Blunting China's Sharp Power: How democracies can defend against Chinese influence operations

a la matanza mr. seta in unit bonsoir my name's amiss usually behave knew I said confused and instead she McDonald oh yes you JD's activity danger arms Russian communists on his affair and tell the P Democratic come the Canada ladies and gentlemen good evening I'm Brian Lee Crowley managing director of the mcdonald laurie institute and i would like to welcome you to our special event entitled blunting china's sharp power how democracies can defend against chinese influence operations thank you so much for being here recent canada china tensions have cast a much-needed spotlight on the challenges inherent in maintaining bilateral relations with authoritarian regimes in general and the arbitrary behavior of china's communist regime in particular Beijing's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding China is not governed by the rule of law as we understand it if the Chinese Communist Party has a view about who should be prosecuted when and why and about what senses should be handed down when those people are convicted they simply issue orders to the police and the judiciary and such a pourraient behavior is clearly on display with the arrests of Canadians Michael Cobb Rick and Michael SPAWAR and the resentencing of alleged drug smuggler Robert schellenberg from prison to execution or indeed Beijing's insouciant disregard of its trade obligations in its cavalier treatment of our exports of canola and pork yet while we are rightly concerned about the safety of Canadians in mainland China and the access accorded to our exports there we should not ignore the dangers posed by Chinese actions much closer to home here in Canada as described in a recent dem Li paper by Taiwan based security analysts and Canadian J Michael Cole who is with us tonight and will be will be introduced in a minute China has pursued shark power influence operations against Canada and our allies according to Michael China relies increasingly on unsavory methods that he that use co-optation bribery incentives dissing for censorship and other means revelations of Chinese in penetration in the United States in Australia and New Zealand the Czech Republic and elsewhere have sparked an awakening that in my view was long overdue now in many ways Taiwan has been a testing ground for these kinds of sharp power which are designed to shape perceptions in Taiwan and erode the belief that the Taiwanese have in the democratic institutions that very much make Taiwan what it is today much can be learned from how that country has let has dealt with such a threat Canada is not immune to these activities the Chinese Communist Party has an ongoing campaign to embed agents of influence in Canadian business in our politics in our media and in academia simply put Beijing aims to turn Canadian public policy to China's advantage to acquire useful technology and intellectual property and to be able to monitor and when needed intimidate Chinese Canadians and others at MLI we've been I'm proud to say at the forefront of bringing attention to bear on the dangers posed by China's sharp power operations and with today's event we hope to explore how our government should confront China's attempts to infiltrate and influence Canadian politics in society and to review what lessons might be learnt from places like Taiwan that are on the front lines in dealing with such influence operations and we're delighted to host this event in partnership with the prospect Foundation in Taiwan and what this has brought as backdrop I'm very proud to introduce J Michael Cole who I'm mentioned a moment ago who will be saying a few words before he introduces some of our other distinguished guests this evening J Michael Cole and by the way J Michael stands for jean-michel Ken's yang-da sein that was quite a shallow boom J Michael Cole is a Type A based senior fellow with the Macdonald lorry Institute need I say also with the Washington dc-based global Taiwan Institute and the Taiwan Studies program at the University of Nottingham he's a former analyst with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service CSIS here in Ottawa and his latest book convergence or conflict in the Taiwan Strait was published by Rutledge in the autumn of 2016 and please join me in welcoming J Michael Cole to the M Li well good evening ladies and gentlemen I need to start my my stopwatch because I could talk for a few hours on that very subject it's a it's a great honor to be here tonight and I would like to thank the McDonnell Lori Institute and the prospect Foundation for making this event a possible I'm quite sure a success as well said I am Taipei based I have lived in Taiwan since 2005 so it's gonna be 14 years next month and is very obvious that Taiwan is at the very front lines of Chinese influence operations in the region but also one of the front lines in the growing intensifying deepening what I would say is a clash of ideologies pitting liberal democracies against revisionist regimes that propose a more authoritarian model of governance as a Canadian who has made Taiwan his home I think the by virtue of living in Taiwan I probably have become a bit more sensitive if you will to the different means by which the Chinese Communist Party attempts to erode undermine corrupt democratic institutions and belief in the values of liberal democracy which Taiwan since democratization in the 1980s has fully embraced by virtue of those experiences and studying Chinese influence and intelligence collection in Taiwan I guess I have gained a new perspective on not only the value of democracy in my home country here in Canada but more and more attuned to what China is trying to do not only in Taiwan but abroad within the region and as we know in places like New Zealand Australia United States across Europe and yes surprise surprise here in Canada as well with a from the perspective of Chinese influence aimed at Canada in the context of cross-strait relations or of Taiwan I have felt over the years that the Chinese regime has very much conditioned different aspects or segments of Canadian society and on matters relating relating to Taiwan and oftentimes in so doing compromising the very values that define us as Canadians the Chinese we've allowed the Chinese to force us to make choices oftentimes that go against what we believe in we've allowed the PRC to condition condition us in to fear in risk avoidance when it comes to Taiwan oftentimes turning Democratic Taiwan and the world's 20th largest economy as a pariah state rather than a logical partner which which Taiwanese Canadian government Canadian civil society Canadian media in Canadian academia should be collaborating and this is this is deeply troubling in my opinion to see how successful the Chinese have been at turning a logical natural ally of Canada into something that we simply do not want to to deal with of course in that context what we refer to as United Front work is not always directly aimed at Taiwan oftentimes the Chinese use these techniques to shape the environment in their favor on on trade on politics nowadays certainly on developments in places like scenes young even more more current developments in Hong Kong but also business deals that are beneficial to the Chinese and those efforts in places like like Canada but nevertheless Taiwan is what is known as a core principle for the Chinese Communist Party so any agent of influence who works for the Chinese Communist Party the Chinese government or is one of those affiliated proxies operating in different countries and here in Canada will also do his or her utmost to also reflect the CCP line on Taiwan which definitely certainly implies adherence to the one country two systems' formula for Taiwan emphasis on the inevitable reunification of Taiwan with what they call the mainland and oftentimes these kinds of activities on university campuses in the media and even with government agencies succeed in eroding Taiwan's visibility and again encouraging people to simply not deal with Taiwan for fear that doing so would cause them difficulties with their business or academic endeavors we have seen in recent years troubling interference by the Chinese Chinese authorities Chinese government in Chinese language media here in Canada and again if you look at the impact not only censorship but also very much toeing the line on Taiwan in Beijing's position on on Taiwan what this means is that Chinese consumers of news in in places like Canada will get a filtered take on developments in the Taiwan Strait one which by default downplays the value of democracy and the fact that Taiwan is very much a sovereign entity we've seen again in recent years several signs of the elite capture here in Canada through the funding of think tanks and research centers at universities and again the media and whatnot so this is very much constraining Taiwan's ability to function in taiwan and to interact in canada and to interact with their Canadian counterparts and as I said this also unfortunately has been reflected in our own government's willingness or lack thereof to treat Taiwan as a natural ally so we'll end here so that we have sufficient time for the Q&A so now it's my honor to introduce mr. mark Chen I was a former foreign minister in Taiwan mr. Chen has also been a magistrate in Tainan in southern Taiwan has also worked at the presidential office under President Chen shui-bian and at the National Security Council in Taipei mr. Chen is currently the chairman of the prospect foundation mr. Chen [Applause] good evening thank you Michael for your kind introduction tonight I certainly wants to express first of all our appreciation to all of you I think tell me if my memory serves me correct about two years old maybe dissing two years I think one time when I was in Taipei and we had dr. Crowley who went I want to participate in a kind of similar our discussion something of this kind of nature in that I was a audience in a ship down and listen to dr. Crowley's presentation and his opinion regarding the Taiwan I was deep in the crowd is an understanding of Taiwan and his defense of deputy human rights and so forth that is what i varied so-called like-minded countries like-minded people so to be able to do something regarding to what's going on because of a China's rise so speaking of China's rise I think a Taiwanese next to China we understand China much better than anybody else that's why the presentation has been a focus and many foundations spread in the wrong in the world they think to contact we cell foundation maybe would benefit something because we I mentioned earlier the Chinese part is the Chinese sort of culture for so many many years I'm proud to say that we there in Taiwan we probably the only one we can detect what they have in their mind compared to for the same public so this is a very important because they say one thing and do another thing and for so many years we have experienced that kind of a situation so I'd like to share I think if possible and as tonight in discussion panel discussions I'm sure many things would be revealed and so but let me go back to a little bit about the situation because I think from the program I think I can speak about eight minutes if over time Michael I used to be working in the USA and I used to be working with Department of Commerce for 19 years but during that time I was in the USA I wasn't able to go back to Taiwan because Taiwan was under during that time under Chiang kai-shek's and then his son challenging Co then because of their policy they won't allow anybody to speak out to criticize government policy so unit and Haven was under martial law so I said we thought of it many people they cannot speak out their voices and so people like me we were studying the USA we cannot we are not allowed to go back to Thailand because we criticized in USA about what we know in Taiwan we want Taiwan to be a free and democratic country but because of that kind of criticism we were not allowed to return to Taiwan so we've been blocked in stood until former present detangler was in power they finally made it possible for many people in Taiwan they can return back to Taiwan so I was very happy so I took that opportunity and I went back to Taiwan then because I think my own training was not a social resource partitions my own chart my own training was about science I used to be working on a much larger scale or something didn't we see the atmosphere did we see aerospace and so forth but since I had the opportunity to put my effort try to change some life other people in time so I engaged in that kind of politics so up to now I think I'm I up to this moment I was back in time and for 26 years already all those 26 years in Taiwan I did my effort I did my best try to contribute my as a personal duty personal London cooperates through this kind of connections many people maybe benefit from it now today here tonight I'm so impressed so many people here and so many people from even from somebody from Taiwan I miss some of my friends they drive they they drove all the way from Toronto from Montreal to come to this meeting here I was very impressed why because I think people more and more they understand the value of democracy value of human rights and so forth let me just give an example a couple years ago when I was attending a so called the forum 2000 created by the former Czech Republic's president mr. Harwell in that in that meeting in Czech Republic I attended across the session was allowed only through twenty some countries members only limited to the host country who enjoyed the democratic idea of the democratic government so the conclusion of the session was used to be I just caught the conclusion of the meeting they said used to be Russia was did in a way or the former Soviet Union was indeed in the way to undermine the value of democracy and human rights but he said now everything changed now China is bid in the way covering with Russia and China is become the big brother and worships become a small potato so that is real impressive expression that I always remember in my mind so nowadays what happens every way and me people recognize of whole world you know China is dealing the way try to undermine the value of the democracy and that is a factor so they are here in Taiwan we are so close to China every time when we have the election China who do their part try to hope to win something try to overturn or undermine the significance of the democratic values so since when president Eaton who was running for president in 1996 China was using military means try to scale of tyranny certain voters hoping they can change the consequence change the value I mean the result of the elections but in nowhere Tony Smith body understood quite well their vote goes to support president Eaton way because they know detangler has in mind the far you and everything included he received good education in Japan and returned to Taiwan asleep and so forth then after that every time when it comes to the elections a China wouldn't give up but nowadays they are using more sign modern technology and pretty soon you people here are going to discuss some issues about it we have a real prominent scholars coming from Taiwan I think he can talk Puma right here so from our perspective and the chairman of the prospects foundation this foundation was established about 30 years ago it's a nonpartisan and we were trying to do some work they were also called 1.5 volt to try to be able to exchange ideas compare notes and the final one is we want to share our understanding with my friends hoping this kind of information would help them out to understand what China has in mind what China is after I mean just do everything alone China is trying to the influence of Western concept Western value including to push the the I'm called the military or political influence in the part of the world push on Japan and push up United States so therefore it's time and it's very important for Taiwan in our position as the chairman of the prospect for nation to share our understanding to all my friends what happens to Taiwan is going to happen to any other country tomorrow so what happens in Hong Kong now is a a case in point so that is the kind of value that is kind of a point I want to be here to brief rate that you know or about it so I once again I really from the bottom of my heart I appreciate this kind of opportunity and I want to thank dr. Crowley one more times without your insistent in shift or having signed the MOU between your MRI and the tiger foundation I would be I almost be able to come here tonight I won't be able to speak all of you so okay thank you very much bonsoir merci beaucoup [Applause] thank you very much chairman Chetan and I did forget to mention in my introduction that the first and foremost you have been a very good friend over the years and quite encouraging of my work and that of my Taiwanese wife so we really appreciate your support well going back to Taiwan one thing that has happened in recent years as well particularly since President sighing when I came into office in May 2016 is Taiwan really investing in activities that seek to bring together experts from all over the world who are studying the very issues that we are discussing here tonight starting in 2017 we organised and sponsored workshops in United States that brought people who have been making the news in recent years people like John Garneau and Mary Brady our very own Charles Burton and many others and it's very difficult to imagine any other country that that early in the history of Chinese interference would have been willing to invest in take certain risks in making these these efforts possible so through these activities we have worked really hard to establish networks of experts so that we can learn from their experiences and hopefully that they can also learn from Taiwan's experience the idea that Taiwan has all the solutions to that growing challenge would be certainly misleading Taiwan like every other country is in the process of learning how to track identify mitigate and hopefully through legal revisions and whatnot counter the detrimental effects of Chinese interference as the network grows we're adding individuals who have special skill sets as someone who has been researching and writing about Chinese interference in recent years one name that I would frequently come across is a young researcher in Taiwan named Kumar sir who has been doing extraordinary work looking using algorithms and technologies that could not possibly dream of ever understanding to identify different means of this information on social media and messaging apps and whatnot in the context of China and Taiwan and mr. Chen has has become quite in demand recent recent months worldwide because people are realizing that we need more young individuals tech-savvy you have the ability to speak good English and what not to learn from that and again to exchange notes and and in in all that so mr. Chen Sharon is the chairman of a recently established foundation well foundation called doublethink lab and certainly has the Orwellian connotation he's also the vice president of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights in Taiwan he focuses heavily on the right to privacy and tracks privacy violations locally he is also a lawyer and he's an assistant professor at national Taipei University he's also an expert in the field of white-collar crime including state crime and financial crime recent articles by dr. Shedden on chinese disinformation have been circulated wildly across across Taiwan in have had a substantial impact on changes in attitudes both by society and the Taiwanese government facing that new challenge posed by technology and its marriage with authoritarian regimes so without further ado let me introduce mr. Kumar son [Applause] however and this is faux mushroom for national Taipei University and just like my own said I'm the chairman of the new organization called double Sinclair so since I only have like 8 to 10 minutes today so I'll just try to make it short so Chinese shot a Chinese shop hour like this graph really shapes the world we live in Taiwan as a testing ground for Chinese or China influence operation is facing many attacks to understand Chinese influence operation I think it is crucial to not categorize these attacks in a traditional way so unlike Russian operation Chinese influence operation opposed centralized and decentralized so to explain this the command of the CCP might be centralized but operators have their own capacity to initiate all these attacks as you can see on this lines and these attacks are often decentralized since the operators certain collaborate with each other operators try to find the niches that they can fit into and once they find a topic that suit the CCP's propaganda for propaganda war purposes they try hard to apply for government funding initiate an attack and revise their strategy when they attacked exploited so therefore to truly understand Chinese influence operation it is crucial to specify the notes that create generated or amplified attacks these notes are serve different purposes but the main goal is definitely to destabilize society in turn to ruin democracy so there are three ways to reach this mango if were nodes are found in a strategy the motive centralization we see first China would aid other of their Italian countries to develop surveillance technology who diminish the value of democracy China could invest in and purchase foreign companies or even enter countries with its own companies to do so the so called digital order a terrorism has been established in recent years the this kind of attack characterized by this method is more centralized than other attack types since the nodes involved well-known companies such as hallway second China can hack into systems stealing and collecting information worldwide to serve its propaganda agenda hacks by the MSS have launched persistent attacks around the world these attacks are centralized however China could utilize private companies most of them with party committees such as tick tock and WeChat to collect information worldwide hundreds of apps like these to serve the purpose and they collect information that can be utilized using big data analysis these companies behaviors are what is centralized in hackers behaviors things they do not report to the same Authority third China can exploit the technology it has it has and the information it gathers to launch information warfare attacks and this kind of attacks my expertise it is the most decentralized attack type among the three since multiple departments in China are involved in numerous groups not even companies are involved such as religious groups gangsters local parties local elites these attacks are hard to detect because of this centralization so here in Taiwan we face the last two attacks the collecting of private information or stealing of technology as well as the utilization of private information to deliver problematic messages to different groups of people which in turn produce distrust so with all this collective info it is much easier for China to do the profiling to determine which group of people is more vulnerable than another so preliminary evidence already indicates that some peace info has only even a big spread in certain countries or professes in Taiwan so this is the graph indicating the spread of this info attacks from China to Taiwan the red part is the department in China that initiates all these attacks the yellow part is the notes I just specify in a cyber diamond model and the green part is the content China created and the effect on public perception so in our analysis for the green part we categorized this info into several categories the topics strategies emotion and cognitive bias so there are several proven attacks such as communist League party command Weibo accounts that are used to generate fake news a constant disseminate information using bulletin board and TV shows the Taiwan Affairs Office can also create the narratives like this on the left side that have been duplicated on content forms and delivered closer to closed messaging groups cyber forces and shows for China also utilized search boosters to establish subliminal attacks that create Google search bias for certain controversial issues moreover local religious groups and parties collaborate with China to disseminate this info so these are all the chorus but is rather complicated or expanded during the Q&A so our organization not monitor more than 2600 sites Weibo accounts fan pages and more than 17,000 closed groups in quarter to determine that this info chain is initiated by China these are some examples we got but what is more important here is that is that how we can trace them back to China with some legal tools so there are two methods that can be used to trace that this info backs back to China first we can try to find who paid for the content forms and whether the content brands paid Google for a search boost also if the marketing companies are paid by the CCP then it is easier to prove that China is attacking Taiwan however this approach is limited most content forms operating in Malaysia America or other countries not one here in Canada and however this approach is I mean and this fact makes it difficult for us to delve into the details of their operations even with the help of government agencies it is still difficult to trace how funding flows without cooperation with other countries it is almost impossible for us to determine the details of money laundry also even with law enforcement cooperation with other countries if trace are all in cash we need to find another way to prove the existence of this kind of this info attacks and this leads me to the second method we to trace the message flow we already develop our own Chinese word segmentation system which is not an issue in English since all English terms are separated training centers contains no the limiters such as a space to separate words so therefore a typical word segmentation system tries to find the possible word compositions of a sentence by comparing it with a lexicon because China uses simplified Chinese and there are different cultural usage of Chinese it is quite important to determine how China writes an article that of aims to affect how many citizens or other citizens around the world who used to might Muse the different language with the same language for different tribes in China so we are not categorizing Chinese content from supporting z' into several categories and determine the purpose the proportion of adjectives emotional terms political content etc by doing this we create the author's persona their writing style and we can see whether the persona can be detected elsewhere on the internet or our messaging groups such as line which had open set and behavior models can also be calculated to determine whether there is a coordinated inauthentic behavior the standard used by Facebook and Twitter however this method involves an obstacle our tracing of cristinaw may stop at a certain print usually Malaysia Hong Kong and if the obstacle is an IP address that we cannot trace then our efforts become useless the whole idea of an IP network involves the sharing of and cooperation with different agencies from different countries and since China has purchased lots of VPN services it is crucial for us to cooperate right now to fight back moreover even we'll recognize an IP network we still need to link certain IPS to certain departments in China whether they are the Taiwan Affairs Office the PLA was CPPCC so of the above are the investigational aspects that really need to be emphasized at this point however in the near future work would be done on the legislation side on the middle or the military corporation so one thing that could be done in was the enactment of Farah foreign foreign agency Registration Act so we can maybe we can talk more during the Q&A and also in the latest in the Pacific strategy report it is clear that Hawaii is the conference partner however the role of Taiwan should be elevated since Taiwan is the country that is suitable for analyzing Chinese this info attacks and Chinese information operation is already a national security issue worldwide now one should establish the center of excellence that is capable of collecting and analyzing Chinese this info attacks sharing analytical tools with the world to prevent the democracy from collapsing so that Britain is my team thank you so much for listening [Applause] well ladies and gentlemen I'm going to ask the panelists to come and take their places up here on the on the podium while I introduce Bob Fife who is going to moderate the panel discussion I think Robert Fife is known to pretty much everybody who follows the news in Canada he's The Globe and Mail's Ottawa bureau chief and former host of ctv's question period bob is one of Canada's best-known and most respected journalists and he's broken many stories through his long career including the Senate expense scandal and the SNC lavell affair Bob who has won many awards for his journalism is also the author of several books and thanks to mr. Fife and his colleagues it's fair to say that the globe has been the clear leader and covering the many issues surrounding the counter to China relationship including those we will be discussing here this evening so Bob will you come up and can we get the panelists to come up to the platform please [Applause] well first of all thank you all for coming out it's a full house and we're deeply appreciative I just just want to say that when I way back in 1994 I went with Jean chrétien to China and to Beijing we went with the biggest business delegation of the chief executive officers of Canada and there was great hope that China was not only going to be offer great business opportunities for Canada but that this was the beginning of a country that was going to open it its way to the Western world and that there would be hope that they would have a civil society and eventually a strong middle class that would lead to hopefully some form of democracy and in the many years since that period of time we've seen that the Canadian establishment is very has turned a blind eye to many of the problems that China poses to the world including human rights and the fact that we have them over a million people wiggers who are in concentration camps but are very interested in getting business deals and in many cases turning over our technology and our industries to China and there is a growing consensus in the Western world that this has to be confronted but it hasn't really been dealt with in Canada now I'm going to allow the people who haven't had an opportunity to speak to speak for about five minutes then we're going in and open it up the discussion and then we really want to hear from the audience because obviously you're all very interested in coming here and you I'm sure you all have really smart questions so first but Bethany just go ahead and investigative journalists at the international consortium of investigative journalists in Washington DC and I'm very pleased to be here this is my first time in Ottawa so thank you so much for having me tonight and I'm going to speak briefly about China's authoritarian capitalism in the United States so from an American perspective when the United States won the Cold War we believed we had achieved the final and definitive verdict against communism in our view that struggle pitted two inherently authoritarian forces the repressive communist party state and its state-run economy against two inherently liberalizing forces represented a democracy and free market capitalism but we were wrong within 30 years another Communist Party would rise and threatened to displace America and its values the Chinese Communist Party has successfully engineered what the Cold War Victor's believed to be impossible an unabashedly communist party leading a prosperous capitalist state Western triumph illusion was even more profoundly flawed however the belief that free trade capitalism is by its very nature a democratizing force is now demonstrably false if some dissenting voices did reject the notion that the free market would usher in with it a liberal politics almost no one predicted the capitalism could be a two-way street that if democratic values could travel in one direction along it authoritarianism might just well travel in the other in 2002 China scholar Perry link warned in his essay about censorship called the anaconda in the chandelier that while scholars journalists and overseas Chinese can be threatened with being cut off from their access to China for businesses the primary threat is exclusion from China's huge potential market the threats against businesses seem as anything even more effective than those against scholars and even more shrouded in sensitivity yet his warning was ignored because its implications have taken to their logical conclusion or too alarming to comprehend for more than two decades as its economy became increasingly intertwined with you national system the Chinese Communist Party has studied how to weaponize its rapidly expanding domestic market for political gain as early as the late 1990s even before China's entry into the World Trade Organization dramatically amplified its global economic engagement the party had already used the promise of its market to tame one of America's pre-eminent instrument instruments of soft power projection Hollywood a spate of Pro to bet movies ended in 1998 when Disney CEO Michael Eisner traveled to Beijing to apologize for the 1997 film Kundun which portrayed the life of the current Dalai Lama and was directed vice Martin Scorsese China had banned Disney films after a Clinton was released Eisner had told party officials that the film was a stupid mistake within six months of eisenerz groveling the ban was lifted and Chinese theaters featured Disney's Mulan with Chinese subtitles there had been no further major motion pictures featuring Tibet or its exiled spiritual leader as China's domestic film market has burgeoned so to have its censors demands Beijing has wielded this power adroitly mandating that production companies abide by the party's bottom lines in order to earn one of the 34 coveted spots allotted to foreign films each year the result has been deafening silence from Hollywood on the realities of Chinese Communist Party rule and increasingly a requirement that China be featured in a proactively positive way this is just one example in the past 20 years and was growing momentum in the past two years company after company has succumbed as Beijing has dangled in front of them the glittering riches of a market size of 1.4 billion all for the tiny tiny price of silence Google LinkedIn Apple Marriott mercedes-benz an American company Zara United Airlines and now the National Basketball Association all have agreed to self-censor or have apologized with great contrition after a tweet or a survey or a map that didn't fully align with the Chinese Communist Party's priorities and they've sworn to avoid such mistakes in the future not just companies in 2009 North Carolina State University canceled its invitation to the Dalai Lama after its Chinese government funded Confucius Institute objected after leaving office numerous elected officials and government bureaucrats have taken positions at lobbying firms to represent the Chinese government's interests in Washington this is dangerous to American national security in the well-being of our democracy pervasive censorship suppresses important knowledge and artificially distorts our debate making us less prepared to respond to risks and threats opposed by a rising authoritarian power it also curtails our most basic civil rights thus weakening the system of a liberal democratic values that the United States has tried to instill in domestic and international institutions now there are a couple of trends that are now going in a more positive direction the first one is if you if you followed the the controversy with the NBA and China that really brought this issue to the forefront of the American national debate for the first time it was really interesting for you know people who watch China to see America wake up to a problem that we've been watching very closely for five years and the second and it really caused a lot of outrage from just average Americans which I found to be to give me a lot of hope for the future second is an unanticipated side effect of president Trump's lengthy trade war with China the once unimaginable concept of decoupling the unjoin of China and America's economy is it no longer seems completely far-fetched some American businesses have already started shifting their supply chains away from China while a total decoupling is likely impossible and I would think ill-advised the new trend helps strengthen the hand of American businesses China no longer seems as mandatory market as it once did okay my friend Charles very much I've been asked to talk about Chinese influence operations in Canada in academia think-tanks Chinese influence operations directed at Canadian politicians and policy makers so there's obviously a lot to talk about with this particular topic in this particular country I think that you know it's clear that all diplomatic missions in Canada have a function to promote the interests of their nations through public diplomacy to encourage a favorable impression of their country among Canadians and to engage with Canadian policymakers that's a normal diplomatic function a lot of it done over wine and good food but the question at hand here is are the People's Republic of China's influence operations in Canada carried out in unacceptable ways exceeding the bounds of conventional diplomatic practice or indeed is the government of China implicated in violations of the laws of Canada through their agents of influence and other operations to encourage Canada to adopt policy sympathetic to the goals of the Chinese regime in Canada and this topic is one which you know as as Brian was saying Bob Fife and Steve chase is there for The Globe and Mail have been following up with considerable tenacity but it is not something which is specific I think to one newspaper and one political perspective in our country I mean for post media we've got Terry Glavine and Tom Blackwell and others and globe mail also shows you and for the Vancouver Sun we've got Jeremy Nuttall and Joanna chill today actually earlier I suggested that Joanna's Chinese skills are weak that is not so and I apologized to her for that but you know the journalists and several others have encouraged a Canadian public opinion which is increasingly sensitized to the threat to Canadian security in Canada's global interest of China's sharp power but our government as you know many of us will respond has not been showing a commensurate response in terms of adjusting our national policy to better address the reality of China's influence operations you know if you look at at numbers I up the Global Affairs Canada diplomat list and China has considerably more diplomats accredited to Canada than any other nation that's a hundred and sixty three Chinese diplomats in Canada compared to 146 for the United States and for a country that might have comparable engagement of Canada as China the United Kingdom they have twenty two diplomats so 146 versus US China 163 UK 22 and of interest to what I'm going to say next is that the United States has 23 diplomats resident at its consulate in Toronto whereas China has 43 diplomats resident at its consulate in Toronto almost double the number of US diplomats there so the question is why does China have so many more diplomats here than any other nation is it that a significant proportion of those PRC diplomats are in fact engaged in representing the United Front work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party working with agents of influence here or engaged in other undeclared functions such as coordinating espionage operations or the other possibility is that Chinese diplomats operated a much much lower level of efficiency than the counterparts other countries that's you know let's keep her an open mind to this question last month the student union of McMaster University in Hamilton voted to Deer Atta Phi the student club status of the CSS a the Chinese students and scholars Association there the ruling cited a regulation against club conduct that in dangers the safety or security of any person or property it was prompted by evidence that earlier in the year the McMaster CSSA had coordinated the disruption of a public seminar conducted by the Canadian wagger activist Rukia tarnish on the topic of the Chinese government's cultural genocide program against its turkey Muslim population in the northwestern regions of the PRC and tur - his son who is a student at McMaster was threatened over social media allegedly at the direction of a PRC diplomat stationed in the education section of the PRC consulate in Toronto then there was - the student government compelling anonymous testimony given by a Chinese student studying at McMaster confirmed by multiple sources that the Chinese consulate in Toronto tasks the CSSA to gather intelligence on Chinese students and professors and others in the university in the community and of course they also have evidence that the consulate funds and coordinates political demonstrations in Canada to support China's communist regime including the recent worldwide demonstrations supporting PRC policies on Hong Kong these the Chinese government denies the you know quite strong evidence that they provide money and support because of documents that have come out but they say that these are self-motivated patriotic behavior against anti China separatist activities so the key is self-motivated but my feeling is if in fact it is directed by diplomats those diplomats are acting in a in a capacity and consistent with their a diplomatic mandate and of course when when they're identified on the diplomatic list no one says they're working for the Chinese Communist Party Minister of State Security or for the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee United for work department now if I could turn to the allegations that some Canadian politicians are under the influence of a foreign power and we do see in Canada examples of politicians who explicitly or implicitly expressed the perspective that Canada's primary interest in relations with China is the promotion of Canada's prosperity through trade and investment that that's the main thing and that all other Canadian concerns in terms of security such as the substantial risks of Huawei 5g or about China's domestic violations of human rights in Shenyang and Hong Kong should be subordinated to the larger economic imperatives of Canada China relations because the PRC embassy here insists that that's what we should do so similarly Canada should shun Taiwan and the Dalai Lama or China says that they will make us suffer economically through measures such as imposing experience non-tariff barriers on Canadian agricultural exports to China as we've seen more most recently in the in the huawei CFO extradition case some Canadian politicians and policymakers who support a China policy for Canada that amounts to supporting PRC regime interests in Canada have experienced lucrative careers related to China after retirement from public service but there is no evidence of an improper connection between the two we don't have the smoking gun that suggested there's anything here but there have been substantive indications of cause for concern about Chinese influence operations in other countries as Michael alluded to that one could rightly suspect could have as-yet-undiscovered counterparts in Canada am i okay let me give you one minute I I would refer specifically to the case of young Jan the the New Zealand Parliament member who was on their Foreign Affairs defense and trade select committee who had falsified his application for immigration to New Zealand as an adult in 2004 by removing from his CV his the references to his work history exclusively in people's liberation army institutions and replaced them with civilian institutions that he in fact had never worked in and this would be consistent with the United Front work Department documents that have been leaked suggesting that they want to have ethnic Chinese friendly to the PRC elected to Democratic legislators finally I would refer to the case of the former but there's no indication that mr. yang has done anything wrong he did say that he was a member of the Chinese Communist Party but had been inactive but he sits as a member of the Nationalist Party of New Zealand in the case of mr. rabe the former minister of trade and investment who negotiated the china-australia free trade agreement he and also was involved in the 99 year lease that was extended on the port of Darwin to a Chinese billionaire subsequently we just it was revealed that he was even while still in the end of his parliamentary career in receipt of a seventy three thousand dollar a month private consultancy amounting to eight hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year if I could just say finally when and there's no indication that mr. Roberts done anything improper or illegal but after Australia implemented their foreign influence transparency scheme Act last year that came into effect in March of this year mr. rabe and other usually Australian politicians and others resigned from China connected lucrative positions there is no apparent interest in Canada in exploring a similar legislation for our country if I just may add John McCallum was our former ambassador to China who ended up getting fired before he was appointed he had accepted 75,000 dollars in free trips from China and the new ambassador Dominic Barton who was a highly qualified in many ways he was the global manager of Mackenzie Company which is the world's largest consulting firm but this large consulting firms they're one of their largest clients happens to be a Chinese state-owned companies and corporations with a great deal of imprints and keeping Beijing happy Margaret thank you I'm Margaret quake Johnston and I worked in the federal government for 37 years and 13 of those as an assistant deputy minister and I've collaborated with China for 40 years since my first visit in 1979 but China's recent actions have compelled me to start to speak out we're in a transition period right now I managed to transitions when I was in the Privy Council office in the 1980s and I was in departments managing transitions from that end for many years after and so I know that there are a really good time to do a reset of policy so what I'd like to do is propose a new approach in the context of our China crisis and this is an approach that addresses the situation of our detainees our agriculture bands and shows China consequences for its actions and refocuses our engagement in Asia I'd like to start by commending the government's actions to date and we should continue the clear strong statements on rule of law and against China's disproportionate retaliations we should also continue getting other countries to speak out that's the first time this strategy has been tried in these international situations and both of those things are statements on rule of law and getting countries to speak out we've been instructed by China to stop so we know it's hit accord and we should keep doing that we should also continue our WTO appeals and we should step up inspections of agriculture products from China this is not business as usual we don't want Canadian companies to be further damaged but we should not be out there drumming up new business and new collaborations with happy signing events it's unseemly and we don't want China to benefit from new initiatives while it's holding our kidnapped Canadians on huawei we should announce the ban and we should grandfather current what we equipment if we can if it can do that safely or subsidize the care carriers if necessary we need a new indo-pacific strategy just as depends upon found when it faced kidnapped citizens and agriculture bands in 2010 and 2012 we should deepen our relations with other countries as they did and those are countries with common interests not just like-minded countries but those with common interests which is a larger group of countries on Taiwan I've been very pleased with the government's sending our naval ships through the Taiwan Strait saying that Taiwan should be able to attend international meetings of w-h-o and ICAO that's exactly right and also some preliminary steps towards seeing of Taiwan could become part of CP TPP I think those are really great steps in addition to that we should be deepening our science and innovation relations with Taiwan we should initiate security discussions with Taiwan we should be sending junior ministers who can engage on policy discussions we should start discussions towards a FIFA and we should rename the Canada Canadian trade office Taipei that Canadian Canada office Taipei because it does much more than trade as part of this new indo-pacific strategy we new need a new strategy on China one that recognizes that the China of today the China of Xi Jinping is not the China of its predecessors it's a much more aggressive China and you all know what I'm talking about and we'll talk about it in the discussion there will be areas where we will want to work with China but there will also be areas well where we will want to insulate ourselves and in that respect I think we may want to consider adopting similar legislation to Australia's foreign influence transparency Act now Michael Corrigan Michael SPAWAR were detained for five months then put in prison for a month and then arrested formally and then they've been imprisoned for another four months after that so they have not yet been charged that's a really important step in China's process if they are charged it will be a signal signal to us that they will be there for much longer and so therefore if that happens we should act on our Magnitsky legislation Michael kovorix [Applause] Michael kovorix responsibilities when he was at the Embassy and I won't get into them but they fit the legislation perfectly under the legislation we should name the Ministry of State Security officials who authorized their detention and go up the line from there if NASA as far as the government wants to go and if we do not take action under Magnus Magnitsky then I think we should rescind the Act because that act should not be in place just for countries that we do not fear and if Michael Kovac and Michael SPAWAR are charged and by the way we should keep mentioning Robert schellenberg and fan way another Canadian who was in has now a drug charge and execution sentence against him if if if there if Michael Kovac and Michael spammer are charged it'll be time for Canada to take much stronger action charging an innocent Canadian diplomat who is merely on leave as an egg is an aggressive action of one State against another so then we should do quite a number of other things and I've got some examples and we should do them all at once as a with four major impact increase further the cost of Canadian real estate for people from China send home the pandas three and a half years early pandas are a gesture of friendship China is not acting friendly towards us send home the Chinese Olympic athletes why are we training their athletes for the Winter Olympics in China in 2022 do not plan events for the 50th anniversary of recognition next year that normally would be a huge big celebration but don't even pick up the phone to start planning events and review whether we want to withdraw from the Asian infrastructure investment bank and I say review because while it would take us out one of China's pet projects we've only been in for a year and a half and we may want to stay in if we haven't placed a new indo-pacific strategy because it would provide a platform and in which we could engage with other countries in that region so that's those are serious actions but we're in a serious situation and yes as an aside Steve and I my colleague Steve chase and I are a story tomorrow that we actually sent 175 military athletes to military sports games in China earlier this month well we have two Canadians who are being held hostage it's mind-boggling now we're gonna open up the discussion I'm gonna ask Puma and Michael the first question but everybody feel free to jump in and and then as soon as we get our through our 25 minutes we will open it up to the audience because I know people have a lot of questions wall way is a big subject in Canada it was put on hold because of the federal election but the government has to make a decision on whether it should join the United States in Australia and New Zealand and banning Huawei from 5g technology you both have experience living very close to Beijing I'd be very interested in starting perhaps with you come should is there any should we allow 5g or is it is it you know Americans right when they say that 5g should should not be while we should not be allowed into Western Western mobile networks I mean for me it's like because eventually technology is not I mean in the case of Huawei I mean what is more important here is that that could by collecting the private information and that other like like ID were like Anil IP address like anything like that could be associated with so for me it's not just hallway because China is really good at AI and really got a big data analysis so with all this collected info it is easier for them to determine like which group people is more vulnerable there so let me take an example in Taiwan we have lots of convenience store in Taiwan and then all the convenience store has the huge the TV screen out there they have the spy camera in I mean and the front of it so they can collect all the face recognition and see your body weather what's sexier belongs and when were you watch the television which color you prefer how long will stay your eyes eye contact with that television like all these information could be collected and then with that information they can do picking a big data analysis and try to interfere the election because like according to our analysis they can you can you only need to effect less than 7% of the residents to really have taken effect on the election part so if you have that kind of technology it is easier for them to determine I mean which group is remarkable and it's not just about 5g like so many information collected by the media services or by the spy camera or by social media all this information collected of vulnerable so like for me like five tree is just like a small portion of all these uh big issues that we also need to bear in mind that Huawei or any large company in China is not a normal company as we understand it in the West so with that there are inherent problems particularly the fact that if the CCP requires a Chinese company to pass on personal information the company basically does not have a choice but to comply with that demand so it's not only a question of backdoors and technology but also the very structure of the company in the the imposition or the influence that the CCP will have on companies like Huawei and we can name several others and we saw I would also add as a flagship of China one of the major corporations being been Huawei if we start allowing these companies with troubled pasts and possible links to People's Liberation Army into our societies we are normalizing companies that are troublesome and some of which are complicit in widespread gross human rights violations in China I'm sorry but we are also not dealing with a normal country we are currently dealing with a country that runs concentration camps and the last time that a country ran concentration camps we all know what happened afterwards so we also need to bear to keep that in mind as we allow major Chinese companies that answer to the CCP into our societies Margaret do you want that yeah just to add to that I've had discussions with people in Washington about Huawei and 5g and the Director General of cyber for Homeland Security isn't just concerned about backdoors as we've heard about he's also concerned about bug doors so a bug that they put in the system and then it can be released at another time and of course there's just shutdowns of the system and this is a system that doesn't just run our whole in information technology but it also would be connected to the electricity grid so why would we let it a state-owned enterprise that's effectively what it is because 1% is owned by mr. Ren and 99% is run by a trade union committee which is run by the Communist Party so it's not a private company so why would we invite our SOE an SOE to to run our IT and our grid we've been the subject of veiled threats in Canada if we don't accept worse things are going to happen to us but I would point out that there is no reciprocity here we wouldn't be not that we have Nortel anymore because of all the hacking and bugs and so on around Nortel that's really a shame but we wouldn't be allowed to send a company much less a crown corporation to China and run their eyeteeth at but that's not permitted under their so-called negative list and the one the one thing that I would flag here and I'm quite concerned about it is that in the the new legislation for foreign investment the foreign investment Act that comes into effect on January 1st China says that whatever investment decision is made in another country it will be allowed to take reciprocal action against that country so since we don't have nor tell anymore there wouldn't be any equivalent reciprocal action but certainly they haven't hesitated to take other actions that aren't at all connected I would all the points that have already been made and I would like to add a couple of things and one of that one of that is that hallway has you know achieved a global dominance already and you know and is very prominent in 5g through Chinese government subsidies you know it out bids everybody there's really only a few companies that are capable of building 5g infrastructure Nokia and Ericsson and then Huawei and Y will bid you know far far lower Farb you know below below market price and I think it's very worthwhile to ask why why has the Chinese government made that you know their their strategy and it's it's obviously not purely for business reasons it's it's to give it so they can build critical infrastructure all over the world and I would I would relate that to you know my at the point that I made about how China uses capitalistic or you know you know company entanglements to force its well and I in this case I'm not referring to you know censorship but rather to a more heavy-handed kind of you know blunt power if if you Italy or you know hey do not do this or you do not support us in this foreign policy goal or if you don't sign our letter at the United Nations saying that we have a wonderful human rights record regarding Muslims or any of these other you know their foreign policy goals if you don't sign on we will delay building your whatever or you know we will just oops happen to forget to update or whatever you know so it gives it gives China an immense amount of control and when I say China it's because it is so clear that Huawei it's not a normal company you know Chris balding who is a scholar who's now in bass in Vietnam looked at the the Seavey's of many many many Huawei a top-level executives many of them just publicly and their Chinese language TVs indicated that they were sort of double hiding with the MSS now that's not proof but it is highly suggestive of the relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government so I can't think of any reason why any country should jump forward into such an enormous decision about the future of their their country's critical telecommunications and choose a company like that when there are so many profound questions not just about what will happen to that data but what will happen to your country's own ability to make its own decisions I just wanted to ask you on this on the same subject because we hear from people who are saying don't worry about wall way that we can keep it out of the core we have a testing facility that's very much like the UK when a lot of experts are saying wait a minute here but 5g it's it's not to say you can't just test the technology there's too many ways to get in Charles Johnson will follow the previous Prime Minister's adoption permitting while we under the same conditions as Bell and tell us are hoping for which is not into the core network I and that would involve GCHQ you know continuing to collaborate with Huawei to assess their their software and hardware solutions is the function that the CSE is currently undertaking as GCHQ counterpart I think it's unfortunate the British make that determination because I think it's likely that our government would then feel that they're given permission to to do the same thing and you know the pressure of Bell and Telus because of the enormous hit that they would take if they had to remove their largely kua way 3G and 4G installations which is Bethany pointed out were under bid by thirty or forty percent from competitors due to Chinese government subsidies that we could get that Huawei system and I would note that one of mr. Trudeau's election promises was to reduce cellphone cost by twenty five percent if you don't if he isn't planning to agree to Huawei how would he achieve that because not using far way Bell and Telus suggests will increase their cost from providing services because I have to take out a lot of the Huawei kit and substitute it with Ericsson or Nokia I think the other aspect is in general assuming that China has a global plan to dominate telecommunications for the leverage over infrastructure and other things that would provide is once Tallinn Telus and Bell have installed extensive Huawei equipment based on commitments given by the government of China with regard to supervision and so on if the government of China then later on says oh sorry there's a miscommunication here we're not going to continue to cooperate with the CSE then we're stuck with this stuff there's no turning back so I really feel in light of the British government's decision all the more concerned about the Canada's determination in this matter and I I am worried that we will get the Huawei 5g and that we will regret it very much in years ahead final word mark yeah getting 5g is the decision for today but if we had Huawei 5g throughout our whole system when it comes to 6 g 7 g the technologies were going to have you know 15 20 40 years out it would be inevitable that we would be building huawei on top of that and I think that's just stepping in way too far the other two companies that are strong Nokia and Ericsson others are as good as Huawei in virtually everything and better than well way in a few features security yeah security yeah before we open it up to the audience there is a consensus in the United States that China is a threat and it's not and it's it's one that's been developing probably in the last decade I wouldn't think and it's Republicans and it's new it's Democrats has nothing to do with the Trump administration this is a congressional consensus but we don't have that here in Canada and mark me I'll put it maybe to you first Margaret why isn't there because it seems to me the Canadian is establishment and I mean political and corporate and academic actually to a large extent in the universities are quite do not do not these are not sounding any alarm bells about what the Americans are our Saudi and in fact Americans have done many many studies congressional studies about the threat why isn't that happening here in Canada well yeah I've I've started to speak out I think there are a lot of others who feel the same way that I do but they want to be able to go back to China or they want to be able to keep those connections so they can continue to do their work in the future so you know I think that explains some of it we we drank the kool-aid on this a long time ago and I I have published glowing things about China's innovation system and it's all true there China their innovation system is spectacular and they're they're so good in so many things they deserve to take over the world because they've got their act together they've got a far better science and technology strategy than we do here in Canada but you just have to look at their recent behaviors and say sorry something's going on here and and it's it's not acceptable and when it comes to I I can't explain at this point the difference in the political lenses because you're right but the Democrats and the Republicans are on the same page in the States we don't seem to be quite there yet we have had the long family history of the Trudeau's and in China we've got very strong business connections but I think you know with the combination of things happening now and whatever is going to happen to us taken actions taken by China over the coming months and years I think there will be more people like me who stand up and just say you know this is not acceptable Michael both as a Canadian and someone who spends quite a bit of time in Washington DC I think part of the answer lies with the fact that it lies with geopolitics for the Americans the rise of China and the different instruments it has been using to influence the region and in perhaps the entire world is a clear immediate threat to American interests in the region in that part of the world starting with Asia but also other corners of the world you know besides the military threat against claimants in the South China Sea and certainly against Taiwan the various uses of short power by China are oftentimes aimed undermining American presence in the indo-pacific so of course by virtue of this it compels people in Washington DC to start paying attention to all these different instruments obviously Canada is not it's not playing that game we are we do claim that we're a Pacific Power or certainly do not have the installations and the agreements and in the alliances in that part of the world that the United States had had since the end of World War two so my my view is that the reason why we've seen a an awakening in the United States and by the way that did not start on their president Trump that was not as you rightly said it was not created by President Trump we started seeing a reckoning or acknowledgment in the United States I would say early in the second Obama term and that's when across Washington DC establishments Democrat Republican academia of think tanks we realize that okay for decades we've been giving to China we brought China into WTO we gave it most favored nation status status with the expectation that at some point China would become a little bit more like us if not even become democratic like us those hopes were dashed over the years with realization that this is not where China was going and if there were still any individuals who were wondering or had questions about the direction I think that President Xi Jinping made it very clear that that strategy has failed miserably and that indeed or in fact China is moving in the opposite direction so this is a direct challenge to u.s. security posture in in in East Asia and again that this has led to a lot of people to start asking important question Canada simply does not have that kind of presence in our you know so it's taking it's taking us a little bit longer to start realizing and asking the questions what impact it will have on our own our own future bethenny China the threat that it poses to American interests in the asia-pacific are you know that that threat looks very it's been the very front of our minds or at least for people in Washington I wouldn't answer the question in inverse by looking at three aspects to the reasons that there is by a strong bipartisan consensus and DC right now about China so the first one it would be sort of a variation on that which is that Americans are really obsessed with being number one we love the fact that we have the largest economy in the world we love the fact that we have the most powerful military in the world by we I don't necessarily mean myself but you know that's part of our national consciousness and that's unique I you know cuz we are at least in those two aspects still technically number one and what has happened in the last five years is that you know we have seen that both of those statuses are our under threat you know there's various different predictions as to when the tourney's economy will surpass the u.s. you know you used to be twenty fifty then it was twenty thirty some people say 20 25 maybe it'll be next year who knows you know and the same with attorneys military we've seen extremely rapid modernization you know they're they they're military budget has grown every year you know by a double-digit percentage and you know there there are very very serious concerns about the u.s. ability to even win a regional war in the asia-pacific if things you know if we're not lucky or if we're unlucky so that would be one you know major thing that that really only applies to the u.s. I spent a couple of years a couple of months in Germany a couple of years ago reporting issues related to China and you know it's sort of the same there I would say is in Canada which is that well you know Germany's not the top economy or the top military in the world anyway so what does it matter if China is number four or number two who cares right but for the US it's a big deal a second and I I do not know if this would you know apply to Canada at all but if you want to compare for example the debate about Russian influence in the United States with a debate about Chinese influence things become very clear Russia did something very smart which is they chose a side right they chose Trump they chose Republicans and that has weaponized our own political polarization against us you can't put a Democrat and a Republican the Republican in the room and get them to agree on what Russia did in 2016 even though it's it's very clear China in fact I would say made a strategic mistake by trying to become friends with everybody they did not do what Russia did and pick a side and so that means that in the US as things kind of have gotten worse it was very easy for people to turn on a dime for everyone to do that and to agree because there's not really any areas related to China so far that can be used to score a political point so that's that's the second one and the third thing oh dear if I wasn't gonna say well those are the two main ones that come maybe I'll remember but I don't know if that would apply to Canada at all about the is there any is there's one of the parties here much closer to China yeah yes I would say that traditionally you know the Liberal Party and I guess the red Tory tradition has been that we should look to China to distinguish ourselves from the United States and certainly in the earlier period of Pierre Trudeau you know he engaged in a lot of activities like the Foreign Investment Review agency and the cultural content limitations of the CRTC to try and reduce US influence in Canada and China was you know a place where we could go and be different and it's the irony of mr. Trudeau's affection for Fidel Castro and for Chairman Mao this is the same man who you know felt that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was the right thing for Canadians but we established diplomatic relations with the China at the same time that Chinese weaponry was killing American soldiers in Vietnam so it was certainly a statement and I think subsequently we have got this idea that China is our is our source of diversifying our economic dependence away from the United States so China says well you know if you if if you compromise on those human rights and concerns over the South China Sea and other things we will give you a free trade agreement incidentally the free-trade agreement negotiated by mr. robb who subsequently received the $800,000 a year private consultancy was looked at by the Canadian government after China suggested we do a cut and paste and replace the word Canada for Australia and go with it to be a bad deal for Australia and therefore not one Canada would want it's not gonna be free trading probably sectoral trade and so we do have this notion of a relationship with China where where we would where we will look at the trade interests and why we don't have any significant discourse comparable to what goes on in the United States and other countries I think really is because of the domination of of Chinese money China doesn't have soft power they have money power and if you look at something like that the six member China research partnership that was set up a few years ago that the Chinese embassy is very enthusiastic about the top three members of the asia-pacific foundation the Canada China Business Council and the Canada China Institute for business and development the bottom three members are the the Institute for Asian research at the University of British Columbia the Munk school for Global Affairs the University of Toronto and the China Institute at the University of Alberta and so you can see that the ones with the money are at the top of the list and the and the ones producing the policy reports are below that and one could assume that there's some relationship between the funding and and the reluctance of these institutions to issue documents which suggest that there's anything wrong with what the People's Republic of China is doing either in Canada or or domestically and we know from the lobbyists reports that the companies that are very influential in the count of the China Business Council such as the Demery Power Corporation or SC Laughlin also spend a great deal of time lobbying in the PMO so you have a interesting dynamic between business academics and the political elite of Canada all of that is suggesting I think Clive Hamilton of New Zealand has suggested that Canada has the greatest elite captured by the People's Republic of China of any nation in the developed Western world and I'm inclined to think that that's true ok on that note we're gonna open it up to discussion and there's a gentleman right there with this hand up you don't have to move we're gonna somebody's gonna come ok and I just have once things that everybody please no speeches good questions but no speeches thank you my name is Edward at Rajee and I want to emphasize that I'm an aerospace engineer and I want to emphasize engineer Xi Jinping is an engineer as an engineer I think he has done a marvelous job for China we have enabled Xi Jinping and the Chinese economy to grow because we have shut off our natural resources from being developed Chinese economy is based on coal they are using the oxygen of the planet to to drive their economy but because greenhouse gases do not respect borders we are suffering from it without realizing it and for the question the question is why are we allowing China to get away with this and simply hobbling our own industry from developing a market well this is something that we have tried very hard to get progress on to help China with its climate change agenda and it it has developed targets for itself and but we've we've basically offered our clean tech our clean energy companies to help them develop their renewable sector and to take onboard clean coal for example and co2 capture and storage so there's a lot going on between China and Canada on that the problem with it is that in a lot of cases the technology has just been absconded with through joint ventures the joint ventures aren't 50/50 or 5149 they're ninety ten or 80/20 70/30 in favor of the Chinese partner and then I've looked at these over time and the Chinese partner tries to take over the the company so if you talk to people who have done the investments between Canada and China in the clean energy clean tech space they'll say that Canadian companies have not been making money and it just doesn't make sense because there's such a big need as you've so well put it but it's not happening and ignoring more coal maybe Bethenny just wants to speak about the American experience because they've had the same I mean why a lot of American companies are turning off China's because it I'll let you speak to hold joint ventures yes I do feel one thing that's good about this administration is that they are taking seriously the the threat to IP and the really aggressive tactics that Chinese companies have used we we don't have any policies right now to the you know push back against joint ventures but the the FBI has really stepped up their you know their prosecution's of Chinese people in the US who have you know stolen technology and so that's a that's a positive step forward I would say on the environmental issue I just want to say that we have you know America right now has absolutely you know no grounds to criticize China on that word we they they recently surpassed us in terms of their total carbon emissions but the u.s. is still the highest in carbon emissions per capita and you know obviously our current administration is trying to roll that back further so criticize us - okay one sec sorry I saw a hand up there Burdine go ahead Dean Baxendale optimum publishing from Toronto this subject has come to me over the last couple of years through a particular or a journalist who some of you may know here Sam Cooper who has been exposing much of the things going on with China here in this country and specifically about the influence of China but I want to get an ask the question right now as we all know in this room the Cullen Commission is going on in British Columbia to investigate money-laundering and the involvement of casinos in our country and I want to make sure everyone here understands the importance of this Commission for our whole democracy in the Western world furthermore I just want to say this I'd like to know everyone's position on how they're going to help support what's going on at the Cullen Commission to make sure the right witnesses can come forward to actually provide the testimony that will actually expose the CCP and their involvement with money laundering through the great circle boys out of China and other organized crime groups it is the biggest transnational organized crime story of this century but my question is supporting the Cullen Commission moving forward how do we do that because it's important for the democracy I think in terms of these issues you know there has been a reluctance on the part of the government to allocate resources to come to terms with this Chinese money of doubtful provenance largely associated with the senior levels of the Chinese Communist Party and you know that's as you say the casinos and they and the the real-estate and certainly that's something which which goes to the absolute you know center of of Chinese Communist power because so many of them are concerned about China's future and would like to have their money safely parked in in our country and what better place than Vancouver to do that um I think in in in general terms our government has not been allocating enough China based resources to investigatory agencies including CSIS CSE and and the RCMP and you know and I know that that these agencies provide the government with recommendations with regard to Chinese associated malfeasance in Canada or allegations of such and our government is inclined to shelve that on the basis like everything else that you know if we do anything like this the Chinese government will retaliate against us in those very high-level Canadian business interests will suffer and if I could just to return to Bethenny's point I think that what you see in successful business in Canada Canada China successful business are those very large firms who have very close political connections with the senior levels of the CCP and ordinary Canadians small and medium-sized businesses are the ones being screwed by having their intellectual property and proprietary manufacturing processes taken by their Chinese partners or the imposition of you know internal regulations or new taxes that squeeze them out of the market and there have been so many negative experiences that it really disincentives smaller Canadian businesses from going there but those large companies well-connected companies who lead the CCBC that comes with China Business Council are are doing well but at a political cost and certainly the moment that any of those companies says anything you know along the lines of the NBA they're out of that market and and all Ian's political benefits that derive from the large profits they're able to derive from their business will will vanish and I don't think the Canadian business or political elite would like to see that Michael one that you charles's comments on you know further empowering intelligence agencies and their assistance to central government I mean we've seen similar issues in Taiwan particularly when you talk about casinos there is always inevitably organized crime involvement in those operations we know for a fact and again Taiwan is a clear clear case of this good number of triads operating in places like Hong Kong and Macau in the Pacific even in North Korea also are historically pro-chinese come in his party so obviously they are there is a criminal component to their activities there also is a political / espionage component to what they're doing that creates particular challenges for our own organizations because for example RCMP CSIS they both have different mandates RCMP is going to look at criminal component CSIS he doesn't look at political interference the problem that we're facing that there's overlap and what that means is that there's gonna be inevitably there's gonna be blind spots you look for example what Hezbollah has been doing terrorism versus contraband cigarettes one of them again is is is completely you know organized crime or criminal activities the other is comparing counterterrorism and whatnot China has been very good at exploiting these blind spots in our societies and again Taiwan is very very much struggling right now to figure out how to deal with that so I'm not particularly current with with the Commission you were referring to but I would certainly encourage you know the establishment of a working group that really brings together these different agencies infuses the intelligence on the crime side and the political interference site okay Bethenny and about forced technology transfers I really appreciated your point Charles about how it's the small to medium-sized businesses that are really really suffering and it the same is true in the US you know the Chinese government has long denied that they have that they promote forced technology transfers with if you have that as policy while in fact many American companies have said that it seems to be something that local governments or provincial governments actually promote and their companies you know they they say this is you should do this it's good for China it's good for you China has denied that however you know the term administration has made a point of you know talking to their Chinese counterparts about forced technology transfers and we have seen statements coming out of China saying okay you know we're gonna pass a law making this legal or we're gonna you know put pressure on our companies I don't know if it's actually happening but at least rhetorically we have seen movement on that so you know if that's an issue here I would hope that the the you know Canadian government can at least make some words in the right direction just sorry just Puma he wanted to spy so I mean cuz cuz Taiwan has been facing this kind of issue like for more than 50 years I guess so I mean my suggesting her because I'm not really familiar with the Canadian politics but I mean it is crucial not to fall into the trap of proving something because like like the NBA that NBA event LeBron Shan says something kind of against Hong Kong in support I know right but we cannot prove anything that the United Front approach LeBron James or there is a water between the caseta King and LeBron James that even you can prove that I mean is impossible but that's the power of infiltration because that market power that capital could influence someone's mind and could manipulate like our perception so that is why I think is kind of important to do the contrary intelligence part we know that democracy we need some legal to us to counteract all these issues but sometimes it is more crucial to prove that there is a parent Asian bad intention on Chinese side is once you prove that bad intention then you can say all this infrastructure all these works I could not benefit democracy so back to the 5g issue you just mentioned of why we stopped I mean if you look into the content that people study was impartial that all this news-post type what they stayed here were all the social side before us in China how they stayed out the friendliest kind of issue you can see that they are trying to dismiss what kind of distort this kind of argument because once you look back and then you could see that anything China is doing right now they can do it without Huawei but if you focus like too much on far way and then you will be destroyed and you have to kind of dismiss this kind of issue and your never know what they are doing it right now so this capability stop and all these contents are should it be delve into details and then you can see that the truth tress the true intention with a bad intention of China and then to prove that impacts final work more another question yeah I just remind everyone that the whole big trade mess with the US and China right now started with this force technology transfer issue where the US Trade Representative office wrote a very comprehensive report called the section 301 report that laid out in magnificent detail all of the IP issues and technology transfer problems and giving competitors the the American information on their factories and details and so on all of that is was all laid out Trump put the tariffs on to bring China to the table to negotiate better business practices those negotiations have been going on for months and months now they had me come down in April to brief us TR on my work on joint ventures because I've delved deep into the companies and what the experience has been within the companies on this and so I've been talking to them actually in the last week since the phase one deal was done and there is a hope of trying to get something on IP or technology transfer into the Phase one deal but it looks like it probably be just an announcement of what's in the Foreign Investment Act already and then phase two they have their somewhat optimistic forgetting something addressed in Phase two of all of these many many many problems I'm not optimistic at all because you know they Trump has got as agriculture deal which by the way we're going to hurt from that because there's going to be overlap in the products that Trump now has to send to China for his forty to fifty billion dollar deal that'll overlap with some of the products we want to sell to China and we could find our own products displace that's a big issue oh there's Tobias upfront well Tobias I won't all I can say is that we've done stories of senators and MPs who traveled you paid for by the Chinese government without letting us know where they meant senior people with the in the United Front and and the only reason we were able to find that out is that we started looking in Chinese websites where we saw pictures of them and and we wrote about it and the fact the Senate Ethics Commissioner is still investigating three MPs are three senators who were on one of these junkets and one of the MPs who was who was also vice-chair of the Canada China Friendship Society which is an MP junket club we didn't run in in this election campaign but but so I I know I can't we can't draw a direct link obviously but there's smoke and maybe some fire and this young woman breasts yes but it's a it's a it's a growing problem yeah and and it's it's if I just may say so it's it's the way China has operates in terms of agents of influence they start at the municipal level and then they go to the provincial and then MPs and there are examples or least indications that people are far more sympathetic to the Beijing position than the Canadian one hi thank you my name is Anita pan I'm with Princeton University I'm wondering I and I absolutely agree that there is increasing bipartisan agreement that China is more of an adversary but I see that there seems to be less consensus on China's activities of influence and how that might affect u.s. national security so I'd like to know in your assessment what exactly could be the threat to US national security based on China's activities in Canada in Australia in Taiwan and what should the talking points be for Canadians looking to convey that message to US counterparts thank you you know so many think tanks are recipients People's Republic of China associated funding I think we need to demand much more transparency about where the money comes from you know all of the Confucius Institutes in Canada have signed have agreements with their Canadian counterparts not to reveal the terms of the of the funding I think that that should stop I think we need we need more transparency and certainly you know as you say with the parliamentary travel at least we if they report accurately we find out who's been provided with money from a foreign power for a study tour of China and that is information that should be front and center in terms of our deciding whether or not you know the golden rule applies in the sense of he who has the gold makes the rule and we do see much more more and more you know use of Chinese funding that the the London School of Economics I think just reported today has under considerable pressure of being exposed decided not to receive funding from the famous Shanghai capitalist Eric Lee to establish a China Studies program at LSE the that would be overseen by a group of distinguished PRC experts we have we have the same problem in our universities they get Confucian Institute's for example which are funded by China and quite a number of Canadian universities have the Confucian Institute's we know that the wall way is a major funder of pure R&D research they then they provide the money we have really smart scientists who are doing the work and and they but wall way patents that their their work and then they sent it back to China and there's an even greater problem of amongst Chinese students associations where there is mainland Chinese students who have come to Canada at a study there's a great deal of influence over Chinese Canadian students on campuses and it's a very difficult thing to report a boat because many of them are afraid to talk and they're fraid to talk because they have relatives back home and even though they may be Canadian citizens they don't want to talk about this and the Americans it's the same a similar problem in the United States as well now we have yes sir yes okay sorry hi thank you we just went through an election a federal election in Canada and the only opportunity that Canadians had to listen to the leaders of the major federal parties articulate any kind of position on foreign policy was annihilated when the Munk center decided to cancel after one of the candidates refused to participate in a foreign policy debate that they were planning arguably at a time when Canada's foreign policy is in need of serious revision the issues you're talking about clearly underscore that maybe MLI should be holding another seminar about sharpening up canada's sharp power and its ability to respond why are we not seeing elite willingness to engage the public on these issues well maybe I'm gonna let Brian answer that question well ladies and gentlemen the question has several times been raised during the course of this conversation about think tanks and the possible corruption of their integrity by Chinese money I just want everybody to know that every day I tell the Chinese ambassador that the beatings will continue until the check arrives [Laughter] [Applause] and if any of you have connections there as I know some of you do please pass that message along ladies and gentlemen please join me in thanking all the speakers and panelists who have worked so hard to put on such a thorough energetic an insightful discussion of the challenges to counted arising from the long arm of China's sharp power reaching deep into Canadian society and institutions I I also want to thank Bob life of course for his very able leading of such a what's the word I want Pasiphae span 'l I I also want to thank ml eyes Taiwanese partners first there is as you know because you heard from him this morning this evening from the prospect foundation whose chairman Tansen Chen the former Foreign Minister of Taiwan is representing prospect here we're proud to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with prospect in January in which both parties undertook to work together on areas of mutual interest in order to enhance strong Taiwan Canada relations this is part of a growing network of international connections that I'm very proud to say Emily is developing with think tanks in in Britain in Germany in Latvia in Korea in Japan in Taiwan and many other places around the world our other partner of course is the Taiwan foundation for democracy also generous supporters of our work on Chinese shark power operations we have a continuing collaboration with the foundation that includes J Michael Cole's paper on the subject a paper that grew out of Michael's presentation to a Taiwan foundation for democracy conference a couple of years ago and the vice president of the Taiwan foundation for democracy at Chen Fei Yan is here with us tonight and I wish to acknowledge and thank both the Taiwan foundation for democracy and the prospect foundation for their support of Emma's work and for their presence here today our thanks as well go to the Taiwan economic and cultural office Tico and their representative Winston when you chen who was also here with us for their consistent support over the years taiwan is indeed well served by the quality of their diplomatic representation in canada finally i to other people to thank want to thank the war museum for this magnificent venue and i'm glad to say that mark O'Neill who is the CEO of the museum corporation if i can summarize is here with us tonight not it's always a pleasure to be at the war museum and finally i have to thank my colleagues who pushed me around in my popemobile and make me look good I particularly want to mention David Brett Allison amber and all the others from the MLI staff who worked so hard to make events like this possible and they have my personal thanks as well as I know yours thank you very much ladies and gentlemen for attending this event we hope to see you at another MLI event very soon good night and safe travels home [Applause]

Channel: The Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Views: 1,993

Rating: 4.3913045 out of 5

Keywords: Canada, China, Taiwan, Sharp Power, Coercion, democracy, news, events, chinese communist party, ottawa, canada war museum, foreign influence, foreign interference, canadian war museum

Id: oZBhOShPq80

Length: 120min 3sec (7203 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 31 2019