Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[QV]

Do they though. The last two elections were pretty close, one has to wonder if it wasn't for the Chinese interference would we have a different government.

This is a real possibility, but if it happened that way it could never be revealed to the plebes.

 

[RangerRay]

Irwin Cotler speaks up on Beijing’s trans-national repression of overseas dissidents and calls out Canada’s limp response.

Opinion: Beijing is extending its draconian laws beyond its borders

The Hong Kong government has issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight overseas dissidents, in a dramatic escalation of China’s campaign of transnational repression

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Kirkhill]

It creates disruption and distrust.

Yup.

All it would take is for some eejit to take a pop at Ms Chow, or even just pie her, on the basis of those claims and that could provoke another summer of riots. And not necessarily with Canadians of Chinese ancestry doing the rioting.

 

[Kirkhill]

Irwin Cotler speaks up on Beijing’s trans-national repression of overseas dissidents and calls out Canada’s limp response.

Opinion: Beijing is extending its draconian laws beyond its borders

The Hong Kong government has issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight overseas dissidents, in a dramatic escalation of China’s campaign of transnational repression

www.theglobeandmail.com

We can protect individuals on our soil.
But what can we do to protect their families remaining in Hong Kong?
That is where the real weakness lies.
I can see the heroism of anybody giving up their life for a cause.
But what is one to make of someone who gives up their mother for a cause?

 

[RangerRay]

A Chinese-Canadian was assaulted on Parliament Hill for advocating for a foreign agent registry. One of the attackers hob-nobs with CCP “diplomats”.

A Canadian woman was assaulted on Parliament Hill because she supports a foreign agent registry

20 days have passed, and there're still no apologies or explanations from the Senators, the organizer, and the accused assailant, Derek Wu.

foundintran.substack.com

Sheng Xue (盛雪), a pro-democracy activist based in Toronto, provided her perspective on this incident in a recent article published in the China Spring magazine. She said, “Why did pro-Beijing people feel audacious enough to attack a Canadian citizen who disagrees with them on Parliament Hill? One of the reasons lies in Canadian politicians, including the two Senators, openly advocating for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within Canada, which ultimately empowers and emboldens pro-CCP forces.”

 

[JLB50]

A Chinese-Canadian was assaulted on Parliament Hill for advocating for a foreign agent registry. One of the attackers hob-nobs with CCP “diplomats”.

A Canadian woman was assaulted on Parliament Hill because she supports a foreign agent registry

20 days have passed, and there're still no apologies or explanations from the Senators, the organizer, and the accused assailant, Derek Wu.

foundintran.substack.com

Wow. Even after reports of China’s influence in Canadian politics became public knowledge months ago, China’s agents still continue to harass those who refuse to fall in line. And they do it quite openly. Just shows the arrogance and power of Beijing outside its own borders. China won’t be happy until we totally give in to all their demands.

For those who aren‘t aware of what’s been happening in the Solomon Islands, please see the item below.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186916419/solomon-islands-signs-policing-pact-with-china

 

[OldSolduer]

Wow. Even after reports of China’s influence in Canadian politics became public knowledge months ago, China’s agents still continue to harass those who refuse to fall in line. And they do it quite openly. Just shows the arrogance and power of Beijing outside its own borders. China won’t be happy until we totally give in to all their demands.

For those who aren‘t aware of what’s been happening in the Solomon Islands, please see the item below.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186916419/solomon-islands-signs-policing-pact-with-china

And they will continue unless the government of Canada finds the intestinal fortitude to formally protest this behavior. Enough is enough - it is time to act.

I am not holding my breath waiting for this GoC to grow a pair....

 

[QV]

And they will continue unless the government of Canada finds the intestinal fortitude to formally protest this behavior. Enough is enough - it is time to act.

I am not holding my breath waiting for this GoC to grow a pair....

This isn't about intestinal fortitude, but rather the lack of action is done wittingly.

 

[YZT580]

This isn't about intestinal fortitude, but rather the lack of action is done wittingly.

or it is intentional, think about the ramifications of that thought

 

[Kirkhill]

Can we get the old-time Liberals back please? The McKays and the Manleys?

John McKay: A made-in-Canada policy on China is a fantasy​

Canada’s only avenue is to join with like-minded nations so that when flashpoints occur, costs will be imposed on the CCP
Author of the article:
John McKay, Special to National Post
Published Jul 17, 2023 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 5 minute read


Canada needs a new approach to its dealings with China, argues Liberal MP, John McKay. PHOTO BY DADO RUVIC /Reuters

​

For decades now, Canada has pursued an engagement strategy with the Communist Party of China with the hope that “trade together, stay together” and mutual economic interest would foster positive relations. However, it is clear that, in spite of friendly overtures made by western nations, including Canada, China continues to pursue an aggressive, expansionist policy with little regard for the national interests or security of others.

As Winston Churchill once said, “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.”


A bullyboy is defined as a blustering, browbeating person, especially when that bully is 1.) habitually cruel, 2.) insulting, or 3.) threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable.

The evidence of bullying by Beijing is overwhelming.

One, cruelty: enslavement of Uyghurs; organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners; the long-standing abuses against Tibetans, destruction of Christian places of worship, the “disappearance” of human rights activists, and much more.

Two, insulting: witness the public insult to our country and our prime minister referring to Canada as a “running dog” and Mr. Trudeau as a “boy”; the arbitrary arrest of our citizens and those of other nations such as Japan, in addition to pretty well any statement made by a “wolf warrior” Chinese diplomat.

Three, threatening others: police stations located on our own soil designed solely to intimidate diaspora communities; economic coercion of smaller, weaker nations from Sri Lanka to Solomon Islands to numerous African nations.

What’s not included in this definition is blatant theft of intellectual property and of resource property; penetration into Canadian civil society through Confucius Institutes; spy balloons over North American airspace and surveillance buoys planted in the arctic; insertion of malware into electronic supply lines; and the use of slave labour to sell us cheap goods that undermine domestic producers and workers.

The only strategy that is left works on the assumption that China will continue to be a bully, and no agreement, no treaty, and no contract based on any trust will be worth the paper it’s written on. After this less than exhaustive litany of tactics, there are still some who think that there is some strategy of cooperation to be articulated. There is no dialogue with a “competitor” when your interlocutor acts in bad faith, uses theft to achieve its aims, conducts blatant espionage operations, engages in hostage diplomacy, and is a serial abuser of basic human rights. China is on the way to becoming an existential threat to Canada and other like-minded nations that conduct their affairs by the rule of law and democratic norms. We need to ditch our current strategy because it is based on the hope that China might adhere to the rules.

So, what’s next? The strategy that’s in the ditch is not a good starting point. Clear-eyed means just that — that there is no strategy other than no engagement that doesn’t have an exit plan with minimum cost when it inevitably goes bad. And it’s not if it goes bad, but when it goes bad. Leaving yourself, your company, or your government vulnerable in any manner is just foolishness

Regrettably, nations and people are going to have to pick sides, regardless of how unpalatable the choice might be. The golden glitter of access to the Chinese economy can turn into a dismal dross of disappointment in a flash. It’s amazing how many of us can convince ourselves that the risks are small when the anticipated financial payoff is big.

A policy built on hope of financial reward, either short- or long-term, is one of vulnerability, high risk, and deep disappointment. Smart money is getting out of China while there is still time. When a delegation of MPs was in Taiwan recently, we were told that Taiwanese companies were withdrawing their investments and relocating to other less vulnerable jurisdictions.

A made-in-Canada policy on China is a fantasy exercise built on hubris. Canada’s only avenue is to join up with like-minded nations so that when, not if, flashpoints occur, costs will be imposed on the CCP. The coordinated response by Canada and like-minded nations to the kidnapping of the two Michaels is an example of the way future diplomacy will have to be practiced.

Canada should also make it abundantly clear that China will never be admitted to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) this year, or any other year. What foolishness it would be to allow a nation into an economic treaty arrangement whose sole goal would be to destroy the trade agreement. China’s repurposing of the WTO toward its own ends should be enough evidence of that for anyone.

A Canadian senior executive at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Bob Pickard, said as he resigned from the AIIB last month, “I was still scratching my head, wondering what it is I could communicate to my compatriots about the value of their membership in the bank. And I was looking for that narrative, but there was nothing there. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.” Pickard was warned not to return to China. “From a country where the two Michaels were kidnapped by the government, we’re maybe a little more sensitive or concerned about such things,” he said.

More and more Canadian entities are ruefully coming to the same conclusion — there is nothing in it for us.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, in reacting to Pickard’s departure, started to articulate a more realistic strategy: “As the world’s democracies work to de-risk our economies, by limiting our strategic vulnerabilities to authoritarian regimes, we must likewise be clear about the means through which these regimes exercise their influence around the world.”

Canada needs to review its strategic position vis-à-vis countries like Taiwan. Taiwan’s interests are becoming much more aligned with our own and yet we continue to pursue a One China Policy.

How long can this policy last as the basis for dealing with Taiwan, our 12th largest trading partner? How long can a One China Policy last when Taiwan fights for itself and for Western democracies each and every day?

American Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently completed two days of talks with Xi Jinping with no obvious outcomes. The best that can be said is that the Chinese diplomats didn’t engage in their usual hectoring and lecturing. One supposes that to be progress.

An updated China strategy needs to take into account these realities.

While some more vulnerable nations hastily embraced the siren song of a peer-to-peer relationship with China, they now have the luxury of time to regret their hasty decision. The allure of a countervail against the West, particularly Europe and the U.S. is proving to be very costly. Exchanging one form of colonialism for an even more egregious one is not progress.

What is required is a fundamental shift in attitude and a refocusing on our national interests and security in the face of a growing superpower that has shown continued hostility to our nation and our allies. Hope is not a policy.


John McKay is the Liberal Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Guildwood and is the Chair of the House of Commons Committee on National Defence and the Canadian Co-Chair of the Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board on Defence.

 

[RangerRay]

Can we get the old-time Liberals back please? The McKays and the Manleys?

No, no Manley’s please. He’s a fully paid member of the Beijing lobby.

Terry Glavin: David Johnston the right man to whitewash Chinese interference

He has spent a half century supporting Beijing’s strategy to draw Canada into its orbit of influence

nationalpost.com

There’s John Manley, the Telus director and former deputy prime minister from the exuberantly Beijing-compliant Chretien era. Manley’s contribution to the debates about Xi Jinping’s kidnapping of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor was to suggest the Canada Border Services Agency should have surreptitiously allowed Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou to evade a U.S. Justice Department extradition request.

 

[JLB50]

No, no Manley’s please. He’s a fully paid member of the Beijing lobby.

Terry Glavin: David Johnston the right man to whitewash Chinese interference

He has spent a half century supporting Beijing’s strategy to draw Canada into its orbit of influence

nationalpost.com

I agree. Manley is…well, just bad news. Not to mention probably half the cabinet ministers, PC, CPC and LPC over the last 30 years.

 

[RangerRay]

That Chief Justice McLaughlin is still sitting on the Hong Kong bench is a scandal in itself. Sickening.

Globe editorial: It’s time for Beverley McLachlin to quit Hong Kong’s high court

Hong Kong’s judicial system is window-dressing for Beijing’s repression, and Ms. McLachlin shouldn’t be part of it

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Halifax Tar]

That Chief Justice McLaughlin is still sitting on the Hong Kong bench is a scandal in itself. Sickening.

Globe editorial: It’s time for Beverley McLachlin to quit Hong Kong’s high court

Hong Kong’s judicial system is window-dressing for Beijing’s repression, and Ms. McLachlin shouldn’t be part of it

www.theglobeandmail.com

I had no idea foreign judges were a thing...

 

[Good2Golf]

I had no idea foreign judges were a thing...

I don’t either, but since we know that foreign police stations are a thing, foreign judges should no longer be a surprise either.

 

[daftandbarmy]

That Chief Justice McLaughlin is still sitting on the Hong Kong bench is a scandal in itself. Sickening.

Globe editorial: It’s time for Beverley McLachlin to quit Hong Kong’s high court

Hong Kong’s judicial system is window-dressing for Beijing’s repression, and Ms. McLachlin shouldn’t be part of it

www.theglobeandmail.com

Willing stooges, and useful idiots, are an important tool in the the toolbox of the traditional communist dictatorship though

To Propagandize The West, Lenin Recruited A Corps Of “Useful Idiots​

To Propagandize The West, Lenin Recruited A Corps Of “Useful Idiots

Ninth In A SeriesPart 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Contrary to what you might have heard, there really was a... Read More

www.investors.com

 

[The Bread Guy]

From a recent Canadian Press story (archive link here if original link doesn't work) about a guy who got Canadian citizenship, renounced it, and wants permanent resident status here in Canada, showing a bit of the ... acrobatics one can use to get back into Canada even after leaving ...

... Earlier this year, (Athena Portokalidis, an immigration lawyer based in Markham, Ont.) successfully fought for a former Canadian citizen who had been denied permanent residency and deemed inadmissible on the basis that he allegedly taught English to Chinese spies and might be involved in espionage himself.

The allegations against Liping Geng, a 68-year-old Chinese citizen, were contained in a report prepared by the CBSA's National Security Screening Division, which cited information from a CSIS report.

Court records show that as a young man, Geng was a member of China's People's Liberation Army. After completing school, he worked as an English teacher at an army-operated department that trained students in foreign languages.

Canadian officials argued that everyone who attended the school was "in or was linked to Chinese military intelligence," and that the teachers were actively engaging in espionage.

Geng spent nine years completing master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Toronto, where he went on to teach, documents say. His family was approved for permanent residence status in Canada and became citizens in 1995.

When Geng returned to China in 2007, he renounced his Canadian citizenship because China doesn't recognize dual citizenship. Still, the court documents say, Geng regularly visited family in Canada in the years that followed. He chose to return permanently in 2019 after his retirement.

Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found that the CSIS and CBSA reports used to accuse Geng of espionage were never disclosed to him, and that this was problematic because the documents "drove the decision-making process."

Moreover, security officials were criticized for drawing upon newspapers and other open sources to build their case, rather than hard evidence.

Mosley wrote in a ruling quashing the Immigration and Refugee Board's decision that the security assessments amounted to an "overzealous effort" to establish Geng as a member of the Chinese military ...

Federal court decision Geng v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) attached.

 

[OldSolduer]

Willing stooges, and useful idiots, are an important tool in the the toolbox of the traditional communist dictatorship though

To Propagandize The West, Lenin Recruited A Corps Of “Useful Idiots​

To Propagandize The West, Lenin Recruited A Corps Of “Useful Idiots

Ninth In A SeriesPart 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Contrary to what you might have heard, there really was a... Read More

www.investors.com

It is a tool used very successfully by the Communists. There are still people who praise Che G - although a murderous bastard - as a god. And Castro.
Say don't we have a PM that could be termed as a useful idiot?

 

[Good2Golf]

It is a tool used very successfully by the Communists. There are still people who praise Che G - although a murderous bastard - as a god. And Castro.
Say don't we have a PM that could be termed as a useful idiot?

Well he knows about Quantum computers…

…and he also know about non-plastics papery bottle thingies…

 

[OldSolduer]

Well he knows about Quantum computers…

You know I eat crayons. Stop using big words like Quantum.....