Relations between Beijing and Ottawa are still strained after the revelations of the daily “The Globe and Mail”, according to which a Canadian MP was about to be “targeted” by the Chinese.
Relations between Beijing and Ottawa take a new turn after the daily’s revelations The Globe and Mail. A Canadian MP was about to be “target” by the Chinese. The threat remains unclear, but the danger very real to the point of calling a very special meeting, in a wing of Parliament in Ottawa. A kind of improvised camera with four people. Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister himself, his national security adviser, the head of the intelligence services and the MP in question, Michael Chong. His family has origins in Hong Kong and on the local political spectrum he is the “Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs”. That is to say the man in charge of international issues, within the opposition.
In this camera, the head of intelligence read him a report from his services. It evokes “a threat to him and his family.” A name is even slipped to him about this threat: Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat established in Canada. The interview lasts about ten minutes. The parliamentarian will be briefed more seriously in the days that follow.
Ottawa mulls expelling Chinese diplomats
If Michael Chong is there, it is because he supported and voted for a motion in February 2021. It equated the treatment reserved for the Uyghurs, by China, to “genocide”. The kind of position likely to turn on some red lights on Chinese radar screens.
Ihe government of Justin Trudeau would have liked to keep this secret, but the revelations of the Globe and Mail – and critics who argue that nothing has been done for the security of the deputy – push his foreign minister to be threatening. Mélanie Joly summoned the Chinese ambassador on Thursday, May 4, and she does not rule out the possibility of expelling certain diplomats. Especially if they have the idea of making Canadian politicians examples for anyone who starts criticizing Beijing. China, it denies en bloc and assures that Canada “baseless slander and defame” the operation of its embassies.
Already strained relations between the two countries
The two countries have been tense for almost five years, since 2018, when Canadian authorities arrested an official of the Chinese telecoms group Huawei. They do so at the request of American justice. Sign for China that Canada is a vassal of the United States. There are also accusations that Beijing sought to influence the results of the 2019 and 2021 Canadian elections. The question, too, of the many illegal police stations: premises, apartments where the Chinese authorities interrogate their opponents based in Canada.
All this tells the Canadian secret services that their country is a priority target for interference from the People’s Republic of China. Expelling diplomats would therefore serve to get rid, in part, of the influence of Chinese intelligence.