Burton and Seaboyer: We need to stop China from buying influence in Canada. Here's how our laws need to change right now

Burton and Seaboyer: We need to stop China from buying influence in Canada. Here's how our laws need to change right now

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/justin-trudeau-isnt-meeting-chinas-threat-to-our-democracy-heres-one-thing-he-could-do/article_0b1a6710-e54c-11ee-8254-0f4ef6ff58cb.html

 

When Chinese investors acquire foreign companies, they're opening a door for spying. In every Canadian business bought by Chinese money, Beijing establishes a Chinese Communist Party committee — operating in Canada. With every acquisition, the reach of Chinese intelligence services expands. Those Chinese "police stations" operating in Canada were just the tip of the iceberg.

Beijing's intelligence services harvest the data of Canadians to feed AI-enabled apps that precisely guide barely detectable Chinese influence campaigns in Canada.

When Chinese investors acquire foreign companies, they're opening a door for spying. In every Canadian business bought by Chinese money, Beijing establishes a Chinese Communist Party committee — operating in Canada. With every acquisition, the reach of Chinese intelligence services expands. Those Chinese "police stations" operating in Canada were just the tip of the iceberg.

Beijing's intelligence services harvest the data of Canadians to feed AI-enabled apps that precisely guide barely detectable Chinese influence campaigns in Canada.

With complex technologies constantly evolving, one way of protecting Canadians from sophisticated foreign influence is to stop authoritarian undemocratic regimes from corporate acquisitions in Canada.

C-34, for instance, currently includes a classified (read: secret) review process that allows discretionary rulings by cabinet ministers. Regardless of which party is in government at any given time, this step is clearly vulnerable to foreign persuasion and interference. Canadians need open, transparent processes in determining which investments are accepted and which are denied or have strict conditions attached.

 With complex technologies constantly evolving, one way of protecting Canadians from sophisticated foreign influence is to stop authoritarian undemocratic regimes from corporate acquisitions in Canada.

C-34, for instance, currently includes a classified (read: secret) review process that allows discretionary rulings by cabinet ministers. Regardless of which party is in government at any given time, this step is clearly vulnerable to foreign persuasion and interference. Canadians need open, transparent processes in determining which investments are accepted and which are denied or have strict conditions attached.

Canada and other U.S. allies tensely envision Trump 2.0: Charles Burton in the Toronto Star

Canada and other U.S. allies tensely envision Trump 2.0: Charles Burton in the Toronto Star

https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/canada-and-other-u-s-allies-tensely-envision-trump-2-0-charles-burton-in-the-globe-and-mail/

If he regains the presidency, Trump’s plan to make America great again includes 10 per cent tariffs on all imports. Canada — America’s third-largest supplier — wouldn’t be getting a bye.

Replacing reciprocal free trade with a protectionist wall would inflict pain in all directions, including for American consumers, who end up paying more for many goods. For Canada’s export-driven economy, the fallout could mean unemployment for thousands of households, devalued stock markets (including the nest eggs of millions of retirees), and internal regional infighting that makes the 2022 truckers’ convoy look like a high school debate.

Concerns about Trump go beyond fiscal. With the world’s second-largest land mass but a small tax base (just over one-tenth the population of the U.S.) Canada cannot realistically defend its massive territory without the collaborative assurance of a united NATO. Losing America’s resources and leadership would be devastating to the alliance’s ability to defend its member nations.
 

 

Burton: Taiwan’s election results don’t ease the sense of looming tragedy

Taiwan’s election results don’t ease the sense of looming tragedy

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-taiwans-election-results-dont-ease-the-sense-of-looming-tragedy/

China’s hostility was deepened by the fact that democratic elections were held at all. On China’s heavily censored social media, searches for “Taiwan election” yield a notice reading “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the content of this topic is not displayed.”

But what makes Beijing even more concerned is that Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te, earlier in his political career, was an unabashed advocate for Taiwan making a unilateral declaration of independence. Mr. Lai toned this down in his recent campaign speeches, professing to continue his predecessor’s less confrontational line with Beijing. But a very plausible danger from this week’s election result stems from China’s conviction that, under Mr. Lai, there will be no “return of Taiwan to the embrace of the motherland” through peaceful negotiation. And China will not stand idly by if it perceives Mr. Lai as manoeuvering internationally to bring about de jure affirmation of the reality that Taiwan is de facto an independent state that is being denied sovereign national rights under international law.

Burton and Seaboyer: China's meddling in Taiwan is an alarming warning for Canada

China's meddling in Taiwan is an alarming warning for Canada  

 

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/chinas-meddling-in-taiwan-is-an-alarming-warning-for-canada/article_e48b66ba-abf0-11ee-bf98-47971997da48.html

Beijing openly wants the DPP displaced and the KMT returned to power. Last month a senior Chinese Communist Party official chaired a meeting of Chinese state and party agencies to support this end. The upshot so far: lifelike, computer-fabricated videos depicting candidates saying things they never said, or carefully edited clips of politicians saying things in unguarded moments they wish they hadn’t said.

China has also created a network of “Trojan horse” fake social media groups, purporting to support one party or another, that spew fake scandals and conspiracy theories to discredit the DPP. There is also evidence of individual citizens being tracked. For instance, if someone buys an ebook on Taiwanese politics, AI detects not only when the purchase was made but when the person is actually reading it. They are then micro-targeted with AI-generated messaging that undermines what they have just read.

Canada's turn is coming, and we must likewise tolerate no foreign interference in electing governments that guide the country on the world stage. Canada’s election outcomes should be determined by Canadians alone.

 

Institut pro politiku a společnost: Interview with Charles Burton, Canadian expert on China policy

 

Charles Burton on Bill C-34: Testimony to the Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology

 

CDN response to Chinese interference? Pathetic and ineffective. / Charles Burton, MLI in Parliament

 

The China Problem - CNAPS panel discussion featuring Charles Burton, Miles Yu at Hudson Institute

 

Burton: Canada must face the facts: China is now closed for business

 

Canada must face the facts: China is now closed for business

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-canada-must-face-the-facts-china-is-now-closed-for-business/

 

To mute domestic disgruntlement over the economy, Mr. Xi might play the nationalism card through military engagement in the South China Sea and Taiwan as soon as 2027. As well, the regime has been reaffirming its Leninist core through renewed predominance of state-controlled enterprise over successful capitalists, to the extent that large Chinese companies have developed PR plans to respond to sudden “disappearances” of their chief executives.

Foreign businesspeople embroiled in arbitrary commercial disputes are increasingly denied exit from China until they comply with demands from Chinese state counterparts. And there are ever more controls and restrictions on security of business data, including bans on foreign businesses in China sending information to servers outside the country.

Then there are growing concerns about China’s political stability, as evidenced by the purge in 2023 of the Foreign Minister, the Minister of Defence and a range of senior military figures. This can’t be good.

Burton: China likely to escape scot-free in persecution of two Canadians

 China likely to escape scot-free in persecution of two Canadians

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/china-likely-to-escape-scot-free-in-persecution-of-two-canadians/article_644384da-7778-5830-b3a6-56483b4a07f8.html

While few specifics are known about Spavor’s claims, media reports depict a connection to Kovrig’s former job at Canada’s embassy in Beijing, and later with the International Crisis Group think tank, roles in which he would allegedly meet with people in China, engage them in his fluent Mandarin, and mine the conversations for nuggets of insight into China’s political or economic affairs.

Chinese authorities, of course, don’t like such activities. One expects that Kovrig and his superiors, both in government and the ICG, would have been well aware that this type of work would irritate Beijing, thus the danger of arbitrary detention on trumped-up charges was always there whenever he visited China without the protection of a diplomatic passport. And so it was.

One particularly troubling aspect of this sort of activity is the risk it presents to people who might unknowingly be sources for these information-gathering practices. Apparently Spavor and Kovrig routinely got together for drinks and sessions of good-humoured conversation. But friendships with diplomats imply that observations shared in a bar can end up the next morning in a report to Ottawa, and on to the Five Eyes. Was this possibility lost on Spavor? Was Kovrig perhaps not as forthcoming as he could have been about the full dimensions of their chats?

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.

 

Has Canada’s China policy reset failed to launch?: Charles Burton in the Toronto Star

 Has Canada’s China policy reset failed to launch?: Charles Burton in the Toronto Star

 https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/has-canadas-china-policy-reset-failed-to-launch-charles-burton-in-the-toronto-star/

A core statement in the Indo-Pacific Strategy is a mealy mouthed characterization of China as an “increasingly disruptive global power,” when what China really is to us is a “strategic competitor.” The new strategy’s supposition that Beijing will collaborate sincerely with Canada on climate change, global poverty initiatives, or putting the brakes on North Korea’s terrifyingly dangerous nuclear missiles program — if we appease China by turning a blind eye to the Uyghur genocide and human rights and security issues — is naive at best.

China's 20th Communist Party Congress: Charles Burton on CTV News

Burton: Why are Chinese police operating in Canada, while our own government and security services apparently look the other way?

Why are Chinese police operating in Canada, while our own government and security services apparently look the other way? 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-why-are-chinese-police-operating-in-canada-while-our-own-government/

This is an outrage. Chinese police setting up offices in Canada, then “persuading” alleged criminals to return to the motherland to face “justice” – while our own government and security services apparently choose to look the other way – represents a gross violation of Canada’s national sovereignty, international law and the norms of diplomacy. China is extending the grip of its Orwellian police state into this country, with seemingly no worry about being confronted by our own national security agencies.

The RCMP and politicians of all stripes routinely condemn Chinese state harassment of people in Canada, but what action has been taken? There have been no arrests or any expulsion of any Chinese diplomats who might be co-ordinating this kind of thuggery.

In Canada, this has been a reality for years. In 2001, during refugee hearings in Vancouver for Lai Changxing – a businessman wanted by Beijing over accusations of corruption and smuggling – Chinese police admitted to entering Canada using fake documents, and even to spiriting in Mr. Lai’s brother in an attempt to convince him to return home. Canadian authorities effectively smiled benignly at this serious breach of criminal and immigration law; Mr. Lai was eventually deported back to China.

Burton: Ottawa has continued its mysterious deference to China. What happened to the promised ‘reset’?

 Burton: Ottawa has continued its mysterious deference to China. What happened to the promised ‘reset’?

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/08/28/ottawa-has-continued-its-mysterious-deference-to-china-what-happened-to-the-promised-reset.html

"Ottawa’s refusal to confront this harassment of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Falun Gong and Chinese democracy activists in Canada is shameful. In 2020, then foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne promised to take action, but nothing happened. Last year Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, said Canada was “actively considering” a registry of foreign agents (similar to U.S. and Australian measures) to counter China’s malign activities in Canada. But this was evidently a hollow promise to appease Canadians’ resentment over China’s subversive operations here.

Canada seems incapable of doing anything about China, due to the incompatibility of the Ottawa doctrine that we must maintain close relations with Beijing regardless of public opinion. When China’s ambassador in Ottawa threatened Canada about crossing a “red line” on Taiwan, warning officials to draw lessons from the past (read: hostage diplomacy) if our MPs set foot in Taiwan, our prime minister didn’t even condemn the remarks, but simply urged MPs to reflect on the “consequences” of such a visit."

Burton: Pelosi’s Taiwan visit has brought the thorny ‘one China’ debate into sharp focus

Pelosi’s Taiwan visit has brought the thorny ‘one China’ debate into sharp focus 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-pelosis-taiwan-visit-has-brought-the-thorny-one-china-debate-into/

Beijing’s most emphatic criticism of Ms. Pelosi is that she is undercutting the commitment of the U.S. and other Western democracies, including Canada, to “the one-China principle.” The commitment to “one China” made sense in 1970 when Canada switched its formal China recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Back then, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek said his “Republic of China” government was just in temporary exile in Taiwan and would, with U.S. help, soon expel the illegitimate Beijing regime of the Chinese Communist “red bandits.” But Chiang died in 1975, and not long after any claim that his army would “gloriously retake the mainland” was quietly abandoned. So today, everybody agrees that the Beijing government is the government of “one China.” There is no longer any “two China” principle left to violate.

The pivotal issue is whether or not Taiwan is legitimately just a province of that “one China.” Beijing’s claims that the Taiwan government is a rogue regime may be of no direct concern to Canada or the U.S., but the fact remains that an elected, democratic government is in political control of Taiwan and the smaller islands under its authority.

As a sovereign nation, Canada should not be taking direction from China or be intimidated into shunning Taiwan’s democratic regime. Canada must retain its ability to negotiate bilateral trade and other matters of critical geostrategic interest, including global health, airspace, and climate change, with Taiwan directly.

Burton: Canada must boost its security apparatus against China and Russia

 Burton: Canada must boost its security apparatus against China and Russia

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/burton-canada-must-boost-its-security-apparatus-against-china-and-russia

Consider Cameron Ortis, former director general of the RCMP’s national intelligence unit, who was accused in 2019 of trying to share sensitive information with a foreign entity. What should we be learning from his arrest? Or the Winnipeg labs matter? Was there a failure to protect national security that should be addressed by Parliament? Then there’s Quentin Huang. Charged in 2013 with trying to sell Canadian military secrets to China, the Canadian engineer went eight years without a trial before a judge finally dismissed the case, citing lack of progress. Why is it that, unlike our allies, Canada is incapable of holding a proper trial of someone accused of transferring our military technologies to a foreign state?

If the RCMP, CSIS and CSE refuse to share intelligence assessments on where Canada is vulnerable to Russian and Chinese malign operations, the federal government must take the required steps to defend our security. Too often, Canadian police and security agencies see their role as simply curating information that they can trade with the counterpart agencies. This danger is much more pronounced in Canada than among our allies, whose security agencies have much more effective legislative oversight.

The suffering of Ukraine is not just bad weather in international relations; it’s the harbinger of geostrategic climate change led by China as well. Canada must cut the rhetoric and take action to face the new global realities.

Burton: China’s potential long game: First dominate Russia, then on to the Arctic

China’s potential long game: First dominate Russia, then on to the Arctic 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-chinas-potential-long-game-first-dominate-russia-then-on-to-the-arctic/

Whatever the outcome of the suffering in Ukraine, Russia will remain shunned by the West, blocked from financial transactions and trade with lucrative European markets. This risks ushering Russia into the arms of Beijing, which will be only too happy to facilitate the dependence of its “strategic partner” on Chinese economic support, under the guise of helping it weather cataclysmic sanctions. It will come at a humiliating cost to Mr. Putin, but make no mistake: Beijing will exploit Russia’s weakness to bring it into subordination to China’s overall geopolitical agenda.

The West’s hesitant, conditional response to Russian aggression against an allied nation is being seen by Beijing as an affirmation that the Washington-dominated global order is in decline. The subtleties of NATO’s Article 5 are lost on the Standing Committee of China’s Politburo. What they see is Mr. Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons, the West backing away from Ukrainian pleas for meaningful military support beyond a token promise of a few outdated armaments, and no commitment to clear Ukrainian air space of the Russian bombers that devastate the nation below.

Burton: Time to wake up and take megalomaniacs seriously

 Burton: Time to wake up and take megalomaniacs seriously

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/03/02/time-to-wake-up-and-take-megalomaniacs-seriously.html

Xi is confident that, under his leadership, China’s civilizational norms, as he interprets them, will displace the liberal West in a new China-dominated global order. He foresees this “community of the common destiny of mankind” being in place by 2050. Under his Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative, the world’s economy will be restructured to place China definitively at the centre of power; all the belts and roads will lead to Beijing. It is a delusional overblown ambition, but if Xi sees this promised future slipping away, China could lash out at the world in the same dangerous ways as Putin is doing now.

Canada has until now given Xi’s ambitions short shrift. Serious China expertise in our foreign ministry, CSIS, the RCMP, CSE and DND is thin on the ground. There has been no political will to get more Canadians fluent in Mandarin and thus more attuned to what is really going on with the Chinese Communist Party, domestically, internationally, and here in Canada.

In fact we even enable Xi’s regime by submitting to Chinese embassy threats to punish Canada economically through trade sanctions if we respond in any substantive way to China’s robust industrial espionage operations in Canada, or coercion of ethnic Chinese people in Canada to serve the interests of the Communist Party regime, or China’s very sophisticated influence operations targeting Canadians with influence on Canada’s foreign policy formulation.

Burton: Opinion: Canada approaches a watershed moment about who we really are

 Opinion: Canada approaches a watershed moment about who we really are

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-canada-approaches-a-watershed-moment-about-who-we-really-are

https://youtu.be/283gmYtQw9I

For Canadians, the pandemic’s demise should mean not a return to yesterday’s normal, but a time to demand leadership that reboots our country with a renewed identity and purpose shaped by the values that make Canada a just, democratic society.

A meaningful, modern definition of Canada will also end the smug domination of national priorities by a “Laurentian elite” comprised mainly of white people with roots in the pasts of Ontario and Quebec. 

We must spend the money and do whatever is required politically to achieve just resolution of land claims; settle disputes over other treaty obligations; fulfil guarantees of such basic rights as clean water; provide legitimate social services, including health care and education; and support sustaining Indigenous languages. Achieving this and ending poverty and degradation within a conscionable time frame will require a resolve that circumvents exploitative lawyers and consultants who thrive on interminable legislative procedure.

An inescapable priority is funding the military to defend sovereignty in the Arctic, including its economically critical natural resources. Ottawa’s chronic dithering on this makes us easy prey in China’s march toward repressive superpower dominance, just as we fret but do little while China interferes in our electoral process, or menaces people in Canada who Beijing sees as threatening to its interests. It’s time to get our act together.

Burton: Ahead of a U.S. summit, China tries to move the goalposts on the meaning of ‘democracy’

Ahead of a U.S. summit, China tries to move the goalposts on the meaning of ‘democracy’ 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-ahead-of-a-us-summit-china-tries-to-move-the-goalposts-on-the-meaning/

In the lead-up to the summit, China’s propaganda machine went into overdrive. On Saturday, its State Council issued a white paper entitled, China: Democracy That Works, which serves as China’s latest notice of global dominance. “China proposes to build a global community of shared future,” it reads, “and presses for a new model of international relations.”

While touting its own peculiar “democracy,” China neglects to mention that democracies are actually based on the principle of equal citizenship of all peoples. Whether it is tennis star Peng Shuai demanding that a retired Politburo member be held accountable for sexual assault allegations, or Uyghurs, Tibetans and Chinese Christians having the right to practise their religion in the language and culture of their tradition, or people being able to freely speak their thoughts on matters of politics and society without fear of arrest, democracy is the universal entitlement to civil freedoms, the inherent right to be ourselves and freely pursue our own future.

BURTON: What a potential cold war with China means for Canada

BURTON: What a potential cold war with China means for Canada 

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/burton-what-a-potential-cold-war-with-china-means-for-canada

"Canada needs to stand with our liberal democratic allies in defence of the rules-based international order. The days of the federal government virtue signalling to dampen down the public opprobrium over China’s malign schemes, while Canada’s political and business elite pursue a self-interested policy of appeasement towards China, will have to end. Maintaining the pretense that the best China policy for Canada is one that steers a sophisticated diplomatic middle course between the U.S. and China is no longer viable.

Canada’s esoteric foreign policy doctrine of strategic deception wrongly assumes that what the country lacks in power and influence can be made up by cleverness. But it is simply an expression of Canadian naivety and greed."

Burton: Canada looks on as Biden rallies other allies to counter China

 Burton: Canada looks on as Biden rallies other allies to counter China

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/07/21/canada-looks-on-as-biden-rallies-other-allies-to-counter-china.html

"Our government’s increasingly pointed rhetoric with no substantive followup only confirms the weakness of Canada’s position with China, while Ottawa’s attempts at clever diplomacy in trying to steer a middle path between the PRC and the U.S. has only debased Washington’s faith in Canada’s commitment to the integrity of the international rules-based order.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needs to phone President Biden to assure him of Canada’s support for positive determinations that come out of the QUAD meeting. Then we should not just talk the talk but stand up and show some courage of our convictions."

Burton and Chen Opinion: It’s a bad sign when elites are adopting Chinese Communist Party rhetoric

 Opinion: It’s a bad sign when elites are adopting Chinese Communist Party rhetoric

Some in the commentator class have forgotten the hard lessons about dealing with China

Charles Burton and Duanjie Chen

https://thehub.ca/2021-07-02/opinion-its-a-bad-sign-when-elites-are-adopting-chinese-communist-party-rhetoric/

"The authors ignore the fact that many of the regime’s most passionate critics are themselves of Chinese descent. They neglect to mention that the principal oppressor of the Chinese people is in fact the CCP itself. Calling this out is not racist; it is empowering to those who live in China and risk imprisonment for merely expressing opinions that the regime finds distasteful.

Worse still, this article from Evans and Woo is hardly an isolated statement from the authors; it certainly is not out of character. Most recently, Woo doubled down on repeating the rhetoric used by the wolf warriors in China’s Embassy in Ottawa, arguing that Canada cannot be critical of China’s ongoing genocide in Xinjiang due to Canada’s own deeply problematic history with residential schools.

This classic whataboutism is obviously not concerned about racial inequality or the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples, but again, defending the PRC regime against criticism for its abhorrent human rights abuses. The fact of Canada’s appalling history of gross mistreatment of indigenous peoples makes us Canadians even more sensitized to the evil of crimes against humanity being committed by autocratic racist regimes in China and elsewhere in the world. Woo has it exactly backwards."

Burton: Time for transparency in China's dealings with Canadian universities

 Opinion: Time for transparency in China's dealings with Canadian universities

It is reassuring that Alberta government officials have promised to protect Canada’s national interest by curtailing U of A collaborations with China in strategically sensitive science and technology, but will Ottawa initiate federal legislation such as requiring transparency in reporting of foreign sources of income? There is a powerful pro-PRC lobby in Ottawa, mostly retired politicians who are on China-related boards, including Canadian companies and law firms that benefit from the PRC. In taking China’s money, they are expected to support the interests of the PRC in Canada in return.

Beijing seems confident that, once Canadian public outrage fades over the latest reports of China’s shameless flouting of the norms of international relations, the Canadians on the PRC gravy train will resume quietly lobbying for Ottawa’s restraint in any new measures. This United Front work is a sophisticated engagement of Canada, and the PRC always seems to end up on top.

https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-time-for-transparency-in-chinas-dealings-with-canadian-universities

Burton and Byers: COMMENTARY: Treatment of the Two Michaels reveals Canada’s lack of leverage in Beijing

 

COMMENTARY: Treatment of the Two Michaels reveals Canada’s lack of leverage in Beijing

https://globalnews.ca/news/7706849/michael-spavor-kovrig-china-trial/

But recent years have given stunning clarity to the true nature of the CCP regime. Petty, vindictive, arbitrary, and brutal, Beijing has made no mystery about its authoritarian intentions. Kovrig and Spavor’s plight fits a pattern of belligerence from the regime, including its military incursions and overt threat against its neighbours, genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, blanket repression of cultural, racial, and religious minorities, militarization of international waters in the South China Sea, repression in Hong Kong, and so much more.

Canada’s naïveté toward China has left us impotent and rudderless in the face of Beijing’s aggression. What is desperately needed is for Ottawa to finally wake up to the reality that Canadians have acknowledged for some time: China is a clear threat that we must be prepared to stand against in concert with our allies.

My discussion with Canada's Ambassador to the UN on the Uyghur Genocide (2:15 to 17:30) This video is working again (March 16, 2021)

 

Transcript: http://www.peacemagazine.org/archive/v37n2p16.htm

Burton: Canada needs a foreign agent registry to help it tackle China's influence

 Burton: Canada needs a foreign agent registry to help it tackle China's influence

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/burton-canada-needs-a-foreign-agent-registry-to-help-it-tackle-chinas-influence

Even though opinion polls indicate nearly nine in 10 Canadians want our government to be much more “proactive” in relations with China, the prime minister and cabinet are apparently listening to other voices, who may be rewarded by the PRC régime, saying we should be “sophisticated and mature” in our relations with China, abiding by China’s urging that we “set  aside differences and seek common ground.”

This latest statement by MP Oliphant, that the government is “actively considering” creating a registry of foreign agents, follows a familiar pattern. To appease or distract public opinion, the Trudeau government dangles a series of hollow promises, then just kicks the can down the road.

Canadians should demand that their government stop with the lip service and follow through with this now. As the old Lerner and Loewe show tune puts it “Sing me no song, read me no rhyme, please don’t explain. Show me!”

Canada’s Way Forward With Taiwan: Charles Burton For Inside Policy

 Canada’s Way Forward With Taiwan: Charles Burton For Inside Policy

https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/canadas-way-forward-taiwan/

"But today, with the re-election of President Tsai Ing-wen, the notion that the government of Taiwan does not deserve to be recognized as a legitimate government no longer holds. The awkward reality today is that Taiwan’s indisputably free and fair election makes clear that the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government is the legitimate representation of the aspirations of the people of Taiwan.

Another factor is Canada's now dashed high hopes and aspirations for relations with the People's Republic of China, particularly since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. While Canada and the PRC still maintain the framework of strategic partnership agreed to when the CCP Party General Secretary visited Canada in 2005, this partnership is no longer active. Simply put, the agreed to government-to-government consultations and programs of collaboration have gone into abeyance. What Canada and our like-minded democratic allies have today is very much a relationship of strategic adversary.

We need to recognize that the current government of democratic Taiwan is a legitimate regime that has effective sovereign control of its territory. As such, Canada’s desire to respect the feelings of the PRC by shunning Taiwan in global affairs is not longer relevant. It follows that Canada no longer has to adopt a Taiwan policy informed by appeasement to the PRC."

Charles Burton: Kovrig and Spavor’s two-year ordeal and what it means for Canada-China relations

Charles Burton: Kovrig and Spavor’s two-year ordeal and what it means for Canada-China relations 

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/charles-burton-kovrig-and-spavors-two-year-ordeal-and-what-it-means-for-canada-china-relations

Ignorant hubris of CCP's ignoble leaders makes them culpable for deep suffering of these innocent Canadians. But Ottawa has also mismanaged the situation due to its own misconceptions.

Tohti and Burton: Canada must respond to China's harrowing genocide

 Tohti and Burton: Canada must respond to China's harrowing genocide

by Mehmet Tohti and Charles Burton

If the international community does not condemn China’s campaign against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang province, a precedent will be set and such atrocities will be adopted by other regimes.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/tohti-and-burton-canada-must-respond-to-chinas-harrowing-genocide

Burton: Joe Biden is coming – and Beijing should be worried

Joe Biden is coming – and Beijing should be worried 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-joe-biden-is-coming-and-beijing-should-be-worried/

"But this is really about China’s worry that its hubristic global expansionist plans – a key element in the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimating ideology – are about to be seriously derailed. In contrast to President Donald Trump’s claim that Chinese President Xi Jinping is “terrific” and a “very special person,” the president-elect recently called Mr. Xi “a thug,” a global disruptor “who doesn’t have a democratic bone in his body.” Moreover, Mr. Biden has vowed to host a “global Summit for Democracy” next year, to bring together the world’s democracies and “strengthen our democratic institutions, honestly confront nations that are backsliding, and forge a common agenda.”

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China has urged that, this December, supporters of democracy around the world buy a bottle of Australian wine to show support for Australia against Chinese economic coercion. Evidently, the Australian reds are particularly good. This holiday season, let’s drink to that – and to a tougher, changing horizon for Beijing."

Charles Burton: What a Biden Presidency means for Canada-Chinese Relations

 

• Charles Burton: What a Biden Presidency means for Canada-Chinese Relations

https://cdainstitute.ca/charles-burton-what-a-biden-presidency-means-for-canada-chinese-relations/

It is hard to know how Biden will manage China. He has said that he regards Xi Jinping as “a thug”. He also has identified the Chinese policy towards the Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as a genocide. He hopes to lead an international campaign to pressure, isolate, and punish China. So, from that point of view, his stance on China is much more aggressive than the Canadian government’s. The issue is whether or not Biden will carry on the general orientation of the Trump administration under current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo with regard to how the U.S would stand for the international rules based order, which includes, respect for freedom, democracy, rights, and entitlements of citizens in those areas.

If Biden decides to negotiate a grand bargain with China that would include concerns that weren’t central to the Trump administration, such as climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, particularly relations with North Korea, and other issues like global health, then he might be prepared to make concessions to the Chinese

Burton: Canada should manage our China policy more honestly (opinion piece in Ottawa Citizen)

Burton: Canada should manage our China policy more honestly 

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/burton-canada-should-manage-our-china-policy-more-honestly

The argument that “ghosting” might obtain the release of Michaels Kovrig and Spavor, or avoid further economic retaliation that punishes Canadian business and farmers, has proven wrong-headed. After 711 days, two exemplary Canadian citizens are still in prison hell in the People’s Republic of China, neither of them deserving such vulgar abuse as Beijing tries to force Canada to comply with China’s political demands. Beijing obviously does not reward passivity with gestures of goodwill, and if the federal government continues to give in to the PRC’s amoral “wolf warrior diplomacy,” expect China to be thus emboldened to demand that Canada offer successive concessions in years ahead.

Burton: Canada takes note as China gets tough with Australia

Canada takes note as China gets tough with Australia

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/11/12/canada-takes-note-as-china-gets-tough-with-australia.html

Those who have urged that we treat the panda kindly, lest he show his claws and draw blood with his fangs, will urge that Canada continue ignoring the strong recommendations of Commons committees to support endangered Hong Kong democracy activists or to sanction Chinese officials complicit in the Uighur genocide. That perspective implies it would be best that Canada simply risk our alliance with the U.S. by releasing Meng Wanzhou, approving Huawei 5G and continue to allow PRC acquisition of Canadian dual-use technologies.

While Australia has strongly supported Canada over Kovrig and Spavor, it is unlikely that Ottawa will dare to stand with Australia in the face of Chinese bullying, beyond our usual carefully worded “expression of concern.” But Australia’s relations with China today are almost certainly Canada’s tomorrow. As the RUSI report notes, citing the ex-Australian PM and China scholar Kevin Rudd, “the Chinese Communist Party despises and takes advantage of weakness, while it respects strength.”

Burton - "China: History as Destiny"

 China: History as Destiny

By Charles Burton,
Senior Fellow, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Ottawa

As published by The Dorchester Review, Spring/Summer, 2020

https://williamgairdner.ca/some-deep-insight-on-china/

Burton: As China’s global actions worsen, Canada looks at its feet

 Burton: As China’s global actions worsen, Canada looks at its feet

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/burton-as-chinas-global-actions-worsen-canada-looks-at-its-feet

Threats to the safety of Canadians by any other nation’s ambassador would have them turfed within 48 hours. Cong was instead called in to Global Affairs Canada for a chat requesting that he play nicer in future.

Of course, the People’s Republic of China would expel Canadian Ambassador Dominic Barton in retaliation, but that might not be such a bad thing. The Chinese evidently see him as a pushover, and don’t return his calls. While Ambassador Cong is all over the Canadian media with interviews and webinars, our man in Beijing is a non-person.

Opinion Piece in the Toronto Star "Burton: China threatens and intimidates people within Canada as Ottawa remains silent"

 China threatens and intimidates people within Canada as Ottawa remains silent

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/09/08/china-threatens-and-intimidates-people-within-canada-as-ottawa-remains-silent.html

What of the sotto voce reservations expressed about the impact of Canada doing anything that China would not like on the fate of hostages Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig? After more than 600 days of incarceration, Ottawa’s refrain “we are working very hard” to achieve their release has worn thin. The fact is, Beijing will hold these two innocent men for as long as it benefits the furtherance of China’s agenda in Canada, regardless of any impact on China’s global credibility.

Currently, Beijing has got us where they want us. The tragic fallacy of Canada’s silence is that the longer we remain passive in the face of China’s appalling violations of international trade, diplomacy and human rights, the longer we can expect Kovrig and Spavor to remain in Chinese prison hell.

Burton Opinion Piece in Globe and Mail: "America shouldn’t go it alone in containing China"

America shouldn’t go it alone in containing China 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-america-shouldnt-go-it-alone-in-containing-china/

With little change in China’s recent behaviour, Western policies of appeasement have now been discredited. This presents an opportunity for the U.S. to assert, once and for all, that it is not a declining power. Yet, as Washington reshapes its engagement with China, it needs to start including middle powers in the negotiations. Limiting the engagement to bilateral fora between the U.S. and China has inadvertently given Beijing free rein to exploit power imbalances with smaller countries, weakening the global network of alliances and institutions meant to uphold democracy, justice and peace.

Burton: The Chinese Communist Party is not really very Chinese at all

The Chinese Communist Party is not really very Chinese at all

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-chinese-communist-party-is-not-really-very-chinese-at-all/

"In his discourse on honesty, Confucius stresses how being sincere gives individuals the integrity necessary to make progress along the Way: “Be sincere and true to your word, serious and careful in your actions; and you will get along even among barbarians. But if you are not sincere and untrustworthy in your speech, frivolous and careless in your actions, how will you get along even among your own neighbours?”
But what we get out of the Chinese Communist Party today is dishonesty and insincerity. Kevin and Julia Garratt, who were brutally held for almost two years from 2014, and like Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor also falsely charged with ill-defined espionage crimes, were also just innocent pawns in the Communist Party’s pathetic and contemptible hostage diplomacy."

Burton: In Canada, the tide of opinion is turning on China

In Canada, the tide of opinion is turning on China

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-in-canada-the-tide-of-opinion-is-turning-on-china/

"In what should be a wake-up call for the federal government, the Canadian public’s perception of China appears to be swinging dramatically.
An Angus Reid poll last week found that four in five Canadians want Huawei banned from any role in building this country’s 5G network, and just 11 per cent of respondents felt Canada should focus its trade efforts on China – down from 40 per cent in 2015. And 76 per cent said Canada should prioritize human rights and the rule of law over economic opportunity.
If Ottawa has been delaying a decision all these months while it awaits the “right moment" to announce that the future of Canadian telecommunications lies with Huawei, it is now clear that that moment will never come."

Think tank slams Ottawa over silence on Beijing attempt to ‘interfere’ with free speech

Think tank slams Ottawa over silence on Beijing attempt to ‘interfere’ with free speech

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/04/24/think-tank-slams-ottawa-over-silence-on-beijing-attempt-to-interfere-with-free-speech.html

“Canada is evidently more penetrated byagents of the Chinese regime than other countries,” he said. “As a result, the Chinese regime has been able to dampen the kind of response that one would expect from a liberal democracyagainst a regime which is engaging in activities hostile to the interest of Canada and our values.”

Burton: Beijing’s coronavirus bungling makes Canada’s choice on Huawei even easier

Burton: Beijing’s coronavirus bungling makes Canada’s choice on Huawei even easier

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-beijings-coronavirus-bungling-makes-canadas-choice-on-huawei-even/

"The U.K., Australia, France and the United States have called for an international investigation of the PRC and WHO’s apparent mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. If China were found culpable, would Canada still accept Beijing’s assurance that Huawei poses no threat to the security of Canadian 5G infrastructure, or that China will not seek to use it to further its cyber-espionage program in Canada? And in the background, of course, is China’s broad disregard for international rules-based order in trade and diplomacy."

Continuing to do nothing will not deter China: Charles Burton’s Remarks to the House of Commons Special Committee on Canada-China Relations

Continuing to do nothing will not deter China: Charles Burton’s Remarks to the House of Commons Special Committee on Canada-China Relations: Canada’s continuing to do nothing in response to China's aggression will do nothing to deter said aggression, MLI's Charles Burton.

Burton: Why Canada can't let Huawei build a 5G network

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/burton-why-canada-cant-let-huawei-build-a-5g-network

"Does Canada honestly want to send the profits from billions of dollars of 5G installation to China’s Huawei, a dishonest and dissembling corporate entity that is digitally facilitating Xi Jinping’s ever strengthening program of political repression?"

"In New Zealand, a startling report by scholar Anne-Marie Brady to that nation’s Parliamentary Inquiry on Foreign Interference details the Chinese Communist Party’s massive scheme of enticing foreign politicians, academics and business people to promote China’s agenda through political lobbying, the media and academia. Besides offering business opportunities or free trips to China, using bribery or honey traps and so on, there are also 'consultancies' in which prominent advisers pocket up to $150,000 per annum just for being affiliated with PRC entities. So long as the foreign adviser promotes relations with China on PRC terms, the money keeps coming.

Back in Ottawa, the new Special Committee on Canada-China Relations needs to seriously explore whether what is happening in New Zealand can happen here. As decision day on Huawei edges nearer, we need legislation requiring transparent reporting of Canadians’ income derived from foreign sources. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

Patience is lapsing for Canada’s indecision over Huawei. The government needs to take a stand, once and for all, on the security threat of Huawei 5G. The real question is: Why would any disinterested party think that going with Huawei 5G is the right thing for Canada?"

Burton: Many concerns as Canadians wait for evacuation from China

Burton: Many concerns as Canadians wait for evacuation

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/02/04/many-concerns-as-canadians-wait-for-evacuation-from-china.html

For many Chinese the anxiety grows daily, trapped in their homes, afraid to go out and lacking supplies of surgical masks or food supplies. In the meantime, party General Secretary Xi Jinping appears to have gone to ground, vanishing from his dominance in the media, his political future evidently uncertain.

Burton and Byers: Resetting Canada’s Approach to China

Resetting Canada’s Approach to ChinaA measured and principled strategy will benefit everyone

http://inroadsjournal.ca/resetting-canadas-approach-to-china/

A measured and principled approach to China is ultimately of the greatest sustained benefit first to Canada, then to Canada’s likeminded allies and ultimately to China itself. With a new political configuration in Ottawa, the pursuit of a remade Canada-China relationship is of the utmost importance to Canada’s future as a free, democratic and prosperous nation. Naiveté about China’s global intentions can no longer be our excuse.

Burton: Trudeau government at a crossroads in its dealings with China

Burton: Trudeau government at a crossroads in its dealings with China

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/burton-trudeau-government-at-a-crossroads-in-its-dealings-with-china

The new Trudeau government’s approach to China’s Communist Party regime is rife with dilemma. Support the business and political interests of the Laurentian élite, who are entwined in and conflicted by a Beijing engagement approach that eschews established norms of trade and diplomacy? Or adhere to Canadian middle-class values that make Canada the harmonious and tolerant society it is: decency, fairness, reciprocity, honesty, openness?

Burton - The turmoil in Hong Kong is a bittersweet moment in its history

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-turmoil-in-hong-kong-is-a-bittersweet-moment-in-its-history/

"With the battle cry of “restore Hong Kong’s glory, the revolution of our times,” the continuing protests are a quixotic Cantonese cri de coeur, from a Chinese city that yearns to stave off its creeping and almost certain full subordination to the Mandarin dictates of the Chinese Communist Party.

This is a bittersweet moment in the history of Hong Kong. The emotional furor may just fade away or it could end horribly in violence. In Canada, meanwhile, our government’s milquetoast response to these events is yet another expression of our shameful loss of national vitality in international affairs."

Burton - TIME FOR A NEW DIRECTION IN CANADA'S CHINA STRATEGY: NEW MLI REPORT

OTTAWA, ON (August 16, 2019): The federal election is a little over two months away, and its outcome remains highly uncertain. Irrespective of whichever political party wins, the new government faces the challenging work of remaking Canada-China relations, which has reached an all-time low following China’s hostage diplomacy and use of economic coercion in response to the arrest by Canadian authorities of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

In the latest entry in MLI’s “A Mandate for Canada” series, Senior Fellow Charles Burton makes the case for a measured, principled, and forward-looking China strategy.

Titled Remaking Canada's China strategy: A new direction that puts Canadian interests first, the paper details the shortcomings of the country’s past approach to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), outlining the need for a new strategy that better serves Canada’s national interests and is more complementary to that of our key allies.

Over the past more than 25 years, both Liberal and Conservative governments have approached China based on an implied quid pro quo. As Burton notes, “If Canada showed ‘friendship’ to the PRC regime by acceding to demands allowing China to further its economic and geostrategic interests in Canada, then China would be amenable to Canadian approaches on social issues such as human rights.”

Underpinning this formulation has been Canadian political naiveté about the purposes and intentions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has persisted into the early years of Justin Trudeau’s government.

Yet it is not through political naiveté alone that Canada had pursued policies highly favourable to the CCP’s interests. Equally important has been the CCP’s United Front Work Department and its highly effective, decades-long program of Canadian élite capture.

According to Burton, “This rosy view of China relations has been supported by major Canadian business interests who benefit from lucrative interactions with Chinese Communist state commercial networks.”

It is these interests, as opposed to issues of national security or Canadian principles and values, that should be at the centre of Canada’s China policy. Fortunately, there are growing signs that this captured élite foreign policy consensus is beginning to fray.

“China’s very strong retaliatory measures to pressure Canada to release a senior member of the regime – Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, detained under a US extradition request – has shattered any illusions about any moral obligation the PRC feels in response to Canada’s many decades of asymmetrical acts of ‘friendship.’”

The author offers a new direction in Canada’s China strategy – one that takes into consideration the need to safeguard Canadian security, promote Canadian prosperity, and project Canadian values. Key elements of this new strategy include:

• Cracking down on harassing, coercive, corrupt, and covert activities by agents of the Chinese state against anyone, regardless of citizenship, in Canada.
• Rejecting PRC regime pressure for us to accept the Huawei bid to install 5G technology
• Condemning police excesses in Hong Kong, calling for an independent inquiry on their excessive use of force, and stating clearly that any PAP (People's Armed Police) crackdown in Hong Kong would carry serious consequences.
• Considering the use of Magnitsky Law against officials of the People’s Republic of China’s Communist Party (or officials from Hong Kong), especially if there is a crackdown in Hong Kong.
• Ending government collaboration in United Front Work Department activities such as Parliamentary exchanges that attempt to establish a moral equivalence between liberal democratic institutions and the CCP’s puppet sham civil institutions.
• Requiring transparency for media and educational institutions that receive PRC regime funding.
• Condemning Chinese human rights abuses and concomitantly supporting agents of progressive change in China.

Canada needs to assert comprehensively its national interests in its China strategy, even if doing so will lead to pushback from the PRC and its supporters in Canada. As Burton concludes, “A measured and principled approach to China is ultimately of the greatest sustained benefit to Canada, Canada’s like-minded allies, and, indeed, ultimately to China itself.”

http://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/20190812_MLI_COMMENTARY_Future_Canada-China_Relations_Burton_FWeb.pdf

Burton: Xi Jinping may want to rule the world, but he has problems at home, too

Perhaps Mr. Xi has done the world a favour by exposing the true nature of the Communist Party’s long-range intentions, but as American commentator Gordon Chang has observed, ultimately his is “a militant, one-person regime that feels surrounded and threatened.”

A “surrounded and threatened” China feeling under siege does not bode well for making a rational conciliatory response to Hong Kong’s unrest. It also does not bode well for the future of Canada-China relations or for global peace. China desperately needs to find a way out of its political conundrum before it’s too late – for all involved.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-xi-jinping-may-want-to-rule-the-world-but-he-has-problems-at-home/

Burton: Recent PRC influence operations to counter public demands for a more effective response to the Chinese régime’s political interference in Canada

https://sinopsis.cz/en/burton_influence_operations_canada/

Lary and Burton: Exiled professor Jerome Ch’en taught students about his beloved homeland, China

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-exiled-professor-jerome-chen-taught-students-about-his-beloved/

Jerome Ch’en’s long life was shaped by the momentous historic events in China over the past century, and the insights he gained as a witness to those events informed his work as an eminent historian and author. Prof. Ch’en, who died last month, was one of the last survivors of a gifted generation of Chinese intellectuals who were born into a traditional society, came of age in warfare and either were exiled or remained in China to face persecution. They were steeped in both the Chinese and Western traditions. Prof. Ch’en’s deep knowledge of Chinese culture co-existed with his profound understanding of Western political and economic thought.

Burton: How Xi trumped Trump at the G20 summit (Opinion piece in the Globe and Mail)

How Xi trumped Trump at the G20 summit


https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-how-xi-trumped-trump-at-the-g20-summit/


While China’s long-term preparations for its new cold war confrontation with the U.S. continue apace, Mr. Trump’s infatuation of autocratic dictators – of which Mr. Xi is primus inter pares – shows no signs of abating. At the press conference following their meeting, Mr. Trump told a Chinese reporter that Mr. Xi is “a brilliant leader. He’s a brilliant man. You know better than I, he is probably considered to be one of the great leaders of 200 years in China.”

There was no mention of Mr. Xi’s leadership over Chinese Communist Party policies which have incarcerated 3 million Uyghurs (the figure used by the U.S. State Department) under harsh conditions in cultural genocide camps. Mr. Trump indicated that Hong Kong also didn’t come up.

In their meeting, Mr. Xi made shrewd inroads, deferring new tariffs on US$300 billion worth of exports to the U.S. with the usual promises of “dialogue,” vague commitments to co-operate on the threats of Iran and North Korea, and talk of large purchases of U.S. agricultural and other goods.

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, was agreeing to reconsider security restrictions on Chinese researchers entering the U.S., and to end the current ban on American company sales to Huawei.

PRC Reference News characterization of this opinion piece: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0tldMaK35d_fVX8oE4d59A

Charles Burton on Tiananmen Square Anniversary

Burton: China, U.S., Canada: trade and political disputes and world domination (interview)

Burton: China, U.S., Canada: trade and political disputes and world domination (interview)


http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/05/14/china-u-s-canada-trade-and-political-disputes-and-world-domination-interview/


In an article he wrote to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, he said, “Currently, there is no coherent multi-national strategy against Chinese influence operations. The less we respond to it in any substantive way, the more China is emboldened in its practice of global disruption.

China’s remaking of the global rules is making the world safe for autocracy, tacitly demanding that Canada passively surrender our values to an authoritarian state. Canada should be uniting with our allies in a coordinated stand for political justice and fair economic engagement with China. But this requires more than allocating resources and government expenditure. The political will has to be there”.

Canada’s frosty relationship with China makes prof’s expertise hot commodity

Canada’s frosty relationship with China makes prof’s expertise hot commodity


https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2019/05/canadas-frosty-relationship-with-china-makes-profs-expertise-hot-commodity/

Burton counts himself among a small number of China specialists who are prepared to criticize the regime.
“The other option is to hold back and not enter into the public debate on China,” he says. “If people understand things that are causing trouble in our relationship with China and don’t dare speak up, I think that would be more damaging to Canada’s interests.”

Burton: China-Canada tensions are no passing storm

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/burton-china-canada-tensions-are-no-passing-storm

"Canada’s days of virtue-signalling are long past the point of getting Kovrig and Spavor out of the hell they endure. China has a million or more Turkic Muslims in “re-education” cultural genocide camps in the PRC’s northwest, and plans to do the same to Tibetans. Moreover, there are huge numbers of China’s own political prisoners suffering at least as badly in conditions similar to the “black jail” incarceration of our two citizens. In this light, Canadian concerns are unlikely to be very high on the agenda of China’s Communist leadership.

In 2012, when Canada thought that free trade with China would be the key to sustainable diversified Canadian prosperity, then-Liberal MP Justin Trudeau put forth that “we deceive ourselves by thinking that trade with Asia can be squeezed into the 20th-century mould. China, for one, sets its own rules and will continue to do so because it can. China has a game plan. There is nothing inherently sinister about that.”

But the practice of most Western nations, to condemn politically while engaging economically, has enabled China to make divide-and-conquer an art form. While many of the nations listed above have issued statements supporting Canada’s outrage at China’s flaunting of international law, most countries remain silent, fearing Beijing’s retaliation. In the final analysis, China wields raw money power and the myth that a windfall is coming if Beijing gets what it wants."

Debate with Paul Evans on "China: Friend or Foe?"

Video of the whole thing:

http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/public-record/episodes/65964784#

MLI text of the opening statement:

https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/china-friend-canada-not-lessons-aristotle-charles-burton-inside-policy/

Burton: Canada must develop a backbone in its dealings with China

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-must-develop-a-backbone-in-its-dealings-with-china/

Canada’s years of appeasing China’s Communist regime, in the hope of obtaining economic favour, has led us to this horrendous mess. We must regain Canadian self-respect in our relations with China, by honest reassessment and a reboot to get it right.

Gordon Chang Speaking at Brock March 4th

Appointment to MLI Centre for Advancing Canada's Interests Abroad