An executive of a Toronto group known for being aligned with Beijing met in China with representatives of the Chinese regime agency in charge of advancing the regime’s influence operations abroad.
The article said that on Han’s visit on May 8, he was accompanied by a number of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, including Liu Xuewu, director of the
county-level United Front Works Department (UFWD), which is the CCP’s “primary
foreign interference tool,” according to studies cited by Public Safety Canada.
The Linfen federation had taken the initiative to invite Han and his wife on the trip, saying in a
May 6 news release that it is committed to the work of “uniting the hearts, coalescing the wisdom, and exerting the strength of overseas Chinese people.”
During a discussion with CCP officials in Linfen, Han said he was committed to “serving as a bridge, strengthening communication, and promoting trade cooperation” between the region and the Chinese community in Canada, according to the May 9
Sohu article.
Han’s trip came at a precarious time for the Canada-China relationship, which recently sank to a new low over Ottawa’s expulsion of
Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, who was involved in threatening Conservative MP Michael Chong’s family in Hong Kong. Chong became a target due to having proposed
a motion in 2021 to recognize China’s treatment of Uyghurs as a genocide, according to an intelligence report first reported by
The Globe and Mail on May 1. Beijing retaliated by
expelling a Canadian diplomat from the Canadian Consulate in Shanghai.
The tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats marked the culmination of months of intensity between Ottawa and Beijing over a series of media reports on Beijing’s foreign interference in Canada. Those operations include interference in Canada’s
2019 and 2021 federal elections, the operation of
several clandestine police stations on Canadian soil, and the violation of Canadian airspace with
surveillance balloons and
spy buoys in the Arctic waters. Interference activities also include continuing threats against
Chinese Canadians and their families.
The Epoch Times reached out to Han via CONCO for comment on his meeting with the CCP officials, but didn’t hear back.
‘Hearts Forever Aligned With the Party’
Despite having lived in Canada since 1991, Han has continued to advocate for his “motherland,” according to a number of reports from local or state-owned media in China.“China will always be my roots, Linfen will always be my home,” he said in an August 2022 article, whose Chinese title can be translated as “Overseas Chinese Hearts Forever Aligned with the Party, Joyfully Welcoming [Overseas Chinese] to the 20th National Congress of the CCP, Interviews With Overseas Chinese.” The article was published on the official WeChat account of the Linfen City Overseas Chinese Federation.
“As my motherland has nurtured me, it’s only right for me to contribute my humble efforts, to give back to and repay society, and to help those in need,” Han added.
In October 2019, Han attended a one-week “Overseas Chinese Youth Leaders’ Workshop” in Beijing. The event was hosted by a number of Chinese government departments, including the State Council’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office—the UFWD’s external name—along with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the Beijing municipal government, the China Overseas Friendship Association, and Tsinghua University’s School of Continuing Education, according to a news release posted on the school’s WeChat account.
The workshop focused on topics that included “the great achievements of New China in the past 70 years,” the spirit of the CCP’s 19th National Congress, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s governance ideology, the “One Country, Two Systems” policy—which Beijing uses to control Hong Kong—and the regime’s Belt and Road Initiative.
At the opening ceremony, Zhang Jianmin, deputy director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, spoke to the roughly 40 attendees who represented Chinese organizations from over 20 countries and regions worldwide.
Zhang urged them to “become active participants in the construction and high-quality innovative development of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative,’ promoters of friendly relations between China and other countries, defenders of the Chinese people’s core interests, and exemplars of the image of overseas Chinese in the new era.”
When the workshop concluded on Oct. 15, 2019, Han spoke on behalf of all of the attendees as “class leader.” According to the news release, Han said the workshop had “strengthened their [the attendees’] sense of pride and confidence in the Chinese nation” and “deepened their sense of mission and responsibility as leaders of the overseas Chinese community.”
He also said that the attendees, upon returning to their countries of residence, will “promote what they learned at Tsinghua to overseas Chinese to allow them to better understand their home country.”
Affiliations
The
Council of Newcomer Organizations (
CONCO), where Han has served as executive chair since August 2020, has often taken a stance aligned with Beijing.
In
August 2019, it published an advertisement that vehemently criticized the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, alleging that the protesters were colluding with foreign powers.
In
March 2021, the organization condemned the
House of Commons motion passed in February that year that recognized the CCP’s treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslims as a genocide.
Han is also
chairman of the Shanxi Association of Toronto, which is both
a CONCO member and part of the
Shanxi Communities in Canada—a larger hometown association for people from China’s Shanxi Province. The Shanxi group in
September 2019 hosted an event titled “Praising [Our] Motherland” to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of communist China.
In January 2023, five major Shanxi-related organizations co-hosted a Chinese New Year Party, according to a
report posted on Sohu. The event was attended by officials from the Chinese Consulate in Toronto and several Canadian politicians, including Michael Chan, deputy mayor of Markham; Vincent Ke, member of the provincial parliament of Ontario; and the assistant of former Liberal MP Han Dong, who now sits as an Independent MP.
Back in 2010, Richard Fadden, then-director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), had warned about
Chan’s ties to China, the Globe and Mail reported. Chan, who said he has launched a legal challenge against Globe’s reporting, was Ontario’s citizenship and immigration minister from October 2007 to January 2010 and Ontario’s tourism and culture minister from January 2010 to October 2011. He later
organized a rally in Toronto denouncing the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters in 2019.
Han and Ke were both at the centre of recent reports of China’s interference activities in Canada. Dong, now sitting as an Independent MP in the Ontario riding of Don Valley North,
resigned from the Liberal caucus in March after a Global News report cited national security sources saying he had advised a Chinese diplomat that Beijing should delay releasing Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig from detention in China. Dong has denied the allegations and is
suing Global News for defamation.
Meanwhile, Ke
resigned from the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus in March after
Global News reported on two Privy Council Office documents revealing CCP interference schemes in the 2019 federal election. Global News said that although the documents didn’t directly name Ke, unnamed national security sources said the MPP served as a “financial intermediary” in those Chinese interference schemes. Ke has denied the allegations, and has taken legal action against Global.
Chan, Ke, and Han have not returned multiple requests for comment from The Epoch Times.
