A Montreal organization has joined a coordinated campaign to condemn the Taiwanese vice-president’s recent trip to the United States. This group played a key role in a protest on Parliament Hill in June that was promoted as an anti-racism gathering while the organizers advocated against Canada’s foreign agent registry.
The Montreal Chinese Community United Centre (MCCUC) posted a statement on its website on Aug. 8 criticizing Lai Ching-te’s U.S. stopovers during his recent trip to Paraguay for the inauguration of President Santiago Peña Palacios. Mr. Lai is a front-runner in Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election in January 2024.
Mr. Lai visited New York on Aug. 12 and San Francisco on Aug. 17. These visits were met with opposition from Beijing, which considers Taiwan as part of its territory and characterizes Mr. Lai’s trips as efforts to promote independence from the mainland.
The statement aligns with Beijing’s stance asserting China’s territorial claim over Taiwan. It also urges the U.S. government to refrain from “sending misleading signals to separatist forces in Taiwan” by permitting stopovers for Mr. Lai, whom it referred to as a “troublemaker.”
According to the MCCUC website, the Aug. 8 statement was originally issued by the Montreal branch of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR). The CCPPNR operates under the direct oversight of the Chinese regime’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). The UFWD was identified as Beijing’s primary instrument for foreign interference in a 2020 study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, as cited by Public Safety Canada.
The MCCUC had also criticized U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in February for announcing plans to visit Taiwan. In April, Mr. McCarthy met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California, where she made a stopover en route to meeting allies in Latin America.
The MCCUC did not respond to multiple requests for comments from The Epoch Times.
Coordinated Campaign
The CCPPNR has launched a coordinated campaign targeting Mr. Lai, with its branches worldwide releasing statements akin to the one issued by the Montreal branch.In a section labelled “Activities of Domestic and Overseas Unification Promotion Associations” on its website, the CCPPNR has a compilation of articles posted that criticize Mr. Lai, gathered from the organization’s branch units spanning numerous countries across six continents. Several of those branches are based in Canadian cities, including Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, and Toronto.
Another group with a similar name as the CCPPNR, the Canada Chinese Peaceful and Unification Association (CCPUA), which is a non-profit registered in B.C., was mentioned in multiple articles on the CCPPNR website.
These organizations have shared viewpoints consistent with those of Beijing on previous occasions. For instance, the CCPUA was among some 80 Chinese organizations based in Canada that signed an open letter in August 2022 voicing support for the regime’s “white paper” concerning Taiwan. This white paper, released after former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island last August, refused to rule out the possibility of using military force to “reunify” Taiwan.
The Toronto and Montreal branches of the CCPPNR have additionally supported Beijing in response to criticism from Canada’s Parliament in 2021 regarding reports of human rights violations against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region in northwest China. Their combined statements, published on the CCPPNR website on March 8, 2021, asserted that Canada’s allegations were unsubstantiated and characterized them as discriminatory action against the Chinese population.
Opposing Foreign Agent Registry
The MCCUC played a key role in organizing a protest on Parliament Hill on June 24 to mark the 100th anniversary of Canada’s introduction of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. This legislation, which banned the entry of virtually all Chinese immigrants for 24 years, is also commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. The protest was advertised as an event to oppose “anti-Chinese sentiment.”MCCUC chairman Cao Shoukang was seen among key organizers of the June 24 protest on Parliament Hill.
The protest was attended by Sen. Victor Oh and Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, who have participated in a series of forum discussions to call on Chinese Canadians to oppose the proposed foreign agent registry in Canada. The website that advertised the protest also called for support of a House of Commons citizen petition, e-4395, which claimed that a foreign agent registry would pose “a serious harassment and stigmatization risk for racialized communities.”
Cao Shoukang (11th L) (in a light blue shirt with white stripes on the shoulders) was seen among the key organizers of a protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 24, 2023. Mr. Cao is chairman of the Montreal Chinese Community United Centre, which helped organize the protest. The Epoch Times
During one of the public meetings, hosted by the MCCUC in Montreal on June 12, Mr. Oh promoted the Parliament Hill protest by likening the foreign agent registry to a “disguised Chinese Exclusion Act” and said it will be used to suppress future generations of Chinese Canadians. Mr. Oh has not responded to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.
The federal government concluded a public consultation in May on the merits of creating a foreign influence transparency registry, which is aimed at increasing transparency surrounding the lobbying activities of those working on behalf of foreign entities.
Calls for a foreign agent registry mounted over the past year by opposition parties and human rights activists following growing allegations of Beijing’s interference activities in Canada, including reports on the operation of several covert Chinese police stations on Canadian soil, threats and harassment against Canadian politicians and residents, and interference in federal elections.
Kathy Han contributed to this report
