Monday, September 25, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Why are Chinese police operating in Canada, while our own government and security services apparently look the other way?: Charles Burton in the Globe and Mail

The more we ignore reports of China’s growing presence in Canada, the more emboldened and manipulative Chinese agents become.

September 28, 2022
in Charles Burton, Columns, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Program, In the Media, Latest News, National Security
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Why are Chinese police operating in Canada, while our own government and security services apparently look the other way?: Charles Burton in the Globe and Mail

Photo by Mitya Ku, via Flickr.

Share
  • Whereas Beijing describes its global police outposts as administrative centres to help Chinese nationals renew driver’s licences and other domestic banalities back home, they are also used to hunt down political dissidents, corrupt officials or rogue Chinese alleged criminals and urge them to return home.

  • "Canada is becoming China’s chew toy," warns Senior Fellow Charles Burton. Beijing’s meddling in Canadians affairs includes an alleged disinformation campaign which helped “unfriendly” Conservative MPs of Chinese ethnicity lose their seats in the 2021 federal election.

  • Ottawa wants Canadian businesses to be able to tap into the world’s largest market, the price of this access appears to be ignoring Beijing’s Canadian agenda, from military and industrial espionage to harassing Canadians who speak out against it.

This article originally appeared in the Globe and Mail.

By Charles Burton, September 27, 2022

In China, the high-profile TV drama In The Name Of The People has become a smash hit. In that show, Chinese agents enter the U.S. posing as businessmen so they can repatriate a factory manager who had fled abroad with huge ill-gotten wealth.

But a new study by the European non-governmental agency Safeguard Defenders suggests that there might be some truth to the fiction. According to the NGO, the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau has established more than 50 “overseas police service centres” in cities around the world – including three publicly documented ones in Toronto, home to Canada’s largest Chinese diaspora.

This is an outrage. Chinese police setting up offices in Canada, then “persuading” alleged criminals to return to the motherland to face “justice” – while our own government and security services apparently choose to look the other way – represents a gross violation of Canada’s national sovereignty, international law and the norms of diplomacy. China is extending the grip of its Orwellian police state into this country, with seemingly no worry about being confronted by our own national security agencies.

The RCMP and politicians of all stripes routinely condemn Chinese state harassment of people in Canada, but what action has been taken? There have been no arrests or any expulsion of any Chinese diplomats who might be co-ordinating this kind of thuggery.

Beijing describes these global police outposts as administrative centres to help Chinese nationals renew driver’s licences and other domestic banalities back home. But the Safeguard Defenders study found that they also hunt down political dissidents, corrupt officials or rogue Chinese alleged criminals and urge them to return home.

The summary says some of these operatives are given cover by being formally attached to local Chinese Overseas Home Associations (which have themselves largely become co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work operations and run out of China’s embassy and consulates).

This bold strategy is consistent with China’s propensity for routinely flouting international laws, including those that require any other country’s police wishing to gather evidence in Canada to work through the RCMP.

In the case of these “police service centres,” Safeguard Defenders reports that agents press their targets to return home, including by offering vague promises of leniency or even urging families back home to encourage them to do so. The officers have taken aim at these alleged (and unproven) criminals by seizing their families’ assets, denying children in China access to schools, and terminating family members’ employment, all in violation of due process.

In Canada, this has been a reality for years. In 2001, during refugee hearings in Vancouver for Lai Changxing – a businessman wanted by Beijing over accusations of corruption and smuggling – Chinese police admitted to entering Canada using fake documents, and even to spiriting in Mr. Lai’s brother in an attempt to convince him to return home. Canadian authorities effectively smiled benignly at this serious breach of criminal and immigration law; Mr. Lai was eventually deported back to China.

Canada is becoming China’s chew toy. Consider Beijing’s alleged disinformation campaign which helped “unfriendly” Conservative MPs of Chinese ethnicity, including Kenny Chiu, lose their seats in the 2021 federal election.

Ottawa wants Canadian businesses to be able to tap into the world’s largest market. But the price of this access appears to be ignoring Beijing’s Canadian agenda, from military and industrial espionage to harassing Canadian Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and ethnic Chinese and Taiwanese people who reject Beijing’s hectoring that they should be loyal to China instead of to Canada.

Does Canada have no security capabilities on the issue? Our police and security agencies must surely know what is going on, but for some reason prefer to simply curate their information rather than act on it. When asked by The Globe and Mail about the police service centres, an RCMP spokesperson said the force would not comment on “uncorroborated media reports or statements.” And most of the information we receive about China’s illegal and “grey zone” activities in Canada typically comes from the U.S. government and well-funded security and intelligence-focused think tanks in Australia and Europe.

The more we ignore reports of China’s growing presence in Canada – including its interference in our electoral process, its potential espionage in our universities and research institutes, and so on – the more emboldened and manipulative Chinese agents become. With no sign that it will be held accountable, China will only increase the size and threat of its operations, because it can.

With its seeming indifference toward China’s blatant contempt for our laws and security, Ottawa is playing an extremely dangerous game with Canada’s sovereignty.

Charles Burton is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, and non-resident senior fellow of the European Values Center for Security Policy in Prague. He served as a diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing.

Share this:
Source: Globe and Mail
Tags: CanadaChinapolice
Previous Post

Are we all liberals now? Shawn Whatley in the Hub

Next Post

Response to Alex Usher’s Post “Viewpoint Diversity” from September 22, 2022

Related Posts

Canada’s international isolation has never been more apparent: Richard Shimooka in the Hub
Columns

Canada’s international isolation has never been more apparent: Richard Shimooka in the Hub

September 22, 2023
Zelenskyy visit: Balkan Devlen on CBC News
Video

Zelenskyy visit: Balkan Devlen on CBC News

September 22, 2023
Don’t celebrate Iran’s nuclear slowdown just yet: Matthew Bondy in the National Post
Columns

Don’t celebrate Iran’s nuclear slowdown just yet: Matthew Bondy in the National Post

September 22, 2023
Next Post
Response to Alex Usher’s Post “Viewpoint Diversity” from September 22, 2022

Response to Alex Usher’s Post “Viewpoint Diversity” from September 22, 2022

Newsletter Signup

Follow us on

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

  • Inside Policy Magazine
  • Annual Reports
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

IDEAS CHANGE THE WORLD!Have the latest Canadian thought leadership delivered straight to your inbox.
First Name
Last Name
Email address

No thanks, I’m not interested.