Information & Ethics Committee on March 10th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Lim.

That concludes our first round.

I want to thank all our witnesses for being here and providing us with what I believe was valuable and compelling information today.

Mr. Kwan, Mr. Tohti and Ms. Lim, thank you, on behalf of the committee and Canadians, for appearing.

We are going to suspend for a few minutes in order to prepare for the next panel.

I am going to give advance warning to committee members that we're going to have the same amount of time in the rounds. It will be very similar to what we did in this first panel.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Welcome back to the meeting, everyone.

We're just about to start our second panel.

I want to inform the committee that all required technical tests have been completed.

Mr. Villemure, I also confirm that the tests for interpretation have been done.

We have three witnesses in front of us for our second panel.

I want to welcome, from the Chinese-Canadian Concerned Group on the Chinese Communist Party's Human Rights Violation, Bill Chu, who is the spokesperson. From Alliance Canada Hong Kong, we have Cherie Wong, who is the executive director—thank you, Cherie, for being here this morning—and Ai-Men Lau, who is an adviser.

As you can see, all of our witnesses are here via video conference today.

Mr. Chu, we're going to start with you. You have five minutes to address the committee. Please, go ahead.

[Bill Chu, Spokesperson, Chinese Canadian Concern Group on the Chinese Communist Party’s Human Rights Violation]

Good morning, Chair and honourable members of the committee.

I am Bill Chu, from Vancouver, B.C., arguably the beachhead for the PRC's unrestricted warfare in Canada.

“Unrestricted warfare” is coined from a 1999 book of the same name by two PLA corporals describing a new warfare which does not use conventional weapons, like guns and bombs, but stealth weapons ranging from disinformation via media, influence buying by bribes, sex, trade, fame, threats, etc., as well as cyber-hacking, data harvesting and intellectual espionage. No soldiers are required to be transported, as the idea is to convert locals into its foot soldiers. It is a perfect plan, as by blurring the boundaries, or even presence of a war, the PRC has also gained the image of a so-called peace-seeking country.

However, through WeChat and other things, the PRC has been silently sending official news and directives to tens of thousands of Chinese students and immigrants here. Coupled with pro-PRC local Chinese language media and social platforms, PRC has gained more influence over a large part of the local Chinese community than arguably Canada itself. It can mobilize, and has mobilized, large groups of Chinese here when needed.

Undoubtedly, Canadians have sensed something amiss after hearing all kinds of the PRC's undue influences in Canada, but are unsure whether the government is aware of the seriousness or has a plan to deal with them.

Sadly, such unpreparedness and attempts to even trivialize the danger were exposed in the Prime Minister's latest reactions to the news of the PRC's election interference. It is easy to underestimate China, which for decades kept its head low.

Fast-forward to its entry into WTO and the world has since been so bedazzled by its rocket-like rise that most forgot that PRC is a one-party authoritarian state that outlaws ideological pluralism. So communism should never be mixed up even by self-claimed progressives as a legitimate choice, since accepting it ironically means no more choice.

Accordingly, China's leaders do not need a popular vote to get into or stay in power. For seven decades, they have developed a habit of ignoring the people's outcries or rights, but rely on propaganda, lies and brutal suppression to control dissent, which is easy to do when the three branches in the government are only supposed to serve the party's interest, and for decades China was separated from the world. With the PRC entering the world stage, its leaders have to struggle to maintain the validity of its problematic ideology and related wild claims in front of not just its people, but the world.

Within the secret warfare it is waging globally, it has spent billions on buying or expanding media, on propaganda, including getting full-page ads and inserts in prominent western papers, and by dismissing any criticism of the CCP as baseless lies or, lately, as—quote, unquote—anti-Chinese racism.

To prepare for the latter, they have for decades intentionally mixed up the use of the terms "CCP" the party, "China" the state, and "Chinese" the people. The purpose is to silence criticism against the CCP by equating that to criticism of all Chinese and also to rouse up a distorted sense of nationalism among all Chinese, including the diaspora.

The fact is the PRC's United Front Work Department has long been at work within the Chinese diaspora communities. The 1970s in particular were an opportune time for the CCP in Canada as Canada had just removed the last of all the discriminatory legislation against the Chinese, and with Chinese Canadians entering a more equitable and stable life, most old, local Chinese clan organizations discovered their historical mandate was suddenly gone.

In Vancouver, a notable example is the CBA of Vancouver. It is a sad story of a century-old Chinatown association whose name recognition was quickly identified as exploitable by the CCP and which in recent years was seen on full-page ads in Chinese-language papers dutifully leading hundreds of Chinese organizations echoing their support for China's draconian policies.

The above—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Chu, we're beyond the five minutes at this point. I know that members of the committee are going to have lots of questions, so perhaps we can stop it there. I'm sorry to interrupt.

We're going to go to Ms. Wong and Ms. Lau, who, I understand, are going to be splitting the five minutes.

Will we start with you, Ms. Wong or Ms. Lau?

[Ai-Men Lau, Advisor, Alliance Canada Hong Kong]

We're going to be doing a little bit of back and forth, but—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. That's wonderful.

[Ai-Men Lau]

Hello.

Thank you for inviting us to testify today.

My name is Ai-Men Lau, and I'm an adviser to Alliance Canada Hong Kong. I'm currently based in Taiwan as a research analyst at the Chinese civil society organization Doublethink Lab.

[Cherie Wong, Executive Director, Alliance Canada Hong Kong]

Good morning, folks.

My name is Cherie Wong. I'm in Ottawa, and I am the executive director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong. Thank you for having us.

Foreign interference in our institutions is not new. Since the 1990s, Chinese dissident communities have raised attention regarding foreign overreach in every aspect of Canadian society—not just in elections but also in research, in civil society, in academic spaces and in private businesses. Though the diaspora are the primary target of foreign interference operations, Beijing targets all persons of influence, and many Canadians are unaware of their tactics.

This committee has also convened to discuss the issue of rising xenophobia in Canada. While I am glad to see such an open discussion on foreign interference in Canadian elections, it is disappointing to see media, political and social discourses leaving out important cultural insights from diaspora communities that have valuable and first-hand knowledge about things such as how to differentiate between a person of interest, a target of foreign influence, a willing accomplice, an active agent and someone with ties to the consulate. Some of these sensationalized perspectives have stoked racist and xenophobic sentiments towards Asians in Canada, and they do not offer the nuances that dissident voices from Tibet, Hong Kong and the Uighur communities can bring.

As a racialized diasporic organization, we are invited to comment only on xenophobia even when we have written reports and heavily consulted on foreign influence in Canada. Meanwhile, governments and media are engaging with experts not in these spaces and trying to summarize their research on the very things that we, the diaspora, are seeing on the front lines.

Anti-Asian racism is growing in Canada, and threats of transnational state-sponsored violence have also intensified in recent years. The diaspora communities are excluded in the Canadian discourse while surviving Beijing’s overreach in our communities. The notion that all ethnic Chinese communities are supporters of the Chinese authorities is racist and reductive. These communities are not a monolith but are vibrant and diverse in language, culture and politics.

Our community members have long observed foreign interference activities under our noses: riding nomination forms handed out during consulate-affiliated demonstrations, officials from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office cozying up to elected officials, ethnic reporters attending Beijing-backed conferences, as well as photo ops and efforts to wine and dine business and political elites.

[Ai-Men Lau]

When the diaspora resists Beijing’s transnational controls, dissidents’ tires are slashed, activists are harassed and threatened, international students’ study permits are declined and passport applications are rejected. Overt criticism of Beijing or pointing out the PRC’s influence operations could cost people career opportunities, business prospects or research funding. They could be barred from going to the PRC, and even their personal safety and that of their extended family members could be jeopardized. Is it any wonder that many people self-censor due to Beijing’s effective global system of control and surveillance?

Therefore, I would like to make the following recommendations for the committee to consider.

First, take a whole-of-society approach to addressing foreign interference as it is interconnected within all facets of Canadian society. Overlooking any aspect will only harm the most vulnerable communities.

Second, provide anonymous and secured spaces in which people can voice concerns in order to minimize repercussions from hostile foreign actors.

Third, engage with marginalized communities and centre cultural and linguistic sensitivity in your approach.

Our testimony today focuses on the communities' lived experience and expert knowledge of Beijing's foreign influence activities. I also want to take this opportunity to urge policy-makers to rebuild trust with diaspora communities, many of which have long felt unheard and erased.

It would also be naive to think that the PRC is the only nation engaging in these actions. We urge the committee to pursue country-agnostic solutions and also to look to the other diasporas for their insights.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.

We look forward to answering your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Lau and Ms. Wong.

It's probably late in Taiwan right now, I would imagine.

Mr. Barrett, you have six minutes for your intervention.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for joining us. I appreciate your work. You are experts in your field.

I'll start with you, Ms. Wong, because I saw a clip of your appearance on a Canadian panel show. You talked about the threat for you in appearing on the show. Just by virtue of appearing on television, it isn't the risk. The risk is a result of your work, where you've gained your expertise on foreign election interference.

Can you speak to what led to that point and how that threat would manifest itself for you?

[Cherie Wong]

I'd be happy to.

This is where the conversation gets a little complicated. When we talk about foreign interference and influence, it's not necessarily activities that we can outright identify and say, this is a foreign state intervening in my life.

Some of the examples I could give are that since last Friday when I appeared on CBC my home Internet has been incredibly slow, and I've been getting more spam calls, more phishing emails and more spam texts. Is that an act of foreign interference or influence? I don't know. I do not have the expertise to identify whether these are as a result of my appearance on media.

The overarching issue is that the community is afraid to appear because they have seen extreme cases where activists and dissidents are threatened through social media, through in-person events. We've had community members talk about their tires getting slashed after attending a June 4 memorial event.

The range of threats and interference into our lives is not a simple “this happened”, or we could be able to identify it. We're not security experts.

I will point the committee to one of our past reports.

It's an investigation into Beijing's overreach globally in response to Hong Kongers' democratic demonstrations. We saw that there were global coordinated efforts in countering Hong Kongers' efforts to protest overseas.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Would you be able to send that report to the committee clerk?

Thank you.

Ms. Lau, could you talk about how Beijing attempts to influence politics in Canada?

I'm picking up on something Ms. Wong said about these tires being slashed and other activities. Is the climate of fear that's used, particularly against diaspora communities in Canada, one of the main tools of their influence and interference attempts?

[Ai-Men Lau]

A climate of fear is definitely a tool, however I wouldn't say it is necessarily a main tool. This is very much one of the strategies in a whole range of tactics that can be used.

Here is the tricky part that we need to address in discussing foreign interference. It is not just influencing politics, it's not just siloed to the ballot on the voting day, or whatnot. This reaches into our cultural and social infrastructures. It reaches into the research. I had mentioned research was another area.

In terms of politics, I would say that we have certainly seen efforts to increase civic engagement. We observed efforts to increase civic engagement by affiliated organizations. But it is very difficult for us to to outright point to one example and say, that is foreign interference.

It's a very tricky and nuanced subject to navigate through.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chu, with about a minute remaining for my time, can you share some examples of intimidation or influence attempts that targeted your group?

[Bill Chu]

[Inaudible—Editor] address it to the community rather than just out outgrowth, because over time, we have been in the community watching or monitoring how things are developing within the Chinese community in the Vancouver area, and we have seen the pro-CCP elements that enable the mobilization of a large group of people to do counterprotests.

Even when a group of people is concerned about the situation in Hong Kong, we noticed that there have been—and you have probably noticed—physical crashes, public ones on the street. That's something that, to us, is not acceptable. It's one of the prime examples. In my own group, by the way, there's also one individual who has received phone threats, direct threats in the evening at her home number, threatening her.

Those things are happening.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Chu.

Mr. Fergus, you have six minutes.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much to our witnesses who are here.

My first questions will be for Ms. Lau and Ms. Wong. I really appreciated your presentation, as well as the recommendations that you had.

I understand the recommendation in terms of the whole-of-society approach.

Regarding your second one, to create an anonymous and secure space for people to be able to share information with Canadian authorities, so that we can have a better idea of who is acting in ways that put extraordinary pressure on the diaspora communities, could you elaborate on that?

Could you elaborate on it also with a view to how we ensure that the United Front Work Department doesn't use that same tool to spread more misinformation and mix up the cards by identifying people who we know are doing good work, like the work that the two of you are doing?

[Cherie Wong]

Thank you for that important question.

First off, we speak about the climate of fear, and that's why we need those anonymous and secure spaces where diaspora can have that trust and have that ability to express their concerns and their observations. It is true that the United Front Work Department and its agents will probably use that very same space to dilute the information that is being received by the Canadian government.

I think this is where we need to be proactive, not only in identifying the state actors who are active in Canada—this is the job of our enforcement and intelligence agencies—but also in doing public-source research. A lot of the time, the United Front publishes the individuals, the names and the organizations that are affiliated with them. If you use Chinese-language research and open-source research, you'll be able to identify these agencies and organizations.

I can hand it to Ai-Men, if she has anything to add.

[Ai-Men Lau]

Yes. I would say that if this is the concern, I would also look to civil society. I think public-source information is a really useful tool in this case. The information is quite easily searched. We just need the capacity to search for it, so civil society organizations can come and fill this gap.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.

To the two of you, I hope you watched the previous panel. There was a suggestion that we should take a look at the Australian model of a public foreign agent registry.

Do you think that's a good move to take?

[Ai-Men Lau]

I would say that a foreign agent registry is certainly a good first step. However, I agree with the criticisms we heard at the previous panel. We also need to be cognizant of the fact that it is limited in scope.

I think looking toward Australia to see how the implementation of such an act has gone—or to other countries that may have also implemented similar acts—and what the impacts are.... Are we seeing the objectives being achieved? What are the lessons to learn from there?

[Cherie Wong]

I will jump in as well. The foreign influence transparency scheme in Australia is actually limited to political engagement. It still leaves a huge gap in other sectors such as research, private sector and civil society, where foreign agents and foreign-affiliated agents are able to use their resources and money to intervene. It is something to consider.

I think it's the right step, but it has to have a broader reach to be truly effective in countering foreign influence in Canada.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I can easily see that.

Is there a gold standard, internationally, of that kind of registry that does go across different fields...to make sure we have a fuller approach to making sure that we could identify these actors?

[Cherie Wong]

I think we can learn from a wide variety of different countries' legislation and take the best pieces of them. In my opinion, I don't see a gold standard anywhere in the world right now.