Blowing China’s cover in Canada 中共腐蚀西方的惯用伎俩

陈凯一语：

中共官方付钱的免费旅游、宴会、款待、女人、贸易关系贿赂、地位显赫、等等是中共党奴朝腐蚀控制西方、美国政界、学界、媒体界、贸易界人士们的有效手段。 今天西方、美国对中共的绥靖就是这个有效的腐败手段的结果。 中共党奴朝已在相当程度上利用了人性中的原弊与弱点赢得了这场道德精神战。

Kai Chen's Words:

Free China trips, free banquets, free hotels, bribery, women, status symbols, official connections to businessmen, etc.., are the common yet very effective measures employed by the Chinese communist regime to corrupt Western and American politicians, academia, media and investors.... Today the spineless "appeasement" adopted by most Western countries toward China is the result of such Chinese effective use of human vices and weaknesses. The communist regime is winning so far in this front.

陈凯博客： www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

Blowing China’s cover in Canada

中共腐蚀西方的惯用伎俩

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/835038--cohn-blowing-china-s-cover-in-canada

Published On Tue Jul 13 2010

By Martin Regg Cohn

Columnist A red under every bed? Look again — under that banquet table, or that free business class seat to China.

You’ll find Chinese stagecraft at work, even if it’s not as sinister as the spooks want you to believe.

Spying is a dirty business. But spook optics are also proving messy for the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, whose candour has come back to haunt him.

Let’s analyze some of the raw intelligence coming out of Ottawa since our chief spy, Richard Fadden, blurted out that Canadian politicians are coming under Chinese influence. While the cries of protest are still red hot across Canada, in Red China the guffaws from incredulous Commie spymasters are even louder.

They can hardly believe their luck. After years of public exposure and excoriation by Canadian spy chiefs at parliamentary hearings, the Chinese caught a lucky break this time.

Fadden’s blabbing sparked a torrent of domestic criticism that has completely overshadowed the mundane reality of how spooks operate in the shadows. It may also have overstated the true worth of cloak-and-dagger operations, while understating the less glamorous methods of influence-peddling in this country.

Fadden clearly struck a nerve. I can understand the sensitivities of some Chinese Canadian politicians — and their defenders — who felt their loyalties, as a group, were unfairly questioned.

But there’s no point being boy scouts about this. As an open society, perched beside the United States, Canada is a tempting target.

Forget the stagecraft of spy novels, or the make-believe machinations of those captured Russian sleeper agents. China targets Canadians with more mundane tactics ranging from sumptuous free lunches to package tours of China. Last month, a so-called “opinion leader” told me excitedly that he’d been invited on a tour of China. MPs go all the time. So do freelance journalists. All on China’s dime.

Call it soft power. But spying can be a deadly serious business when it tars entire communities. The canard of “dual loyalties” has dogged Canadians of Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Jewish descent over the years — with many innocent citizens unjustly detained in wartime.

It’s a mistake to single out diasporas. While the Chinese and other governments shamelessly target émigré groups to aid the motherland, they spend at least as much time and money trying to win over the “landed gentry” — the white folks who make up the Canadian establishment going back generations.

Note that Fadden didn’t fret about the targeted politicians being Chinese Canadians. He merely noted that some unnamed politicians were falling under Chinese influence — which could well mean white guys in suits.

Still, no one should be under any illusions about how Beijing targets so-called overseas Chinese through the United Front Work Department of the Communist party.

“In the case of Canada, China has used United Front tactics to try to win the hearts and minds of the people through various means, such as the establishment of the Confucius Institute, the propagation of Chinese culture and other non-political methods,” says University of Waterloo political scientist Sonny Lo. That includes “making friends with MPs, Canadian citizens and officials.”

When it comes to Falun Gong, China’s tactics get rougher. When Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin defected in Sydney five years ago, he disclosed that roughly 1,000 agents (and informants) were spying on Falun Gong activists in both Australia and Canada.

Former CSIS head Jim Judd showed typically Canadian reticence at a 2007 Senate committee hearing, saying, “I do not want to be politically incorrect, so I will not name specific countries.” Told to stop being coy, Judd conceded that China takes up half of the agency’s resources.

China gets all the attention, but Judd noted that more than a dozen countries give Canada trouble. Taiwan competes ferociously with the mainland, often using similar tactics. Don’t forget India, whose activities in Canada are also on the public record. And the Russians, with their fondness for Canadian passports, are no strangers to the field.

Amidst the torrent of bad news Fadden unleashed, the good news is that it may force us to think about how China gets its way in Canada — not just with underhanded operations but above board activities such as buying up big chunks of Canada’s resource giants in the oilsands. That’s where the real influence is likely to be found in future.

A red under every bed? Look again — under the boardroom table.

Martin Regg Cohn writes Tuesday.