Chinese Consulate Asked BC to Surrender Chinese Driver’s Licences to Vancouver-Based NGO

Revelation comes amid heightened awareness of China’s unofficial overseas police stations

The Chinese Consulate in Vancouver, in a file photo. NTDTV/Melodie Von

The Chinese Consulate in Vancouver asked the province in 2014 to give to a Vancouver-based NGO the driver’s licences of Chinese nationals who had surrendered them in exchange for B.C. licences, according to internal government documents.

The revelation comes amid heightened scrutiny of China’s overseas operations after reports emerged that the communist regime is operating unofficial police service stations abroad.

In 2012, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) sent a letter to several countries’ consulates informing them that their nationals were required to surrender the driver’s licenses issued by their home country upon receiving a B.C. licence. The letter said ICBC would securely destroy the surrendered licences, but also offered the consulates the option of having the original licences returned to their “home licensing authority.”

In a July 2014 email to a B.C. Intergovernmental Relations Secretariat official, Li Yue—who at the time was head of governmental and media affairs office for the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver—asked if the licences could instead be surrendered to SUCCESS, a Vancouver-based NGO that assists new immigrants.

“Since Chinese nationals here in BC come from different provinces of China, it is difficult to designate one unit to manage those licenses. While SUCCESS is a very well known non-governmental organization which provide [sic] good services to Chinese new immigrants,” the email says.

The internal government documents, copies of which were seen by The Epoch Times, were obtained as part of a Freedom of Information request by investigative journalist and author Ina Mitchell, who, along with intelligence expert Scott McGregor, is co-authoring a book on China’s hybrid war on the West, titled “The Mosaic Effect.”

The documents show internal B.C. government discussions on the communication with the consulate, with several parts redacted.

Signage for ICBC is seen in Victoria, B.C., in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito

The B.C. government defended the redactions after a challenge by Mitchell, with government lawyers saying that some of the redacted parts could harm the government’s relationship with China. Several parts of the government’s arguments in defence of the redactions are redacted as well.

“The withheld information could reasonably be expected to greatly upset the Chinese Government because it shows that [redacted],” reads an excerpt of the government’s defence of redactions submitted to an inquiry initiated at Mitchell’s request.

“Furthermore, the withheld information could reasonably be expected to greatly upset [redacted] because [redacted] There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that [redacted] would be extremely affronted by the fact that ICBC [redacted].”

Mitchell says that the information is being withheld for “political reasons.”

“Access to information is one of the keys to democracy,“ she told The Epoch Times. ”By refusing to disclose information, the B.C. government has caved to political threats that China is increasingly making on political offices.”

The Epoch Times asked the B.C. Intergovernmental Relations Secretariat whether it referred the issue to any law enforcement or intelligence agencies after receiving the Chinese Consulate’s request in 2014 asking if ICBC could send the surrendered licences to SUCCESS. The Epoch Times also asked the secretariat to comment on Mitchell’s criticism of the redactions. A spokesperson said that the secretariat had referred the consulate’s request to ICBC for response, but didn’t comment on the redactions.

McGregor, a former Canadian Armed Forces intelligence operator and intelligence adviser to the RCMP, said in an interview that while he is not an expert on government relations, he thinks that as a minimum the B.C. solicitor general and attorney general should have been consulted.

Reports released last year by the Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders alleging that China is operating unofficial police stations in countries abroad including in Canada—providing services such as driver’s licence renewal and eyesight and hearing examinations—sparked an uproar among politicians and China watchers, with the RCMP subsequently launching an investigation.

“The activity that’s being alleged would be entirely illegal and totally inappropriate, and it would be the subject of very serious representations and follow-up diplomatically,” Weldon Epp, a Global Affairs Canada (GAC) official, told MPs at a House of Commons committee meeting on the unofficial police stations on Oct. 4, 2022.

The Epoch Times contacted GAC for comment on the Vancouver Chinese Consulate’s request in 2014, but didn’t hear back.

An ICBC spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email that the insurance corporation did not give the surrendered Chinese nationals’ driver’s licences to SUCCESS or to any other entity, including any Chinese government organizations.

SUCCESS Immigrant-Services Organization

Established in 1973, SUCCESS provides help with services such as employment and affordable housing to newcomers to Canada.

The organization receives funding from all three levels of governments, including a $22.4 million grant from the federal government in 2019 to provide pre-arrival settlement services to newcomers, including immigrants and refugees

The organization is listed as an Overseas Chinese Service Centre (OCSC) by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, which is part of Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

A 2018 report published by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as part of an academic workshop says that one of the United Front’s main goals is to “influence the decision-making of foreign governments and societies in China’s favour,” adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organ is involved in “co-opting elites, information management, persuasion, as well as accessing strategic information and resources.”

OCSC chapters are in cities all over the world, including in the Toronto area. Different chapters state different goals. The one in Auckland, New Zealand, says it aims to “enhance the communication between NZ and China governments with the aim of improving the well-being of Chinese migrants in NZ.”

The one in Toronto says it was “established by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council” and helps new immigrants, seniors, visitors, and students.

In 2018, the Toronto chapter posted a Chinese New Year’s greeting from Consul General of China He Wei, who said the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was “successfully held,” and repeated Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s key phrase that “socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era.” The Epoch Times contacted the Toronto chapter for comment but didn’t hear back.

A spokesperson with SUCCESS told The Epoch Times that the organization “is not and has never been” part of the OCSC.

“S.U.C.C.E.S.S. is a non-profit multicultural social service agency with a proud fifty year history of serving newcomers, seniors, youth and families. We are a completely non-partisan Canadian organization and we have no affiliations with the Chinese Communist Party,” Elaine O’Connor, director of strategic communications and partnerships at SUCCESS, said in an email, noting that her response was made after consulting the organization’s leadership.

When asked about the organization’s listing as an OCSC on a Chinese government website, O’Connor said SUCCESS has “no control over false material written about us years ago on the internet by unknown individuals for their own purposes.”

Her statement, however, is contradicted by comments the CEO of SUCCESS, Queenie Choo, gave to the National Post in 2019.

Choo said the organization was only ever a “token” recipient of the OCSC designation because she believed it couldn’t meet the expectations that came with the designation.

“We needed to host a lot of functions when the government delegation comes,” Choo told the National Post.

Referring to Choo’s comment to the Post, O’Connor reiterated that the organization was never an OCSC, adding: “While our CEO was quoted in an article back in 2019 that we had been approached to serve as an OCSC, it is clear from that same article that this was a proposal that never materialized.”

This sits in contrast with Choo’s comment on being a “token” recipient. SUCCESS didn’t further clarify the claim.

The Epoch Times also asked if SUCCESS had asked the Chinese regime to remove its listing as an OCSC, and whether it was consulted by the Chinese Consulate when it requested that the B.C. government surrender driver’s licenses to the organization, but didn’t get a response.

The National Post article notes that after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, SUCCESS joined other community organizations to issue a statement condemning the violence. However, former board members and community members are quoted as lamenting that the organization in recent times hasn’t taken stances on issues such as upholding freedoms in China and Hong Kong.

The executives of the organization, which has opened an office in Beijing, are often seen in pictures online posing with Chinese consular officials or other CCP officials during various events.

The organization’s 2017–2018 annual report features a photo of CEO Choo with Qiu Yuanping, the then-director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council who launched the OCSC program in 2014. The same report shows Choo observing a lion dance performance with Kong Weiwei, deputy consul general of the consulate in Vancouver.

Another online photo shows Choo with then-consul-general Tong Xiaoling observing the Chinese New Year parade in Vancouver in 2019, while another shows the two pictured together at a celebration at the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver in 2019.

A listing of “related websites” on the Vancouver Chinese Consulate’s website only lists the website of SUCCESS under the category of “related websites in Vancouver.”

Overseas Chinese Service Centres

According to a report by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, OCSCs are typically pre-existing organizations that were later given an OCSC designation by the CCP’s State Council.

“The United Front’s cultivation of these organizations appears to have paid dividends, if judged by their leaders’ willingness to associate themselves with CCP political slogans,” the report says, citing Toronto and Houston chapters’ events hosting consulate officials where CCP slogans are repeated.

Sheng Xue, a Toronto-area Chinese-Canadian pro-democracy activist, says Beijing has not served the people of China well, so one has to ask why it’s going so far as to providing such “so-called services” to Chinese communities abroad in countries like Canada, where she says the local government is already providing good service to residents.

“So, clearly, the Chinese government is lying. Why does the Chinese government lie? What are they trying to do? The Chinese government lies to deceive the Canadian government and Canadian society, making them think that the Chinese government is helping the Chinese community in Canada,” she told The Epoch Times.

“What the Chinese government is actually doing, in fact, is stretching out its long arm to tightly control the Chinese community here in Canada. At the same time, the Chinese government is further infiltrating and attempting to influence Canadian society, especially in the political arena, through the Chinese in Canada [who are] controlled by them.”

Peter Dahlin, founder and director of Safeguard Defenders, which investigated the unofficial overseas Chinese police stations, says the United Front organizations vary in their operations from country to country.

“They don’t so openly state that they conduct interference, so it’s harder to go after them, or raise awareness of their presence, or know exactly what purpose they have for that matter,” Dahlin told The Epoch Times.

“As they are local organizations connected to the United Front Work Department, they vary a lot in what their purpose is.”

The Jamestown Foundation report points out that OCSCs in South Africa also work as “Chinese Community and Police Cooperation Centres” established by expatriates in that country. The centres are branded as focusing on protecting the safety and property of Chinese nationals abroad by facilitating cooperation with local police.

“But in their English statements, neither [the Chinese Consulate nor the centres] mentions that the centre’s top leader also runs an important United Front Work Department body, one with expressly political aims, and in which capacity he has repeatedly expressed strong public support for CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s political agenda,” says the report.

However, the CCP-affiliated centres that have gotten the most attention recently are the unofficial police stations.

‘Hybrid Warfare’

Safeguard Defenders has documented five unofficial police stations in Canada, and Dahlin says there are likely more.

The NGO notes that the stations, called “110 Overseas Stations,” in some cases are also involved in forcing individuals sought by the Chinese regime to return to China.

Intelligence expert McGregor notes that CCP-affiliated organizations work in very complex ways, which makes them all the harder to track.

“As soon as you add in the complexity of thousands of organizations that are changing their names, changing their directors, and almost all of this is either done in [Chinese-language characters], it makes it very difficult for anyone to really understand what is exactly happening,” he said.

“It all ties back to hybrid warfare, unrestricted warfare, grey-zone conflict, whatever you want to call it, and how the CCP is undermining and infiltrating and influencing at multiple levels.”

Andrew Chen contributed to this report.