A Richmond, B.C., city councillor recently attended a Chinese Lunar New Year house party also attended by a Chinese association’s senior member who is a prominent donor-supporter of the Chinese military.
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video of the party was reportedly published to Liberal MP Joyce Murray’s WeChat account on Jan. 23, according to
Richmond News, which posted a portion of the original video. It shows councillor Alexa Loo chatting with others in a kitchen in what appears to be a private home. Later, she is seen dancing to Lunar New Year music.
In a 2017 interview with
chinaqw.com, Wang said he had in the past few decades donated nearly 2 million yuan (C$393,000) “to express appreciation to the soldiers of the motherland and help disabled veterans from the old [communist] revolutionary base resolve hardship.” That year, he said he also brought many cases of health products to soldiers in his hometown in China’s southwestern coastal Zhejiang Province
.Wang’s association has
frequently echoed Beijing’s party line, such as being among 87 groups in Canada to sign
an open letter in support of Beijing’s resolution to “reunify” with Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that it deems part of Chinese territory. The letter was published in last August 2022 by
B.C.-based Chinese-language outlet Dawa News after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island, an event that saw the regime launch ballistic missiles around Taiwan, among other aggressive
actions.
Wang provided more than monetary support for the Chinese military. In
a July 2021 article published on sohu.com, a China-based online media platform, Wang is seen in photos at an event where he gifted items including books on the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), describing them as “food for thought,” to the veteran affairs office of his hometown
—Tiantai County, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province.
The article said Wang’s gesture was to pay sincere respects to the various local military and armed police forces. It cited him as saying it was his “33rd consecutive year of a journey in support of the [Chinese] military.”
It added that, “as president of an overseas business association, [Wang] will give full play to his advantages and engage in practical actions to actively participate in the modernization and international friendship exchanges of his motherland and hometown.”
Foreign Mission Designation in US
Apart from being a CACA honorary chair, the July 2021 article identified Wang as president of two other organizations, the
North America Zhejiang (Taizhou) Chamber of Commerce and the
Canada Chinese Peaceful and Unification Association (
CCPUA), both found to be non-profits registered in B.C.
The unification association’s Chinese name resembles that of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR), a China-based organization
directly supervised by officials in the Politburo, the CCP’s highest decision-making body.
On the CCPPNR website is posted
a list of articles involving “domestic and overseas associations for promoting unification.” One of the articles,
posted July 2022, quoted Wang’s speech at a seminar discussion on the 25th anniversary of the British handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to China—an event allegedly hosted by Wang’s CCPUA and supported by “over 40 Vancouver-area Chinese organizations.”
In October 2020, the U.S. State Department
designated one of the CCPPNR’s U.S. branches, the Washington, D.C.-based
National Association for China’s Peaceful Unification, as
a foreign mission of the Chinese regime. The department called it a front organization controlled by the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), describing the UFWD as the CCP organ “tasked with co-opting and neutralizing threats to the party’s rule and spreading its influence and propaganda overseas.”
‘A Variety of Worldviews’
Wang’s name appears in Loo’s
Elections BC campaign finance disclosure as a $500 donor to her 2022 re-election campaign.
Loo told The Epoch Times that she was only “at [a] Richmond friend’s home” and that her attendance of the Lunar New Year party “does not in any way endorse the personal views of the other people in attendance.”
“I am hopeful that by keeping dialogue open and sharing my personal views on the benefits of peace, democracy and fair economic policies that I can be a positive influence,” she wrote in an email statement. “I will continue to engage with people who have a variety of worldviews as we can all learn things from each other.”
It’s unclear whether the video was directly taken by MP Murray, who didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ inquiry.
The Epoch Times also reached out to Wang for comment but didn’t hear back.
Loo subsequently
tweeted that she wasn’t under any investigation and that Day’s post was an effort to cause confusion.
“To be clear: I am not under investigation for attending house parties, singing, or anything else. INSE and CSIS are investigating the
Wenzhou Friendship Society and whether it is operating a foreign police station,“ Loo wrote. ”I do appreciate my colleague’s attempt to create confusion.”
Libraries That ‘Spread the Voice’ of CCP
The Lunar New Year party wasn’t the first time Loo had attended an event hosted by individuals or groups that have consistently taken Beijing-aligning stances.Loo attended
a Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival event, also in Richmond, just south of Vancouver, on Sept. 10, 2022. It was organized by Xu Ling, who, like Wang, is a CACA
honorary chair. Xu is affiliated with at least two other Chinese-Canadian organizations that also signed the August 2022 open letter in support of Beijing’s claims over Taiwan.
That Mid-Autumn Festival event also celebrated the establishment of several Chinese-language libraries in B.C. that are part of a program spearheaded by a China-based organization seeking to “spread the voice” of the CCP. Wang was listed as one of the guests at the event, according to a
Sept. 12, 2022, article by a local Chinese-language media.
Replying to an Epoch Times inquiry at the time, Loo said her presence at the event celebrating the opening of libraries that promote communism “is not an endorsement of a particular belief.” She said the celebration was “a multicultural art event.”
“Our public library has many books with different views, and opinions on myriad topics, including fascism, Nazi, apartheid, gender issues, inclusivity etc. Ideas are not the enemy; ignorance is the enemy,” Loo said.
Besides Loo’s attendance, a number of federal, provincial, and municipal politicians sent greetings to the event organizer, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C.’s Liberal MP Parm Bains, according to the September 2022 article.
‘That Is Their Decision’
Loo also attended a Chinese cultural celebration at the Vancouver Art Gallery on
Oct. 1, 2022, titled “The 4th Chinese Culture and Art Festival.” China’s Consul-General in Vancouver Yang Shu and Deputy Consul-General Wang Chengjun both attended, as reported by several Chinese-language media outlets, including
Phoenix Television, an outlet partially owned by Beijing.
On the same day, multiple civil rights organizations demonstrated in major Canadian cities including Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver in support of a global anti-CCP protest to coincide with China’s National Day celebration.
In her Feb. 22 emailed response to The Epoch Times, Loo didn’t directly answer a question on whether her mingling with Beijing-aligned groups would raise concerns for other communities, such as Hongkongers who fled the autonomous region after CCP authorities suppressed the democracy movement there.
“While I have never been to Hong Kong or China, I understand that many people choose to continue to live and work in Hong Kong despite it being under control of China for the last 25 years. That is their decision,” Loo wrote.
