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Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

It's OK, our foreign aid payments should help them develop faster ;)


Few Canadians know about aid given to China​


Federal agencies paid out a total $6.5 billion in foreign aid worldwide in 2020 according to government stats.

A total $14.2 million went to China.

Cabinet in a separate report tabled in the Commons detailed a portion of Chinese aid, a total $941,140 in grants awarded through a Canada Fund for Local Initiatives.

“The Fund provides modest funding for small scale, but high impact projects,” said the report.

Spending included:
• $37,654 to “foster dialogue on the challenges of young female offenders” in China;
• $31,791 on “empowerment” to “help low income single mothers and girls grow up happily”;
• $30,801 on “enhancing environmental justice and ecological restoration”;
• $18,668 to “advocate equal reproductive rights for non-married women and lesbians”;
• $1,248 for “increasing understanding” of sanitation workers.

Increasing understanding of sanitation workers?
 
Interesting. After years of non-action against Chinese interference in Canadian affiars we are starting to see some action. First, there was the Quebec Hyrdo worker arrested for allegedly selling secrets to China, and now a prominent Toronto businessman is under investigation for possible foreign interference. More here from Global News:

Toronto businessman allegedly focus of Chinese interference probes: sources​

By Sam Cooper Global News Published November 16, 2022

Aprominent businessman in Toronto’s Chinese community is the subject of two separate investigations involving foreign interference, sources tell Global News, both related to a series of briefings and memos that Canadian security officials allegedly gave to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau beginning in January.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has investigated Wei Chengyi for his alleged role in a covert scheme that facilitated large-fund transfers meant to advance Beijing’s interests in Canada’s 2019 federal election, sources said.

According to RCMP sources, national security investigators are also probing Wei for possible links to several properties in Toronto and Vancouver allegedly used as so-called Chinese government “police stations,” which are believed to secretly host agents from China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS.)

The owner of the Ontario and British Columbia supermarket chain Foody Mart, Wei is also “permanent honorary chairman” of the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations (CTCCO), a local umbrella group for dozens of associations that promotes ties to Beijing and consular officials.

Wei has not yet responded to repeated phone calls from Global News, emails or two, hand-delivered letters with detailed questions about the two alleged probes or his relationship with the Chinese government.

But in a brief phone response from CTCCO, a man who identified himself to a Global News reporter as a CTCCO official said that allegations that Wei and CTCCO are involved in a Chinese foreign-interference campaign are “nonsense.”

“No, we are never involved in those allegations,” the unidentified CTCCO official said. “I don’t want to give my name. But don’t use those allegations without evidence.”
No criminal charges have been laid against Wei.

Officials from the Chinese embassy in Ottawa and the Toronto Consulate did not respond to questions about Wei and the CTCCO.

Global News reported last week that early this year, sources say Canadian intelligence officials started briefing Justin Trudeau and several cabinet ministers that the People’s Republic of China has allegedly been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference, including attempts to influence the 2019 federal election.

One of the specific allegations detailed the funding of a clandestine network that involved at least 11 federal candidates running in the contest, according to Global News sources.

The briefing did not identify the politicians in the running, but Global News independently confirmed through separate sources that members of the alleged network — which sources say include federal campaign staffers — represented both Liberal and Conservative parties.

Responding to questions about the briefings last week, Prime Minister Trudeau did not acknowledge receiving the intelligence but did accuse China and other countries of playing “aggressive games” with democracies and insisted his government has taken significant measures to strengthen the integrity of the elections process.

At the G20 summit Tuesday, a government source disclosed to media that Trudeau privately discussed interference among other issues with China’s President Xi Jinping. But on Wednesday, Xi chided the Canadian PM for publicly disclosing the conversations, and disputed the content of their previous discussions.

“That’s not appropriate,” Xi said.

On Tuesday, foreign minister Melanie Joly told reporters she raised the issue with her Chinese counterpart and warned that Canada would not accept “any form of meddling in our governments, in our elections, and we won’t tolerate any form of foreign interferences.”

The Cash Flow

As part of the 2022 briefings, intelligence sources say that CSIS also warned Trudeau and several cabinet members that the Chinese government uses local proxies to transfer significant sums of money aimed at helping the PRC advance its agenda.

Even if allegations regarding Wei’s role as an actor for the Chinese Communist Party are proven to be true, there is no foreign interference law prohibiting him from doing so.

The allegations highlight escalating tension between a government that seems reluctant to rankle Canada’s second-largest trading partner, China, and a security establishment seeking tighter rules against foreign interference.

“Unlike its partners in Australia and the United States, Canada lacks a method by which to effectively register and track the activities of those who are acting on the behalf of the interests of foreign states, as well as an effective means by which to punish interference,” said Akshay Singh, a security scholar with the Council on International Policy. “Absent these guidelines, proxies or ‘co-optees’ can work on behalf of the interests of a foreign government, with little scrutiny.”

A bipartisan panel of parliamentarians in Ottawa has repeatedly recommended the Trudeau government table such laws. Police and intelligence officers have been warning senior Canadian officials since at least 2010 about China’s aggressive incursions, sources said, including secret Ministry of Public Security repatriation operations.

Sources aware of investigations into the alleged covert funding methods that CSIS believes the Toronto consulate uses allege that Wei and the organization he’s tied to, the CTCCO, acted as intermediaries in the covert funding activity in 2019.

The sources alleged Wei and CTCCO transferred about $250,000 from the consulate to an Ontario MPP and a federal candidate staffer, who in turn distributed the funds to the 11 or more candidates and other campaign staffers.

Warrants cleared by federal judges allow CSIS to intercept communications of Chinese consulate officials; by extension, these intercepts might capture politicians and staffers who might be in contact with the diplomats.

Responding to questions from Global News, a lawyer for the MPP in question said the allegations are untrue, and stated: “Be advised that the allegations that a sitting member of the Provincial Legislature and loyal Canadian is treasonous and an operative of a foreign power is clearly defamatory.”

The alleged 2022 briefing also references an alleged $1-million transfer in 2014 from the Toronto Consulate to unidentified local proxy groups to finance rallies in favour of the Toronto District School Board’s doomed deal with the Confucius Institute, a cultural education program which the U.S. State Department contends is run by the United Front Work Department.

The United Front Work Department is a primary organ of President Xi’s vast, global-interference campaigns, according to the 2022 briefs. However, Beijing has denied that it uses the United Front to support Chinese Communist Party policy abroad, and last week Chinese officials said the nation doesn’t interfere in Canadian affairs.

Sources with awareness of CSIS probes allege that Wei and CTCCO are among the unidentified, local proxies who received part of the $1 million disbursed by the Toronto Consulate.

In an interview, former Asia-Pacific desk CSIS officer Michel Juneau-Katsuya said he voluntarily provided testimony to a TDSB committee arguing against the deal in 2014, which ultimately fell through after much grassroots protest from parents and pro-democracy members of the Chinese community.

“The Confucius Institutes do represent a threat for the Canadian government,” Juneau-Katsuya commented at the Oct. 1, 2014, hearing.

Juneau-Katsuya, who was not with CSIS but working privately as a security consultant in 2014, said he cited open-source records to allege that Wei and the CTCCO are linked to the United Front Work Department.

However, at these hearings in 2014, some community leaders reportedly countered that Confucius Institutes would benefit Canada and enrich language and cultural programs outside of school hours.
Juneau-Katsuya said he is not surprised by the allegations reported by Global News from the 2022 briefs. He said CSIS and the RCMP have been monitoring “very aggressive operational initiatives coming from the Toronto Chinese Consulate for several decades.”

When approached for comment for this story, however, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendocino’s office appeared to downplay the severity of CSIS’s alleged 2022 briefs.

“We established a non-partisan panel to evaluate influence and interference in 2019,” wrote spokesman Alexander Cohen. “The panel announced their findings after both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, stating clearly that they did not detect foreign interference threatening Canada’s ability to have a free and fair election.”

Stations linked to Fujian police bureaus

A report issued by the Spanish human-rights group SafeGuard Defenders identified more than 50 police stations worldwide allegedly used for Operation Fox Hunt. The group cited Chinese state records to link the locations to police bureaus in Fujian, a Mainland province.

The SafeGuard findings say that three secret stations are in the Greater Toronto Area, and RCMP sources have alleged to Global News that Wei Chengyi has ties to two of them.

Launched by President Xi Jinping in 2014, Fox Hunt is billed by CCP as a worldwide program to repatriate fugitive tycoons and corrupt officials who’ve absconded with ill-gotten gains.
Enforcement officials such as FBI director Christopher Wray, however, take a different view. “Fox Hunt is a sweeping bid by General Secretary Xi to target Chinese nationals whom he sees as threats and who live outside China, across the world,” he said two years ago. “We’re talking about political rivals, dissidents, and critics seeking to expose China’s extensive human rights violations.”
In the 2022 briefs, CSIS echoed the allegation, explaining that Chinese police have been running “forced repatriation” operations as part of Fox Hunt but did not identify any locations or suspects, intelligence sources familiar with the information say.

According to SafeGuard, the three stations are located in Markham and Scarborough — Toronto suburbs with large, politically diverse communities of Chinese expatriates — and are related to Fox Hunt activities.

Canadian national security units are deeply concerned, sources said, because agents of the MPS, a national security and foreign espionage arm for Beijing, are suspected to be covertly operating from these stations. Sources added that MPS agents view Canada as an easy operating environment for Chinese state actors.

However, in a response sent to the Guardian last week about the stations identified by SafeGuard, the Chinese embassy in Ottawa confirmed the addresses but rejected the notion these locations are nesting areas for secret police agents.

Instead, the embassy insisted the stations provided community outreach for expatriates: “For services such as driver’s license renewal, it is necessary to have eyesight, hearing and physical examination.

National security investigators are also looking into Wei’s connection to a suspected location in Vancouver, which investigators did not identify. Global News could not independently verify its existence.

Also In an effort to independently verify the allegations regarding the Toronto locations, Global News searched for land-title records for one property in Scarborough and one in Markham that RCMP sources allege Wei has ties to.

One of the title searches did not turn up any overt connection to Wei. But the second, a low-rise office at 220 Royal Crest Court, a Markham industrial plaza, listed Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association as its owner. The office building was empty when a Global News reporter visited the location to seek comment on Monday.

That association has ties to the CTCCO: Wei and another CTCCO leader are named on its website as their permanent honorary chairmen. An employee told Global News on Monday that Wei also could not be reached at a Toronto business address listed on the Fuqing website.

The Fuqing group was started in June 2019, its website said, under the guidance of the United Front Work Department and various Fujian government agencies.

The RCMP did not respond directly to questions about Wei’s alleged connection to the secret Chinese police stations.

“The RCMP is actively investigating reports of criminal activity in relation to the so-called ‘police” stations,’” a statement said. “As the RCMP is currently investigating the incident, there will be no further comment on the matter at this time.”

CSIS also did not respond to questions about Wei, saying that in order to preserve the integrity of its operations, it was unable to comment on the specifics of its investigations.

But, responding to general questions about Fox Hunt operations and CSIS investigations into China’s foreign interference, CSIS told Global News that Fox Hunt is a “global covert” tool of Xi’s repression abroad, and the United Front Work Department facilitates these state-backed operations.
“These activities constitute a threat to Canada’s sovereignty and to the safety of Canadians,” a November 2022 CSIS statement said.

Link
 
Interesting opinion piece


"But for those inclined to see the exchange as either an indictment of Mr. Trudeau’s weakness or a tribute to his strength: arrogant and contemptuous is Chinese leaders’ default mode. It wasn’t the first time, after all, that a Chinese leader had talked down to a Canadian prime minister. Recall the public rebuke prime minister Stephen Harper received in 2009 – on an official visit – from then-Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, for not having visited sooner. The difference is that last time, much of the Canadian media and political class sided with China".

"The record of Liberal entanglement with Beijing is, in retrospect, staggering: the fundraising dinners with Chinese billionaires; the compromised ambassadorships of John McCallum and Dominic Barton; the eager pursuit of a free trade deal, even to the point of considering an extradition treaty as a side-letter; the presence of all those Liberal grandees on the Canada-China Business Council."
 
Interesting opinion piece


"But for those inclined to see the exchange as either an indictment of Mr. Trudeau’s weakness or a tribute to his strength: arrogant and contemptuous is Chinese leaders’ default mode. It wasn’t the first time, after all, that a Chinese leader had talked down to a Canadian prime minister. Recall the public rebuke prime minister Stephen Harper received in 2009 – on an official visit – from then-Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, for not having visited sooner. The difference is that last time, much of the Canadian media and political class sided with China".

"The record of Liberal entanglement with Beijing is, in retrospect, staggering: the fundraising dinners with Chinese billionaires; the compromised ambassadorships of John McCallum and Dominic Barton; the eager pursuit of a free trade deal, even to the point of considering an extradition treaty as a side-letter; the presence of all those Liberal grandees on the Canada-China Business Council."

The difference is that last time, much of the Canadian media and political class sided with China".

The difference is that last time , much of the Canadian media and political class saw the issue entirely through the parochial prism of Canadian politics.

Blue man bad.
Red man good.
 
The difference is that last time, much of the Canadian media and political class sided with China".

The difference is that last time , much of the Canadian media and political class saw the issue entirely through the parochial prism of Canadian politics.

Blue man bad.
Red man good.

That's exactly what Mr Coyne said.
 
I'm so confused, as is the Prime Minister it seems. He was briefed by CSIS in January... ;)


PM Trudeau says that he does not know the 11 candidates in the 2019 election who were alleged to have received money from China. Trudeau says he has instructed his officials to examine the issue and they will pass that info on to the parl committee looking into this #cdnpoli

 
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Who are "his official's"?
Trudeau believes "his truths".
The two in the picture look good together.
 
I'm so confused, as is the Prime Minister it seems. He was briefed by CSIS in January... ;)


PM Trudeau says that he does not know the 11 candidates in the 2019 election who were alleged to have received money from China. Trudeau says he has instructed his officials to examine the issue and they will pass that info on to the parl committee looking into this #cdnpoli


I call

sign language bullshit GIF
 
I'm so confused, as is the Prime Minister it seems. He was briefed by CSIS in January... ;)


PM Trudeau says that he does not know the 11 candidates in the 2019 election who were alleged to have received money from China. Trudeau says he has instructed his officials to examine the issue and they will pass that info on to the parl committee looking into this #cdnpoli

Here is an appropriate description: When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
 
I'm so confused, as is the Prime Minister it seems. He was briefed by CSIS in January... ;)


PM Trudeau says that he does not know the 11 candidates in the 2019 election who were alleged to have received money from China. Trudeau says he has instructed his officials to examine the issue and they will pass that info on to the parl committee looking into this #cdnpoli

He's probably the major recipient of the cash. The other ten, in my estimation, are likely split between Toronto and Vancouver.
 
Tinfoil hat hypothetical

So what happens if it turns out JT was one of the MP's that China covertly funded? Given stories like this one, it may not be as far-fetched as some want to believe?


"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to defend his party's fundraising methods in the House of Commons Tuesday after media reports emerged revealing he attended a fundraiser with a Chinese businessman who went on to donate $200,000 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation"

Given how sketchy this entire situation is, it may be unresolvable since the party in power could be the one that benefitted the most from covert Chinese funding and simply decide to cover this whole mess up. I mean, what are they gonna do, be honest with us? Tell us that in fact the Chinese did help them? They don't seem interested in really coming clean and telling us anything, it seems like they are actually more focused on bringing up other controversial topics like gun laws to bring heat off of the situation and trying to move past and dismiss it.

Maybe it is just tinfoil, but you would think if it was, and maybe it is, and the LPC are truly interested in "transparent government" wouldn't we already have the answers and know exactly who was foreign funded? That's super messed up. And there's nothing everyday Canadian's can really do about it.

What would the repercussions even be if this turned out to be the case, if anything?

How do we potentially deal with a party holding power if we know the way they came to that power was partially threw foreign funding by one of our biggest adversaries? And how will this effect our relationship with our Western allies if proven true and the party refuses to leave?

I realize this might be pretty far-fetched but at the same time the lack of transparency on this topic is pure conspiracy fuel.
A few years ago, there was a big, public investigation about a similar situation in the US. Names were named, people were indicted and convicted.

Here, crickets.
 

World Economic Forum chair Klaus Schwab declares on Chinese state TV: 'China is a model for many nations'​

"I think it’s a role model for many countries," Schwab said, before qualifying that he thinks each country should make its own decisions about what system it wants to adapt.

"‘Stakeholder capitalism,’ a model I first proposed a half-century ago, positions private corporations as trustees of society, and is clearly the best response to today’s social and environmental challenges," he wrote. "We should seize this moment to ensure that stakeholder capitalism remains the new dominant model."

 
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