Burton: Sapped of both hard and soft power, Canada needs action to keep up in a dangerous world

Sapped of both hard and soft power, Canada needs action to keep up in a dangerous world

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-sapped-of-both-hard-and-soft-power-canada-needs-action-to-keep-up-in-a/ 

Speaking to an international crowd of leaders, ministers and other representatives who had gathered earlier this month in Beijing for a forum that marked 10 years of China’s Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure program, Chinese leader Xi Jinping declared that “changes of the world, of our times, and of historical significance are unfolding like never before.”

Quite right. Will the Russian invasion of Ukraine be resolved without war with NATO? Will armed conflict in the Middle East, fomented by Iran, spiral into a regional war? Would China open a third front by invading Taiwan? If the atrocious provocations to war by Iran, Russia and China develop simultaneously on three fronts – setting off a world war in Asia, the Middle East and Indo-Pacific – where will Canada stand?

Burton: For the foreign-interference inquiry to be effective, Justice Hogue needs the right tools

For the foreign-interference inquiry to be effective, Justice Hogue needs the right tools

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-for-the-foreign-interference-inquiry-to-be-effective-justice-hogue/

 

For Canadians, the crucial outcomes of this whole exercise could be captured in a few questions: Will any more Chinese diplomats involved in election interference be expelled from Canada? Will their proxies working here be held to account and see their day in court? Will we end up getting an effective foreign influence transparency registry to gain insight around any persons of influence in our Canadian democracy who have conflicts of interest by receiving benefits from a foreign state or its representatives (e.g. agents of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party)? Will we get more clarity on why the government projected such an indifferent response to alarming reports of foreign malign, including activities detailed in a large number of federal government intelligence assessments?

Mr. LeBlanc said Justice Hogue will bring “fresh eyes” to topics that she otherwise has no demonstrated credentials to address. She is a respected and capable jurist, but will clearly need a lot of support, including leading experts with deep knowledge in the field, in order to fulfil this critical mission. If not, she could fall into the trap that evidently bedevilled her special-rapporteur predecessor David Johnston, who had to rely on “curated access” to top-secret documents and less-than-thorough debriefings from senior bureaucrats and politicians who might be worried that their denials of any evident ineffectiveness in countering Chinese interference in Canada’s democracy will not stand up to scrutiny.

 

Burton: China’s growing economic angst is another political threat for Xi

China’s growing economic angst is another political threat for Xi

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-chinas-growing-economic-angst-is-another-political-threat-for-xi/

 

The end of the economic boom threatens China’s “post-Tiananmen bargain” in which citizens tolerate marginalized civic freedoms and rule of law in return for continuously improving living standards. Suddenly, Mr. Xi seems politically vulnerable. His rule has been markedly more repressive than those of his recent predecessors – reversing Deng Xiaoping’s 1980s initiatives of “opening and reform” and exhortations to “liberate thought” against Maoist dogma – and because Mr. Xi has purged all his political rivals over the past 10 years, when things go wrong in this era, the buck stops with him.

If Mr. Xi has indeed compromised in his ability to weather political damage because of his handling of the economy, his mishandling of COVID, or sudden disappearances of his senior officials, then these will only add to longer-term grievances that have quietly accumulated during his rule: the persecution of #MeToo protesters, China’s growing income gap, the economic privileging of “red nobility” elites, the unfair and corrupt legal system, pervasive state surveillance and strict censorship of social media.

Against this backdrop, unemployed youth who feel resentful and badly done by could, as Chairman Mao put it in quite a different context, be the spark that sets off the prairie fire. There is much precedent for this in Chinese history.

 

The Strategic Thinkers Series | 16 | Identifying the China Threat | Robert Spalding & Charles Burton

The Strategic Thinkers Series | 16 | Identifying the China Threat | Robert Spalding & Charles Burton

Interview with Charles Burton: Two Former Mounties Charged: Unpacking Chinese Foreign Interference in Canada

 

Interview with CTV News Channel on Charges Against Ex-Mountie

 

Burton: Is anybody out there protecting us from China’s agenda?

 Burton: Is anybody out there protecting us from China’s agenda?

 https://www.ipolitics.ca/opinions/is-anybody-out-there-protecting-us-from-chinas-agenda

 

As if to underscore Ottawa’s paralysis, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s much touted public consultations on creating a Foreign Interference Transparency Registry has so far has gone nowhere. Likewise, Canada’s much-delayed Indo-Pacific Strategy statement last spring — which seemed designed to reassure our allies that Canada will stand up and respond to China’s threat to world peace — has apparently ended up in the bottom of a drawer in the Prime Minister’s office, along with other feel-good statements of intent. And Canada’s dismal 1.29 percent of GDP spending on NATO means we’re not only stiffing those allies but leaving our Arctic essentially undefended, as China is already doing the type of surveillance activities that would precede the deployment of nuclear submarines in our northern waters. 

Ottawa has made no clear commitment to help defend Taiwan, whose sovereignty and freedom has been under growing threat from Beijing year by year. China has also been incrementally making South Korea more susceptible to economic coercion, as their economies increasingly intertwine. For Beijing, the allure of a unified pro-China Korean peninsula would be a huge geostrategic game changer, and bode very badly for Canada and the free world.

Unfortunately, so long as vested interests in Ottawa quietly do Beijing’s bidding while they remain in positions of public trust (so as not to jinx any post-political career law firm appointments or lucrative board memberships), China will continue to enjoy what amounts to veto power Canadian sovereignty and security.

 

An honourable man in the wrong place at the wrong time: Charles Burton in iPolitics

 An honourable man in the wrong place at the wrong time

 

https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/an-honourable-man-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time-charles-burton-in-ipolitics/

 

After a long and distinguished career, now an elderly gentleman in his 80s, this rapporteur assignment is likely David Johnston’s last significant act of public service. With his Harvard and Cambridge pedigrees from the early 1960s, he is the product of a Canada that was politically dominated by a small elite of men whose attitudes of noblesse oblige to women, the lower classes and Indigenous people were matters of honour.

The former Governor General and one-time university president is a lay reader in the Anglican Church and proponent of the YMCA ideals of “muscular Christianity.” Even in youth, when he was a highly accomplished athlete, Johnston’s notion of fair play and a “man’s word is his bond” made him the ideal candidate for the archaic role of representative of Her Majesty the Queen in Canada, which he carried out with great pride.

 Let’s face it, Johnston’s dismissal of news media reports about leaked intelligence reports as “misconstrued” is not based on the kind of rigorous investigative tactics that the situation demands. During his interviews, nobody was speaking under oath and they unlikely felt intimidated by Johnston’s genteel questioning. When he looked them in the eye and asked, “were you aware of the reports about Chinese government sponsored interference in Canada’s democratic process?” and they all responded that they were not, Johnston may have been quite inclined to conclude there was no need for deeper interrogation, and that it would indeed be dishonourable and insulting to question anyone’s denial.

Burton: Beijing doing the wrong thing could be right for Canada

Beijing doing the wrong thing could be right for Canada

 https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2023/05/17/beijing-doing-the-wrong-thing-could-be-right-for-canada.html

 

These are not good times for Canadian politicians or businesspeople with interests in maintaining the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” charade that has characterized Canada-China relations. If anything, Beijing — which declined an opportunity to defuse the latest crisis — seems primed for confrontation.

Charles Burton's Interview with Tenzin Tsundue

 

Burton: To protect Canadian sovereignty, we need transparency about foreign influence

 

Burton: To protect Canadian sovereignty, we need transparency about foreign influence

 

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/burton-to-protect-canadian-sovereignty-we-need-transparency-about-foreign-influencehttps://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/burton-to-protect-canadian-sovereignty-we-need-transparency-about-foreign-influence

 

In assembling its sphere of influencers, Beijing targets occupations that retired politicians and senior civil servants tend to move to, after careers spent serving the public trust. These could be people who are compensated by the Chinese regime through board memberships or other paid associations; or who receive income from Canadian companies that do business with China; who are associated with law firms who represent Chinese firms or Canadian firms who do business with the Chinese regime; or indeed who receive income from Canadian public policy think-tanks that in turn are funded by China-associated sources such as Canadian companies who do business with the Chinese regime.

Obviously, the ability of these Canadians to continue receiving benefits from Chinese sources will not be helped by anything that encourages public support for policies aimed at squelching the malign activities of Beijing’s agents. In the face of credible reports of illegal activities overseen by Chinese diplomats in Canada, they keep their own counsel, be it about election interference, Chinese “police stations,” military researchers entering our country on falsified visa applications whose mission is to obtain sensitive Canadian technologies, or harassing Canadians including those of Uyghur and Tibetan origin who speak their minds about China’s human rights violations.

China hungers for Canada’s resources – that’s why CIC is flighty in Glencore-Teck tussle: Charles Burton in the Globe and Mail

 China hungers for Canada’s resources – that’s why CIC is flighty in Glencore-Teck tussle: Charles Burton in the Globe and Mail

 

https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/china-hungers-for-canadas-resources-thats-why-cic-is-flighty-in-glencore-teck-tussle-charles-burton-in-the-globe-and-mail/

 

When CIC invested $1.7-billion in Teck stock in July, 2009, it looked like another step in Beijing’s overall strategic plan to lock down global resources while they were cheap. But the picture is more complicated than that.

As a sovereign wealth fund that manages part of the People’s Republic of China’s foreign-exchange reserves, CIC is fully integrated into the Chinese Communist Party-state’s corporate, military and security apparatus, subordinate to the overall vision of the party. As General-Secretary Xi Jinping has put it, “government, military, civilian, and academic; east, west, south, north, and centre, the party leads everything.”

CIC’s leadership org chart shows the board of directors and the “supervisory board” (that is, party committee) as both being on the same plane at the top. That would seem to make them equals, but it would be naive to suppose that the supervisory board does not dictate to the board of directors. In autocratic political systems, some boards are definitely more equal than others, and the CIC’s priorities are whatever the Chinese Communist Party says they are.

Like all China institutions, CIC is programmed by the party to serve the regime’s geostrategic goals throughout the world. However, being beholden to the party-military state is much more than a master-servant relationship; it is a symbiotic, interactive bond. While the idea is to prudently husband China’s foreign investment and make money, CIC’s raison d’être is not primarily economic profitability but to serve other Chinese regime purposes as well.

Burton and Shahrooz: Exactly whose interests would be revealed in a Foreign Influence Registry Act?

 Burton and Shahrooz: Exactly whose interests would be revealed in a Foreign Influence Registry Act?

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/04/23/exactly-whose-interests-would-be-revealed-in-a-foreign-influence-registry-act.html

 

The path to achieving FIRA is fraught with challenges, not least because so many respected private-sector Canadian leaders — who associate with both major political parties — have through naivete or greed become beholden to regimes hostile to Canada’s interests. Now these enablers find themselves quietly urging parliamentarians to let this pesky influence registry matter quietly slide out of sight.

There is also concern that any legislation meant to neutralize foreign subversion of Canada’s institutions will fall short of our allies’ strong measures, being kept weak so as not to not expose any ex-politicians now benefitting from significant income streams from Chinese regime-related sources, which have been described as “life transforming amounts of money.”

As CSIS has exposed, the primary culprits behind the rise of foreign interference in Canada are China, North Korea, Iran and Russia. China’s United Front Work Department has been the most active, launching disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining any legislative attempt to challenge Beijing’s influence operations in Canada.

 

CTV News Channel: Russia's Putin meeting with China's Xi is a bad sign for Ukraine and NATO: Burton

 

Burton: What is this government doing to protect Canada’s sovereignty against China?

What is this government doing to protect Canada’s sovereignty against China? 

 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-what-is-this-government-doing-to-protect-canadas-sovereignty-against/#comments

Canadians may well wonder what their government is doing to protect them from China’s schemes. Yet no serious action seems to have been taken by Canadian authorities: no court cases or RCMP investigations appear to have been launched, and no diplomats have been ejected. Indeed, the sheer size of Beijing’s diplomatic corps here should have long ago raised alarms. China has 146 envoys accredited in Canada, compared to 46 from Japan, 36 from India and 23 for the UK.

We also know the CSIS material has been shared with our Five Eyes global partners and other allied intelligence agencies, as well as among senior government officials; Global News has reported that CSIS briefed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on interference efforts in the 2019 election. But significantly, it doesn’t seem to have been transferred to the RCMP – the organization that would undertake an investigation, lay charges and advise the government about diplomats potentially engaging in these activities, which could be cause to send them back to Beijing.

This past weekend, however, Mr. Trudeau unequivocally stated that “the outcomes of the 2019 and the 2021 elections were determined by Canadians, and Canadians alone, at the voting booth.” This was an odd statement to make, however, since Canada is a secret-ballot democracy; we can’t tell exactly why people vote the way they vote, and so it seems impossible to actually know if Chinese influence was instrumental in certain political candidates losing their seats.

 

Interview with Natasha Fatah on Chinese Election Interference

 

 Interview with Natasha Fatah on Chinese Election Interference

 

Charles Burton's Interview on The Quiet Professional Podcast

 Charles Burton's Interview on The Quiet Professional Podcast 

 

https://thequietprofessional.podbean.com/?fbclid=PAAaZNkyTG2wzJ2-aJvT_U0VpbF1pAbc20D2odbO8OHQT6ye71zfTRsCAh-y0

Burton: As Xi Jinping faces a crisis, Ottawa finally takes the China threat seriously

As Xi Jinping faces a crisis, Ottawa finally takes the China threat seriously  

 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-as-xi-jinping-faces-a-crisis-ottawa-finally-takes-china-seriously/

 

 Despite the Canadian government’s new Indo-Pacific Strategy, which is aimed at challenging Beijing’s malign schemes here and abroad, there are vested interests in this country who will seek to neutralize that effort. But Canada will no longer tolerate China interfering in our elections and subverting our policy. We can expect Canada to take firm action against the Chinese government’s harassment of Canadians who are Tibetans or Uyghurs, or who champion human rights and democracy. We will no longer accept the “hiding-in-plain-sight” espionage operations of the Chinese military and police here. China’s reported campaigns to erode the loyalty of Canadians of Chinese origin – through disinformation and racism over WeChat and Chinese-language media.

 China’s surging grassroots fury is a threat that the regime could never have expected. If the Chinese Communist Party under Mr. Xi becomes more and more at odds with the popular will of the people, tensions within China will keep rising. Canada, with its positive and timely shift in China policy, should now also prepare itself for the potential consequences of political instability that may come sooner than we foresaw.