Canada’s ChiCom Crack-Up

America needs to wake up to the serious risk of state capture by Beijing in our northern neighbor and closest ally

One of the remarkable things about the United States is how little attention Americans pay to Canada, our neighbor and closest ally. Since it’s been the clichéd “longest undefended border in the world” since Canada’s birth in 1867, Americans haven’t had to think much about our northern neighbor outside issues of hockey and excessive politeness. Canadian stories, even significant ones, rarely make impressions in news forums south of the border.

That changed this month, slightly, with a few accounts regarding the shocking state of Communist China’s illicit influence over Canadian politics. These were mere reflections of considerable coverage in the Canadian media of a huge story that’s been percolating up for several years, without much public attention. Put briefly, the vocal worries of American pundits and the Democratic Party since 2016 about alleged Russian capture of the Republican Party, particularly surrounding Donald Trump – which were significantly overblown when not imagined – turn out to have been true about Canada, but the culprit turns out to be the People’s Republic of China, not the Kremlin.

Warning signs have been flashing for years. However, much of the Canadian establishment, including the ruling Liberal Party, downplayed and denied these warnings. In 2015, reports emerged that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the country’s domestic intelligence agency, concluded that Michael Chan, a Liberal minister in Ontario’s provincial government, who had immigrated to Canada from China as a young man, was uncomfortably close to Beijing (CSIS hinted at his being a PRC spy). The Liberal Party defended their politician against the “baseless” accusation, while Chan predictably struck back against “this personal attack,” implying he was the victim of anti-Asian hysteria. Chan sued the newspaper which reported the CSIS claim and continued his political career for several more years with the full support of his party.

Illicit Chinese influence, featuring blurry lines between Beijing state organs, Asian organized crime groups, plus Chinese immigrant communities and business interests, has been a particular problem in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province, which has been illuminated by reporting in this newsletter regarding apparent criminal activity. Last year, muckraking journalist Sam Cooper published a book-length exposé titled Willful Blindness which shed uncomfortable light on how the Chinese Communist Party was subverting Canadian sovereignty, with “BC” at the epicenter. Cooper’s best-seller exposed the “Vancouver Model” of CCP espionage-meets-influence-meets-corruption and the deep threat it poses to Canada and the entire West.