The Chinese communist leadership fully appreciates that to eclipse the west it needs to make dramatic leads in full-spectrum technological innovation and application. The pursuit of intellectual property, as well as penetrating business, academic and other centres of research and development in order to appropriate or steal R and D appears to be a consistent, yet effective, methodology.
One American example of the foregoing is the Chinese scientist Hongjin Tan, a lawful permanent resident in the United States who stole more than one billion dollars' worth of trade secrets from his Oklahoma-based petroleum company employer. He was subsequently arrested, found guilty and sent to prison. Some analysts and observers have argued that since 2012 and the coming to power of President Xi Jinping we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the Chinese Communist Party's intelligence activities amongst western nations.
A number of intelligence personalities, journalists and CCP analysts have argued that their intelligence activities have reportedly infiltrated different levels of government, be they local, provincial or federal. This has enabled the CCP diplomats, administrators and intelligence personnel to gain access in order to influence Canadian public policy and public opinion.
A number of Canadian citizens have bravely reported their experiences with the CCP influencers, and some politicians have noted manipulation of the Chinese Canadian community, as recently did Conservative Mr. Kenny Chiu. In fact, two McGill University researchers and research conducted by the Atlantic Council reportedly observed that there were anonymous articles circulating on Chinese-language apps and websites that misrepresented a private member's bill that Mr. Chiu had tabled, and allegedly negatively influenced his electoral campaign during the 2021 election. This incident, by itself, must be investigated and fully explored.
A decade before, in 2011, CTV News surfaced that a Conservative MP was reportedly engaged in a flirtation with Shi Rong, an attractive journalist for the CCP state-owned media outlet, Xinhua. Strangely enough, this publication had been suspected as having connections to the Chinese intelligence apparat.