a leader in global health governance and this sort of multilateral diplomacy and is in a very important and unique position to be able to help foster this new sort of system that can include the People's Republic of China, the United States and all the countries around the world.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much, Mr. Youde.

Now, for safety's sake, I would like Mr. Hamilton to try speaking to us.

I can see the kind of unit you're using. Can you hold that microphone fairly close to your mouth so the interpreters can hear what you're saying. Do you want to try?

[Clive Hamilton]

Yes [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

No, it's even worse. Well, we'll have to stretch the line a little tighter, I guess.

I'm going to go to Jonathan Manthorpe, who is somebody I'm looking forward to hearing from, in fact. I used to listen to him on the radio in Vancouver a lot when he was on with John McComb and talking about Asia and especially China. His story hasn't really changed very much, because he's had a tremendous depth of experience in following that nation.

Mr. Manthorpe, welcome to our committee. You have five minutes to make an opening statement.

[Jonathan Manthorpe, Former Foreign Correspondent and Author of Claws of the Panda, As an Individual]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,.

Thank you for inviting me to give my thoughts and answers to your questions on what is, I think, one of the most important foreign policy issues for Canada at this moment.

As you may know, my book, Claws of the Panda: Beijing's Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada, was published within a few days of the start of the Huawei affair.

I had conflicting reactions to the detention in Vancouver on December 2, 2018, on a United States Department of Justice request, of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, and all that happened in the following months. On the one hand, I felt some satisfaction that those events substantiated much of what I had written in the book. On the other hand, I was alarmed that those events substantiated much of what I had written in the book.

Indeed I thought then, and I still do, that the Huawei affair set out a much worse situation than the catalogue of intrusions into Canadian affairs by the Chinese Communist Party and the insouciant response of Canadian decision-makers that I had described.

The response from Beijing to the detention of Ms. Meng Wanzhou was far more brutal than even I anticipated. The kidnapping and torture of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor sent a clear message in itself that the CCP cares more about the security of one party aristocrat than it does about the entire spectrum of relations with Canada.

More than that, the denial of legitimate consular access to the two Michaels and their secret trials said that Beijing is prepared to ignore treaties it has signed in order to defend the honour of any high-profile official.

The CCP regime followed up its hostage-taking with economic sanctions on Canadian meat and grain products, and whether by coincidence or not, several senior Canadian figures with histories of close ties with Beijing began to advocate her release. At the same time, Beijing continued its ever-increasing campaign to cow the 1.5 million Canadians of ethnic Chinese heritage.

Several carefully documented reports have been published on how agents of Beijing, either from the Ministry of State Security or the CCP's main political warfare organization, the United Front Work Department, are intimidating and threatening Canadians whom the party considers a threat.

The United Front has also taken effective control of almost all Chinese language media in Canada, as it has in all other countries in the 50-million-strong ethnic Chinese diaspora. The United Front has worked to place Beijing supporters in the leadership of the multitude of Canadian Chinese social groups and organizations. It has been notable how many of those groups have published support for the crushing of the promised autonomy of Hong Kong, the abuses against the Uighurs and Kazakhs in Xinjiang and other Beijing projects, such as the plan to take over Taiwan.

A year ago the Huawei affair came to an end when Ms. Meng Wanzhou admitted to the U.S. charges against her—that she had made fraudulent claims to international banks—and the extradition request was dropped. She was released, and so were the two Michaels.

However, to my mind the lessons of this affair are stark. My central conclusion is that we cannot have normal trade, diplomatic or political relations with a regime whose first instinct, when there are problems, is to take hostages. What this affair exposed and underlined is that we share no civic, political, diplomatic, security or international values with the People's Republic of China. On most matters involved in a relationship between two nations, we have no basis for conversation with the Chinese Communist Party.

Imagine for a moment that the U.S. request had been for the detention of a business executive from one of the neighbouring Asian democracies, such as Japan, South Korea or Taiwan. There would have been frictions, to be sure, but there would not have been a total crisis and collapse in the relationship, because we share a host of values with those countries and that would have cushioned the momentary clash.

I have no doubt that we must reconstruct a working relationship with Beijing. The PRC is now the second-largest economy in the world, though it is facing headwinds at the moment. Under leader Xi Jinping, it seems bent on an imperialist course towards becoming a global superpower, if not “the” superpower.

However, my judgment is that we should keep that to a minimalist transactional relationship. The current regime in Beijing has shown us clearly that it is not a friend of Canada and never intends to be. We should not waste our time trying to reform the CCP, as we have done in the past with several expensive and futile projects, such as teaching the rule of law and jointly chairing a travelling human rights road show. These were doomed to fail, because Beijing has no intention of accepting their conclusions. Instead—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Mr. Manthorpe, I will have to call it for time there. If you have further information, of course, you can work it into your answers as we go to the panel.

Thank you very much.

[Jonathan Manthorpe]

Let me just finish off by saying that I think our most important program at the moment should be to defend Canadians of Chinese, Uighur and Tibetan heritage from the attacks on them by the United Front and the Ministry of State Security in Canada.

I will leave it at that and I'll happily answer questions later.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much.

Well, Mr. Hamilton, let's give it a try for five minutes or less, sir.

[Clive Hamilton]

Let me ask the chair if you can you hear me reasonably well now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

No, we can't at all. It's still very poor.

I'm thinking that this is what we should do, sir: If questions are directed to you, perhaps you might be able to respond in writing. That's the best we can do under the circumstances.

Go ahead, Mr. Cormier.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chair, I'm not sure if the witness, Mr. Hamilton, tried to disconnect and reconnect again. I didn't see him do that. Sometimes it solves the problem. I'm not an expert, but I didn't see him log off and reconnect again. Maybe he can try that.

[Clive Hamilton]

Sure. I will do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I think we might try to get Mr. Hamilton back here in our second hour because we'll have a space there. Hopefully we'll be able to get the benefit of his experience. In Australia, of course, they've had their moments with China for sure.

With that, then, perhaps we can just go to our first round of questioning.

We'll start with Mr. Kmiec for six minutes or less.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question will be for Mr. Manthorpe.

I'm glad he was able to finish. I have read Claws of the Panda.

I wonder, Chair, if he could continue speaking about the United Front department's activities in intimidating Canadians of Chinese heritage, and activists as well.

He had written back in July 2020, in the National Post, “As someone who has studied the influence of China in Canada, it is clear to me that this country needs to put in place defences against the covert, coercive and corrupt influence of the CPC, which has been systematically eroding resistance to it from within”.

Chair, my question would be, where do we start? How can we protect Canadians of Chinese heritage who are being targeted by these coercive campaigns?

[Jonathan Manthorpe]

Thank you very much.

Our security services and our police services know very well what is going on. There needs to be some political encouragement for them to deal with what they know.

As we already know, CSIS has gone around to Canadian universities and colleges and warned them about the Confucius Institutes that many had installed in their universities, which were paid for by Beijing. CSIS warned them that these were nothing much more than espionage outposts in their universities, with two main functions. One was to oversee Chinese students in the universities and the other was to scout the universities for useful technologies—principally military technologies.

Thankfully, most Canadian universities and colleges have ended their agreements with the Confucius Institutes, which are run, by the way, by the United Front, the political warfare organization.

An overarching thing we need to do is have a strong piece of legislation regulating political activity in Canada by foreign countries and allowing for severe punishments or retribution for it. I think we do have some sort of legislation at the moment, but clearly it is not tough enough.

It also needs to be applied. Several other countries, Australia being one of them.... I hope we can hear from Clive later on about their experience with their application of this legislation regulating and curtailing activities of foreign political organizations.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Manthorpe, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

As a follow-up, today we voted on a concurrence report condemning the genocide of Uighurs. I've never seen cabinet ministers flee so quickly from the chamber in order to avoid having a say on this question. There are many Uighur activists in Canada, Canadians who, through good faith, are human rights defenders.

We have a government here that is unwilling to take a very clear position, because I guess they're worried.

What should be done about public office holders in Canada, and former public office holders especially, who, in the experience in Australia, have been either coerced or convinced over time of the position that Beijing takes on things like shutting down democracy activists outside of the PRC, preventing them from speaking up or coercing them through other means? What should we do about former public office holders in Canada who may be toeing the line of Beijing?

[Jonathan Manthorpe]

Well, I think that all we can do is shame them. There are, as you say, many previous public office holders who have found, in retirement, comfortable positions and arrangements with Beijing.

I think that forums such as this and others need to make it plain to everyone that the People's Republic of China is not a friend of Canada and that people who court relationships with Beijing for one reason or another are in fact working against the interests of Canada.

I've talked with other people in other countries about this, and it is very difficult, in defending a democracy, to immediately set to one side the central aspects of democracy regarding freedom of speech and freedom of association. You can't do that very easily, which is why I think that perhaps the main thrust has to be legislation dealing with foreign—

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Manthorpe, I will interrupt you because the chair is telling me I'm running out of time.

Would legislation that applies to former public office holders that would increase transparency in their financial relationships with state-owned companies in the PRC be a good idea?

[Jonathan Manthorpe]

Well, I think that there ought to be some regulations over former office holders for a period of years anyway, and not only with the PRC. I think that makes sense from any number of perspectives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, sir.

We will go to Ms. Yip for six minutes or less.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out this evening or joining us virtually.

My first questions are to Mr. Manthorpe.

What is your takeaway on the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party's meeting that happened recently?

[Jonathan Manthorpe]

I think the immediate takeaway is probably fairly commonly held, and it is that Xi Jinping now has a very firm grip on the Communist Party and on the regime in Beijing. He has surrounded himself with his supporters and cronies.

One important thing to notice is that he has buried this meritocracy that has grown up in the last 20 or 30 years, and has made the regime now simply a cadre of people who are his supporters.

I think it's quite a dangerous time—I really do. It's going to take a while before we see the full implications. For example, I think he is not going to be too concerned about the economic well-being of China; he's going to be more concerned about maintaining his authoritarian control.

As we speak, there are about 400 million Chinese people under lockdown. That's a third of the population. His authoritarian state is the most technologically sophisticated thing the world has ever seen. It is a very troubling and dangerous time, and I think he is a person to be looked at with much caution.