TORONTO—Canada’s chief intelligence official Richard Fadden met outraged cries after comments in a CBC interview last month that foreign countries were cultivating influence over Canadian officials. But at least one of the groups decrying the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is allegedly a front organization engaged in exactly that kind of activity in Canada.
On Friday, two staunchly pro-Beijing groups, the National Congress of Chinese Canadians (NCCC) Pacific region, and the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, organized a press conference in Vancouver and issued a joint statement saying Fadden needed to elaborate on his comments or risk painting all Chinese with the same brush.
The groups asked Fadden to come speak with them and explain his comments and hear about the ramifications his comments had in the Chinese community. They also said his comments could damage Canada-China relations.
Both groups purport to represent the interests of Chinese Canadians, with the NCCC representing itself as an umbrella organization of Canadian organizations across the country that works to promote unity among Chinese Canadians and help them integrate into Canadian society.
But the NCCC has a history that casts its intentions in a questionable light, with some accusing it of working as a front organization advancing the interests of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Epoch Times called several of the groups executives but messages were not returned.
Chen Yonglin was the first secretary at the Chinese consulate in Sydney, Australia, until he defected in 2005. He revealed documents showing how consulates in Australia and around the world cooperate and use front organizations to suppress dissident groups.
The NCCC and its equivalents in other countries are at the top of a pyramid of groups set up by the Chinese embassy and consulates in Canada charged with working to control and influence the Chinese community and Canadian government, said Chen. He noted that the group was founded to push Canada to thaw diplomacy with China following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Chen says the NCCC regularly lobbies the Canadian government to take positions favourable to the Chinese regime and also works to rally Canadian Chinese towards those positions.
The NCCC’s ties to the Chinese regime are long and well-documented. They include having executive members with ties to state-controlled Chinese media, and businesses that rely on a close relationship with the Chinese consulate.
But it is the work of the NCCC in Canada that raises concerns for Canadian intelligence personnel, said Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former head of the Asia desk for CSIS and author of Nest of Spies.
Juneau-Katsuya said the group has long been suspected by many intelligence organizations around the world of being a megaphone for the Chinese regime. The group, and its Canadian head, Ping Tan, have taken Beijing’s position against Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and the Tiananmen Square massacre, among other issues.
In Canada, the NCCC purports to represent 280 Canadian Chinese organization but has never been able to accurately list them and has ignored repeated requests from the Epoch Times to do so. It has also been unable to provide a position it has taken on a sensitive topic that differs significantly from the Chinese regime.
When the Beijing Olympics in 2008 encountered controversy and the crackdown in Tibet made world headlines, the NCCC Pacific region was among the groups joining rallies denouncing “biased” western media and the Dalai Lama.
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Both groups have consistently echoed the regime’s attempt to instill communist China rhetoric and nationalism within Chinese Canadians on matters concerning Beijing’s interests.
The NCCC came to national attention in 2005 when it tried to collect $2.5 million in compensation from the federal government for the head tax charged to early Chinese immigrants.
The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC), which Juneau-Katsuya has said is not suspected of being a front organization, lobbied against that payout.
While the NCCC claimed that it represented Chinese Canadians across the country, including major Chinese organizations such as the CCNC, in scrutiny surrounding the deal it was revealed that the NCCC did not represent the broad number of Chinese Canadians it claimed and the CCNC said in a letter to the federal government that the NCCC had exaggerated claims of support.
The Conservatives later axed the large payout to the NCCC and paid monies directly to Chinese Canadians impacted by the head tax.
Efforts by the Chinese regime to use Chinese diaspora around the world to advance its interests have been documented by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In its 2009 report to congress, the commission noted the work of the China United Front Work Department.
The United Front Work Department sits under the CCP’s Central Committee and is part of an intelligence operation that dates back to 1935. The Chinese regime uses the department to rally Chinese diaspora around the world to its various causes on an ongoing basis, collect intelligence, spread propaganda on the regime’s behalf, and influence the operations of other countries.
The department also organizes the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, where Ping Tan, chairman of the NCCC, served as a representative from Canada in March 2008. Tan was one of only 32 overseas representatives.
Tan has also been tasked with welcoming many senior Chinese officials to Canada, including former leader Jiang Zemin and current leader Hu Jintao.
In a recent article, the Vancouver Sun’s Jonathan Manthorpe documents long standing concerns CSIS has had with the regime and its United Front efforts.
“Indeed, CSIS has always been quite open that it believes Canada is an inevitable target of the Beijing government’s determination to activate susceptible Canadians to gather both useful secrets—especially involving technological advances—and to influence Canadian public policy in China’s favour,” writes Manthorpe.
“One of the first reports dealing with Chinese efforts to exert influence on other countries and governments was made public by CSIS in 1998. It is an examination of how Beijing used what is called ‘The United Front’ to try to affect public opinion in Hong Kong ahead of the handover to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 and minimize fears of repression.”
Manthorpe went on to quote from the report that such activities can amount to interference in the internal affairs of other nations.
Fadden will face a parliamentary committee on Monday over comments suggesting Canadians of various ethnicities could be used in such efforts. He singled out China as the country most aggressive in recruiting political prospects at the university level.
Among the issues Fadden raised was that some politicians and public servants have a long-standing relationship with Chinese operatives and have no idea they are being used to advance Beijing’s interests.
