:
I call this meeting or order.
Welcome to meeting number 25 of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.
Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, September 23, 2020, the committee is meeting on its study of Canada-China relations.
[Translation]
This is a hybrid meeting, pursuant to the motion passed by the House on January 25, 2021.
Before we welcome the witnesses, I want to inform the committee members that Iain Stewart, president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Dr. Guillaume Poliquin, acting vice-president of the National Microbiology Laboratory, have confirmed that they'll appear on Monday, May 10, 2021.
[English]
They have also indicated that they are negotiating with the Translation Bureau and will do their best to expedite the translation.
Turning to our witnesses, I would like to welcome, as individuals, Lynette H. Ong, associate professor of political science, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, as well as Richard Fadden. Thank you both for being here.
Let’s open the floor with opening remarks from Ms. Ong. Please proceed. You have five minutes.
:
Chairman Regan, vice-chairs and distinguished members of the special committee, it's an honour be here. Thank you for the generous invitation to testify before the committee today for a second time.
Given today's topic of foreign interference, I would like to start with some definitional issues.
What constitutes foreign interference, and how do we differentiate foreign influence from foreign interference?
A country can exert influence on another country through the use of carrots, such as financial aid and concessional loans; sticks, such as economic sanctions; and persuasion, such as propaganda or disinformation campaigns. Democracies have a more pluralistic and open society and are more tolerant of foreign influence. Conversely, autocracies are less tolerant, because policy contestation tends to take place between factions of the ruling elite rather than in the public realm.
When does foreign influence become foreign interference? Foreign interference refers to the grey zone of domestic security. The terms that have been used to describe it range from “covert” and “deceptive” to “malicious” and “manipulative”. I think the scope of what foreign interference laws cover also differs among countries. Therefore, the distinction between legitimate foreign influence, as every country aims to pursue with its public diplomacy, and foreign interference is not clear-cut. I think it should be recognized that they exist along a continuum rather than in binary terms.
I want to spend some time speaking about United Front work. The Chinese Communist Party's, the CCP's, United Front strategy is premised on the idea of uniting with lesser enemies to defeat greater ones. The strategy proved highly successful in the civil war that brought the CCP to power in 1949 by enabling it to recruit non-Communist power holders, business leaders and local communities to undermine the Kuomintang government. While much of the United Front work was inward-facing in the past, its prominence has been reinvigorated and its scope expanded since 2015. In the same year as the term limits for the Chinese president were abolished, the government departments in charge of ethnic affairs, religion and overseas Chinese affairs were subsumed within the party's United Front Work department. Since then, the United Front Work Department's foreign-facing operations have been carried out by overseas Chinese, with the party's co-optation of ethnic Chinese individuals and communities living outside China and of Chinese organizations based overseas.
The key United Front groups include peak organizations such as the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which brings together non-CCP social elites domestically. Overseas, it includes the China Overseas Friendship Association, the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, Chinese students and scholars associations, and numerous overseas Chinese friendship and hometown associations. By co-opting these organizations under the umbrella of the United Front work, the party seeks to shape the narrative and extend its influence overseas. This raises the question of whether activities of these organizations are instances of “foreign influence”, such as attempts to project China's soft power overseas, or they amount to “foreign interference”. The covert nature of some of these activities makes a fair and impartial assessment more challenging.
I think there's a lack of rigorous academic studies on the subject of the United Front work. Being part of the United Front networks does not automatically imply that individuals or organizations are the CCP's local agents to carry out foreign interference, even though they are part of the umbrella.
I think it is also important to recognize that the diasporas are not passive or apolitical agents of their home governments. In general, the diasporas have agencies and incentives of their own. In Canada's context, it is also crucial to recognize that the Chinese diaspora is far from being a homogeneous community, and their allegiance to the Chinese government, or the CCP, should not be automatically assumed.
In 2018—
I have two more pages to go. Can I go to my recommendations?
I'm sorry; I can't hear you.
:
Thank you, Chair. It's a pleasure to be before you this afternoon.
I'm going to take advantage of the fact that you didn't vet my comments and provide a little context to the issue, as opposed to speaking in great detail about the specific topic of foreign interference.
I think it's important when we look at this Chinese practice, along with a raft of others, to think of the Chinese as our strategic adversaries. What I would like to talk about more than anything is what it should mean for Canada if we accept that.
I think as a precondition to dealing effectively with the Chinese on foreign interference and on anything else, we have to accept that they have a coordinated and centralized policy, an activity development program, that enables them to use all the tools they have at their disposal—foreign, defence, security and trade policy. My metamessage this afternoon is that if we are going to deal effectively with the Chinese, we have to do the same. We cannot look at foreign interference in isolation from trade activity or diplomatic initiatives in the Far East or Indo-China. We have to have a coordinated activity.
I have a couple of metapoints, if I may. First, I think we need to be realistic. China is the second most powerful country on the planet. We're a middle power among many. Except when our sovereignty is directly impacted, I'm not sure there's a great deal we can do alone to affect how the Chinese are going to treat their objectives and how they are going to carry out their objectives. If we are to have an impact on the Chinese, we must use every multilateral tool at our disposal. If the UN doesn't work, we should try the Five Eyes, the G7 and the margins of NATO. They all provide many opportunities for ministers and officials to exchange views and coordinate action.
Let me touch upon what we should do when our sovereignty is directly affected by Chinese action. We need to recognize it, first of all, and develop some sort of consensus on what that is. When we cannot stop it, and when it is not stopped, we need to take some action. Foreign influence is an activity that comes to mind. By any definition, this is unacceptable and is an assault on our sovereignty and a threat to our citizens. There is no reason we cannot discuss this common problem—this is a common problem shared by many of our allies—and coordinate any push-back.
When the Chinese activity is more indirect—too many Chinese students in universities, the extent of Chinese grants to research in areas sensitive our national security—we need to do something in this area as well. Because they affect areas other than our national security interests, they are more difficult to deal with, but they cannot be ignored in the face of control exercised by the Chinese state.
Coming back to my effort at setting out a metapoint, I submit that Canada cannot effectively deal with organized and centrally controlled Chinese activity without itself being organized and coordinated. I mean that our response needs to be whole-of-government at the level of the Government of Canada and to be national at the level of the country.
By “whole of government”, I mean that our reaction to unacceptable Chinese behaviour can't be limited to just CSIS, CSE and occasionally DND and GAC. Rather, it must encompass all elements of the Government of Canada. ISED and Natural Resources come to mind. By “national”, I mean that the responsibilities of the federal government for protecting our sovereignty and the control it has over our border means that it entails federal governmental activity throughout the private sector and civil society, and in some matters potentially affecting the province.
I stress again that we're not going to be able to deal with foreign influence or any other unacceptable Chinese activity unless we admit we have a problem and we coordinate it internally and with our closest allies. This is not necessarily very easy. It's not easy for any number of reasons. I just want to flag one: Not all Chinese citizens and not all Chinese activities are undertaking activities that are harmful to Canada. Distinguishing between the kinds of activities that Professor Ong talked about and those other activities that are perfectly fine is a great deal more difficult than it sounds on the surface. The only way we're going to do this is if we talk about it and articulate what we consider to be unacceptable, ideally coming up with standards that are very similar across our allies.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering any questions you might have.
I want to thank the two witnesses who are here today.
My first questions are mainly for Mr. Fadden.
Mr. Fadden, thank you for your testimony and for your service to the country.
Mr. Fadden, I'll delve into the past a bit. In 2010, you said that foreign powers were influencing a number of politicians, ministers and public servants through espionage activities in Canada, and that foreign powers were infiltrating political circles in Canada. At the time, a number of people legitimately concluded that you were talking about China. However, the government of the day and its public safety minister found your comments regrettable.
A few weeks ago, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, officer, said that you were severely reprimanded by the government of the day. In addition, Wesley Wark said that Prime Minister Harper's office threw you under the bus as a result of those comments.
Has the situation changed in this area? Has the government taken this threat seriously and improved its response to the threat of interference by the Chinese Communist Party, a threat that you had identified?
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The opinions of the people in government and the views of the general public have changed.
I used the following English expression.
[English]
“They had a certain measure of influence”.
[Translation]
My comments were somewhat overblown. It was inferred that I was saying that foreign powers were controlling public servants and politicians, but that was not the case.
It has generally been recognized that my comments were truthful and that the situation must be taken seriously. Over the past few years, a number of your colleagues, both former and current, have told me that I was right and that more honesty should have been shown at the time.
Agencies like CSIS are now allocating more resources to that type of threat. However, it is more difficult to detect it, contrary to terrorist activities. There is no clear evidence in this kind of a situation. So I sympathize somewhat with my former CSIS colleagues. With the help of our allies, we can do something to counter that kind of foreign influence, whether it is coming from China or from another country.
The problem in Canada is that the general public has trouble accepting that our country is under threat. In North America, we feel well protected by the three oceans and by the United States. A crisis sometimes needs to occur for people to admit that there really is a problem. In this kind of a context, the scope of public security agencies' actions is somewhat limited.
:
I would like to talk about the evolution of thinking and the increased awareness in Canada concerning the threat China poses in terms of foreign interference.
You published a report in 2010-11, while you were director of CSIS. In it, you talked about the economic and strategic competitiveness among nations, and you said that it created a threat level similar to the one that existed during the Cold War.
You talked about this 10 years ago without, however, naming China. Is there a reason you did not name it? We are seeing a change in the more recent reports, produced by Mr. Vigneault. For example, China is directly named in those reports.
Is there a reason you did not name China at the time? Was it indeed China you had in mind? I assume that was the case.
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I completely understand.
However, I feel it is important to point out that it is not enough to consult the employee list and to read their title to find out how many of them are specifically in charge of security. Some people's title is purely consular, but we know very well that they perform functions that far exceed the consular aspect.
The committee was totally shocked to learn that VFS Global, a company in charge of visa applications in China, is not only receiving upstream Chinese funding, but that it also deals with a subcontractor downstream on the ground. You even went as far as to say that the company was an entry point for Chinese cyber spies.
The committee was also shocked to learn, after questioning various Canadian security agencies about Nuctech and VFS Global, that no security screening on those two companies had been carried out. The federal government seems to have gotten mixed up. The left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing. There appears to be no political will to carry out this kind of screening. As a result, no screening was done.
Is that kind of an outcome not very concerning and should it not make us tighten up the screening measures for businesses we deal with?
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I think so. That is sort of what I was talking about in my opening remarks. The federal government's measures must be implemented across government and be integrated.
Honestly, this may be easier to say than do, but it is possible, especially if cabinet determined that six countries, for example, should be subject to screening. However, this does not mean that, every time the government buys a good or a service from a country, such as Belgium, it must systematically carry out a comprehensive screening of that country. Nevertheless, the screening measures must be tightened up and integrated a bit more.
For this to work properly, half a dozen countries must be designated as those we focus our efforts on. I honestly don't think that Canada's governments, both federal and provincial, particularly like carrying out those activities. However, certain countries must be monitored carefully, as the United States and France do, for instance.
I think that China poses a sufficiently serious risk to make it worth our while to tighten up the measures.
Thank you to both of our witnesses for coming to join us tonight.
Mr. Fadden, first of all, for you, I want to follow up slightly on VFS Global. You said recently—and you're quoted as saying—that Canada should end its relationship with having the Beijing police looking after our visa centre in China and in Beijing in particular. I can't disagree with you.
As you say, you “can't think of a more promising entry point for cyberspies”, and for other spies, I guess, and data entry, but we're told, Mr. Fadden, that the government didn't know about it until recently. That's not actually true, because this started in 2008, and VFS indicates that they advised the Government of Canada of who their local contractor was, which they are required to have by Chinese laws.
When you were head of CSIS, where was CSIS when all this was going on, starting in 2008? This has been going on for almost 20 years.
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It's a fair question. I can say that when I was at CSIS, I never heard of this and I wouldn't have, necessarily, but I think, to repeat a little bit of what I said in French a few minutes ago, one of the challenges I think we face in Canada is to develop an understanding of what we are going to do if we accept the view that countries like China present a risk.
Among other things, it means that we have to better integrate the activities of a variety of departments. We have Ms. Anand's department, procurement, and [Technical difficulty—Editor] hopefully knows what's going on, and we have immigration, which is a commissioning department, and I'm not sure that every time, on every occasion, everybody understands the risks we're taking.
Until we have a national consensus on the kinds of risks that you and your colleagues are talking about, it's very hard for a single agency to [Technical difficulty—Editor] Chinese [Technical difficulty—Editor]
:
If I may interrupt, time is short here.
We don't have a single agency. We have CSIS. We do have the RCMP. We do have the CSE. We have the bodies that are there and are supposed to be doing the job, but we seem to have—I'm hearing it from you and I'm hearing it from all sorts of people—lots of fearmongering, lots of saying that there's something going on, but there are all these grey zones. Where is the point at which they become bright lines?
You mentioned secrets being stolen by China. Well, if this is theft that's going on, surely that's a criminal activity, and either the laws are inadequate or the enforcement is. It's one or the other. We need advice from people like you, advice to say, “Okay, look, the laws are inadequate.” That's fine. The laws may be inadequate. Well, which laws are inadequate and what changes need to be made?
What is it that we have to say? On foreign influence, a lot of countries like to influence other countries, and their diasporas play a role in that. Where is the line between influence and criminal activity? Someone has to define that a lot better than we have right now. What is it that we're trying to prevent and what's to be expected by any nation?
I will ask Professor Ong a question after you answer that one.
That was very strong testimony.
Professor Ong, you've been very patient. I, for one, would love to hear your recommendations, because I liked how you opened up your remarks about the balance between civil rights in this country versus the security threat.
I have five minutes. I'll give you a couple of minutes and then I'm hoping for a little dialogue.
I'd love to hear your recommendations. I will cut you off after three and a half or four minutes, but it's over to you until then.
:
Thank you for that opportunity and the question.
For number one, I would recommend that we boost our immunity by educating relevant government agencies on the risk of foreign interference and espionage. As someone who knows and understands China, I am also quite alarmed by some of the very basic things that we could have avoided, such as working with Chinese police agencies. I think the chain may be very long, but if someone had done the work of investigating who actually owns VFS, I think we could avoided that problem earlier.
My number two recommendation is that official discussion on espionage and foreign interference should adopt country-agnostic language. That is in light of the skyrocketing anti-Asian hate crimes that have been going on since the onset of the pandemic.
For number three, I would recommend an increase in funding of Chinese language media and outreach programs to grassroots Chinese communities in order to reduce their reliance, as I mentioned, on foreign media sources for news and information coming from China.
Number four is to recognize the enormous diversity of the Asian or Chinese community in Canada. Their allegiance to either the Chinese government or the Chinese Communist Party should not be presumed.
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Stephen Harper did appoint General Vance in July 2015. I believe was also at his cabinet table.
General Vance was under active investigation by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, and apparently just days after the Conservatives appointed General Vance, the police investigation was suddenly dropped. According to ATIP, the commanding officer said he was under pressure.
We know from testimony at the defence committee that Mr. Harper's former chief of staff, Ray Novak, confirmed it was you who briefed the Prime Minister, that the Prime Minister's Office had found nothing further with respect to the general's time at NATO and that the review of the matter was closed. Mr. Novak also said that operationally you had led the process at PCO for appointing Vance and that you would have been liaising with DND and CFNIS.
Can you please tell me if you were the one who helped to pressure Canada's military police to stop the sexual misconduct investigation into General Vance, because of your association with Mr. Harper?
:
Mr. Chair, let me say how uncomfortable this situation makes me concerning witnesses who are graciously testifying on topics of interest to us.
Mr. Fadden, I would like to come back to a question put to you by Mr. Paul-Hus, regarding, once again, how Canada must react to potential Chinese cyber attacks. I often use the following information because it is impressive to me. According to Greg Austin, who is in charge of the cyber, space and future conflict programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, China's cyber defence capacities are much lower than those of the foremost western powers, including Canada. For example, according to Mr. Austin, Canada is ranked ninth of the assessed countries—155 of them—while China is ranked 27th.
How come China is this much of a threat for Canada, and Canada cannot be a threat for China considering the rankings Mr. Austin talked about?
Mr. Fadden, I will go back to you, please, for a moment.
We were talking briefly about academic activities involving Chinese researchers. You said at one point that you can't go down the rabbit hole of suspecting every Chinese student coming to Canada. However, you go further than most people in saying that there are 10 or so areas of study with national security implications, suggesting that Chinese students would not then be able to study in Canada and that there should not be any research collaboration with them.
Could you identify those 10 areas, or some of them, if they come to mind quickly, and tell us how is it that you have such a hard line on that? How do you justify that, or how would Canada justify that?
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I think it's a more generalized practice within the Five Eyes and within NATO countries in general.
I honestly agree with Ms. Ong's view that we need to have as many exchanges with the Chinese as we can possibly generate. However, I think that there are some sectors of activity—I happened to pick 10 or 12, but I don't remember the exact number—where I think that our national security, and the national security of our allies, is put at risk if we have exchanges.
No matter how well intentioned a university professor or team might be in Canada, if they receive a Chinese grant, whatever he or she discovers is going to go back to China. On most items, if you think of the breadth of our economy, I think it's absolutely fine. Do I think it's fine in the area of high-level optics, nuclear affairs and a bunch of other areas like that? I think the risk is too great.
If you accept my basic premise that China is indeed an adversary, I don't think we should be making it easy for them to acquire intelligence in areas that are pretty critical to the national security of the west.
Mr. Fadden, we are talking about political influence today.
In 2016, the media reported on Chinese donations to Mr. . Gifts were given to Mr. Trudeau, and 45 cheques of $1,500 were sent to his Papineau riding association. Two Chinese individuals also donated $1 million to the University of Montreal and $250,000 to the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation, respectively.
Do you consider this to be some form of political influence, especially since the donations were intended for a prime minister?
I, too, want to welcome Ms. Ong and Mr. Fadden, and thank them for participating in our study. Their presentations are also appreciated.
My first questions are for Ms. Ong, the university professor.
Ms. Ong, in October 2020, you said that the Chinese Communist Party had been unsuccessful in bolstering its legitimacy and popularity through Confucius institutes. Can you tell us the extent to which China uses Confucius institutes as public relations tools?
:
Thank you for the question.
I think the Confucius Institute is funded by the Chinese government to promote Chinese languages and Chinese culture overseas. Its actual operation and its consequences on host countries vary from one locality to another.
Sometimes with Confucius Institutes within a certain university or education institution, people in charge may self-censor. They may not invite people to speak about Uighur issues, Taiwan issues, for the fear of offending people, people who actually fund them. I'm also aware of circumstances of Confucius Institutes actually teaching Chinese languages and cultures. Their operations differ a great deal.
When I said that the Chinese government hasn't been that successful in projecting soft power, it's because there has been so much push-back against it. We don't hear of successful cases of them educating people about Chinese language; we hear the push-back from the United States, Australia, the U.K., Africa. I think that in that sense, the negative news overwhelms the positive news.
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I call this meeting back to order.
For our second panel, I would now like to welcome, as individuals, Gordon Houlden, director emeritus of the China Institute, University of Alberta, and Paul Evans, professor, school of public policy and global affairs, University of British Columbia. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Houlden, let's start with you for the opening remarks. Please proceed. You have five minutes.
:
Thank you, Chair and honourable members. I am appearing in an individual capacity and not as a representative of the University of Alberta.
Altering China's behaviour, especially within China, is challenging. This does not mean that we should not try, but rather that we need to be modest in our expectations.
I'll focus instead, however, on China's activities in Canada. Here there are greater prospects of modifying Chinese behaviour or at least responding to China's conduct. As a sovereign state, we have a responsibility to protect our democratic institutions, our citizens, our economy and the results of Canadian ingenuity, but care must also be taken to ensure that Canada remains open to the world, and that includes the 20% of humanity who are Chinese.
I would include in those Chinese actions that have a direct impact on Canada the treatment of Canadian citizens in China, including the egregious cases of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. China's interest in the Chinese diaspora does not necessarily end when Chinese nationals obtain foreign citizenship. We need to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate contacts between national governments and their citizens abroad. It is normal and acceptable for governments to contact their citizens overseas and for diplomatic and consular representatives to meet with their nationals when the individual is willing to do so. This allows Canada to access our citizens when they may be experiencing difficulties, including arrest. China maintains similar contacts with their own nationals, and that will include the large number of Chinese nationals studying in Canadian educational institutions, some 200,000 pre-COVID.
However, when there is pressure on Canadian citizens, landed immigrants and even PRC nationals extending to tracking their political views, pressuring any of these persons to change their behaviour or taking actions that are illegitimate, this must be countered by Canada where detected. In some instances, a simple warning to desist conveyed by Global Affairs Canada to Chinese officials may suffice. That was part of my government experience.
However, in egregious instances more vigorous action may be required. In extreme cases it could mean that individuals in Chinese missions might be expelled or prosecution undertaken against individuals who engaged in threats or other illegal acts and who do not have diplomatic or consular status. A further complication is that knowledge of such coercion may be available only to Canadian intelligence services, who are often unwilling to openly use information gathered because of the risk that it would expose intelligence methods or sources.
I would add that maybe it would be more useful to examine some of these issues in the closed-door meetings of the House security and intelligence committee, where Government of Canada information can be more freely available.
Intelligence organizations, particularly those of large and powerful states like China, will continue to collect intelligence and carry out their mandates even if these activities may damage bilateral relations with foreign states. This does not mean that actions to curb such activities by governments cannot have any effect; it rather means that such intelligence functions will tend to reoccur and require repeated action.
China is now graduating roughly eight times the number of STEM graduates—science, technology, engineering and medicine—as the United States, while having only four times the U.S. population. While the flow of S and T has been largely from the west to China, it will be increasingly important for the west to track and absorb advances achieved in Chinese universities and its expansive network of state laboratories, although this will not be easily achieved.
A further challenge is the commercialization of scientific discoveries. A joint team of Canadian medical researchers, working with Chinese partners, is far more likely to put into production a medical device in Suzhou than in Halifax, given China's vast industrial capacity. Changing that calculus is desirable but difficult.
Effort must also be made to safeguard intellectual property, especially, but not only, when there are national security concerns. The formation of the Government of Canada-Universities Working Group that allows Canadian universities to meet regularly with federal departments and agencies is an important step. I look forward to their report later this year.
Universities and science must be cognizant of security risks in the protection of intellectual property. I'm still, however, not entirely comfortable with upending the long tradition of academic freedom and university autonomy without a strong rationale. Government intrusion into key Canadian institutions, such as universities, must be carefully calibrated and justified.
We are not in a cold war with China, at least not yet. The flow of U.S. capital to China, both foreign direct investment as well as portfolio investment, accelerated in 2020. Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Google, Volkswagen, Toyota, Samsung and most other high-tech companies maintain extensive research laboratories in China, drawing on local talent.
While national security and political interference by China will continue to pose challenges to Canadian sovereignty, there also needs to be a sophisticated Canadian strategy to balance risk and opportunity.
My recommendations are, very briefly, that the Government of Canada provide greater clarity to Canadian universities regarding the federal assessment of what is and what is not problematic co-operation with Chinese universities and scientists, including dual-use technologies; that a comparative—
Thank you for a second opportunity to appear before the committee. Today I will focus on Canadian universities, their importance as the foundation of engagement between Canada and China, and their responses to rising concerns about new national security and safety threats.
I speak as an individual professor, not as a representative of the University of British Columbia.
The involvement of Canadian universities in and with China has expanded dramatically in the past 40 years. It is now a huge enterprise with multiple layers. Roughly 140,000 students from the PRC are registered at post-secondary institutions across Canada. Canadian universities have hundreds of MOUs with Chinese partners for faculty and student exchanges and training programs.
There are hundreds of research collaborations funded from a combination of Canadian and Chinese sources. These have shifted from capacity building to, in many cases, advanced collaborations doing cutting-edge research and work. At UBC, for example, there are about 6,500 People's Republic of China students. More than 300 professors have a significant professional interest in China. Faculty have partnerships with more than 100 different Chinese institutions.
Beyond economic impact, China connections are widely valued as integral to the global mission of our institutions, enriching the learning environment for our students, facilitating advanced research and training, and providing a meeting place for exchange.
These connections are under increasing scrutiny in Canada but in even more intense ways in the United States and Australia, as geopolitical competition and confrontation with China have intensified. Security and intelligence agencies in Ottawa have identified concerns related to cybersecurity, leakage of intellectual property, and transfer of technology and ideas that are seen as benefiting the Chinese military and other state institutions involved in violation of human rights. The media have identified risks to academic integrity and freedom generated by too heavy a reliance on Chinese tuition revenues and Chinese funding from sources, including Huawei.
Other concerns focus on instances of improper surveillance and harassment of individuals and on confrontations between student groups on contentious issues such as Hong Kong, Xianjiang and Tibet that affect student well-being and our general academic atmosphere.
Ottawa, our universities and funding agencies have established collaborative mechanisms, as Mr. Houlden just stated, that focus on sensitizing universities to risks that they face, particularly in the domains of cybersecurity and protection of intellectual property. They have produced guidelines on research hygiene and safeguarding scientific integrity that are now being rolled out across the country.
What action is needed? What we have just mentioned are necessary first steps, but much more is needed at the level of individual institutions and at the national level. For the universities, key priorities are improving awareness of risks, building mechanisms for vigilance and instituting proactive measures to monitor and maintain a respectful atmosphere on our campuses. We need to revisit and revise many existing agreements with Chinese partners, when warranted, to maximize transparency and our academic values.
One of the biggest challenges is how we make these adjustments without fanning anti-Chinese racism and stigmatizing professors and students of Chinese descent who already feel targeted by anti-China sentiment and unwarranted suspicion about their connections with China.
Nationally, the key issues are defining exactly what areas of research are considered sensitive and exactly the criteria for determining what partners are sensitive or inappropriate, which is very difficult indeed. More broadly, we need a policy statement from the government on how and why academic, business and other people-to-people engagements matter.
Academic connections with China are valued and deeply rooted, but to keep the doors open to a dynamic range of interactions and collaborations with China, we need to install some new screens and close some windows.
Welcome, Professor Evans and Professor Houlden, to our committee.
I have a question about what both of you mentioned in your opening statement, which was that universities have been telling us that they've received no directives, no advice from the federal government regarding partnerships with companies like Huawei.
Recently the University of Toronto entered into a partnership with Huawei, and the university said that the Canadian government had not advised them against collaborating with that Chinese company. They were quoted as saying, “We look to the federal government for actionable direction and guidance. There has been no change in the actions of the government with respect to Huawei Canada and its operations in this country.”
Today in the Globe, an article quotes the University of Alberta, saying that the university has “ 'received no directives related to China' from the federal government to stop its engagement with Chinese institutions”, and we know that the minister is looking to come forward with new risk guidelines for research projects.
My first question to you is this: Would you be comfortable if the federal government said to universities, “We are advising you against partnerships with the following companies”—such as Huawei—“and here is what we define as a partnership”? That still respects academic freedom, but it's clear advice to universities, professors and the academic community about the federal government's position. Would you be comfortable if that was what the federal government was to do?
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Perhaps if Professor Houlden will allow me, I'll take a first crack at that fundamental question.
I think that universities—not just our administrations, but our professors—don't want to see directives from the top if they are not part of the discussion. Now, if the Government of Canada decides that China is the kind of adversary that some witnesses have described, that's a blanket.... That's what the Americans have thrown over many of the collaborations that universities maintain. An example is Huawei. However, if we are going to be more selective and say that there are certain kinds of activities in certain fields—after discussion about what those are—I think there would be a great deal of acceptance. We need general political guidelines.
Once we get into the fine tuning, Mr. Chong, as we've seen in the United States and in Australia, these are very tricky domains. With no disrespect to Ottawa, the scientific knowledge that is necessary to put up a high fence around a small plot in those 11 or 12 areas that are being discussed now is not yet seen as persuasive. It might be, but we need a deep collaborative process very quickly over the next six months.
:
Point taken. I did listen quite intently to your whole testimony, of course, but I was particularly interested when you talked about the need for liberal democracies to ensure that policies they take towards China do not have the impact of stoking anti-Chinese sentiment in their own societies. We've heard from other witnesses in previous meetings about the importance of that.
This is a regime that is markedly different from previous Chinese regimes. The administration under President Xi, according to many.... Our Parliament recognized it and the British Parliament has recently moved in the direction, and of course I'm speaking about the genocide of the Uighur minority. It is not just politicians who have put their opinion forward; it's leading observers of international law and human rights scholars—Irwin Cotler, for example.
With all that in mind, how can we, on the one hand, stand up as a country to China in a constructive way, in a way that's meaningful, but on the other hand avoid doing what you're cautioning against, a sort of narrow-minded approach that leads to hate sentiment and racism and limits the discussion to zero-sum outcomes, if I understand your position correctly? What would be your counsel on that?
If there's time, I'll ask the same question to Professor Houlden
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I'm happy to add a couple of words.
I think there is that risk. I know that many of my Canadian friends of Chinese heritage are very uncomfortable now with the tone of the dialogue. It's reflected in its crudest manner sometimes in street incidents of racism, graffiti and that sort of thing.
I think an element of maturity is needed in Parliament, among academics and in the media to provide an element of leadership such that one can, as suggested, criticize policies of the Government of China without criticizing the 20% of the world that is Chinese. It's too easy to slip into a demonization factor that might be appropriate if we were at war, but we're not at war.
We have immigrants arriving from that country. Almost two million of our fellow citizens have Chinese heritage. A certain delicacy in speech is necessary, and leadership from all—from universities, from the media and from Parliament—is needed in the language used, so as to not feed crude racism.
I appreciate the witnesses' apropos comments about the important distinction between criticizing the policies of the People's Republic of China and expressing anti-Chinese sentiments. They are two completely different things.
Some of the security experts the committee has heard from thus far would probably say you are speaking fairly candidly about the People's Republic of China. You warned against ruffling China's feathers and exacerbating tensions, and yet, that is precisely what Chinese authorities seem to be doing: exacerbating tensions with Canada.
Many argue that Canada's prevarication, appeasement and attempts to mollify Chinese authorities have not worked, so it's time to stand up to China, not just as a country, on our own, but also alongside other countries.
What do you say to the idea that, despite Canada's attempts to take a nuanced and co-operative approach with Chinese authorities, the efforts have been futile? China has gotten tough with Canada regardless.
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Well, let me, if I may, respond first.
The fundamental problem we're wrestling with, which you hinted at, is in essence the “three Ms” problem: Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor and Madam Meng. The inextricable nature of that problem has brought out the worst in elements of Chinese behaviour: coercive economic diplomacy and hostage diplomacy.
From their perspective, we are playing a similar game. As we express our anger and as we try to find friends who want to support us, the real objective is to find a way to unravel this problem. It is going to ultimately demand a diplomatic solution to a problem, whereby we don't count our friends on the basis of who stands up to criticize China but on the basis of who helps us find some useful pathways to unravelling the Madam Meng case.
There, I think primarily the challenge is in our relationship with the United States.
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I'd like to add a couple of words.
I don't expect Chinese behaviour is going to change drastically for the better. Certainly, as Paul hints, when the three Ms are dealt with, we can return, I would hope, to a somewhat more normal relationship, with exchanges, high-level visits and dialogue.
The physics of power, however, and the nature of Xi Jinping and of the top echelons of the Communist Party are such that they are prepared, more than in the past, to use that power and that Deng Xiaoping maxim to “hide your strength, bide your time”.
I would argue that China's time has arrived, in their eyes, and they are prepared to be somewhat more aggressive, to throw their weight around and to act like a great power—even the superpower-in-waiting that they are. That, I fear, is the reality.
Thank you to both you gentlemen for coming to join us this evening on a most interesting topic.
Professor Evans, before you mentioned Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, I was going to say that there were two names that answer the question as to why there is so much righteous anger at China for its behaviour, because that anger is understandable. Two people are taken, clearly in retribution, who in Canada would be treated legally in relation to a treaty on extradition and under the law, as opposed to being arbitrarily detained. It has led to an awful lot of further examination, of course, and I agree with you that in many cases and for many individuals it has gone too far in terms of hatred and anti-Asian prejudice and acts, and that's deplorable as well.
We're talking about academics here. I wanted to raise a question that bedevils me to some extent and has to do with the Confucius Institutes. They began around 2004 or thereabouts. They were recognized fairly early as being a direct instrument of the Chinese Communist Party operating internationally. In 2014, the CAUT, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, of which I'm sure you're probably members, called upon the universities to not have anything to do with the Confucius Institutes, citing the closing of the Confucius Institute in Sherbrooke, Quebec. The University of Manitoba voted against hosting them out of concerns over political censorship. McMaster cancelled its contracts following an instructor's human rights complaint, etc., and yet they persist to this day in some places. Academic freedom, of course, was the big issue, and is a big issue in academia, persisting to this very day as an extremely important facet of university life.
Why have they persisted? If it's about Chinese language training and culture, as someone pointed out—I think Professor Houlden—we have two million Canadians of Chinese descent. We have 140,000 students here. We can learn about or teach Chinese languages and culture from the people we have. Why is that not happening, and why are universities relying on the Confucius Institutes?
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Mr. Harris, the universities aren't relying on Confucius Institutes, although some universities that don't have the resources to fund language training have used them.
At the University of British Columbia, we decided not to partner with the Confucius Institutes. This was partly because they were, as we saw, too connected to the propaganda side of the Chinese government, but it was also because we teach Chinese language in a different way.
That said, most of the studies done on the Confucius Institutes are in the United States, and most of those studies suggest that what the Confucius Institutes actually do is pretty innocuous . They don't influence people's political views.
One can dislike the Confucius Institutes. I think what we should do for those institutions that want to have them is provide complete transparency. Go in, investigate, look. There's a whole side to Han nationalism that plays through in their curriculum. We'd have to look at that carefully, but in and of themselves, they are not an evil. They are not an outreach location for deep subversion. They're just, I think, a foolishly considered Chinese way of trying to get the world to learn Chinese language and culture.
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Getting China into multilateral institutions was a major part of Canadian policy from the time we recognized China, and helped it get into the United Nations. We have to face a whole new challenge in working with the Chinese on multilateralism now.
We don't teach them how to play the game; they are designing the rules for the game. That challenge exists in how we work with them on very difficult issues, like sovereignty over disputed islands in the Arctic. Those are the kinds of matters in which China is a multilateral player with other countries.
We may still, on occasion, have room to influence some of its thinking. I don't think it's preordained that China is on a path to overt supremacy in the world, but it does want to dominate.
Where we see something important, we must not only work with the Chinese bilaterally but also co-operate with our Australian, Singaporean and other friends in having those discussions that are so difficult and that the United States often cannot have because of its overt confrontation.
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That's a good question. I actually think the number is closer to 200,000. The PRC embassy says 170,000-plus, and I think that's closer to the truth.
Very quickly, for students, we don't know the effect yet, but roughly a million Chinese students are abroad at any given time. We don't know what the long-term effects of that will be. It took one Chinese person, Sun Yat-sen, to help bring down the Qing dynasty. We don't know what the effect will be of the millions of Chinese who travel abroad and who come to this country. About a third of them stay here and about two-thirds go back. Buried within that are ideas they've been exposed to; young people are rather receptive to new ideas. On balance, I'd say it's a good thing.
However, we don't want our universities to be completely dependent on Chinese funding. That's a given, but on balance, that openness.... We can, I believe, protect intellectual property and protect our national security by perhaps controlling the programs in which some students are allowed to participate, and perhaps only opening them to Canadian nationals or to certain nationalities, but I think closing the door would actually in the long run serve to strengthen the hold of the Communist Party of China on its people. I think that exposure is a good thing.
First of all, with regard to concerns that have been raised about academia, CSIS and some U.S. agencies have warned that some Chinese companies and academics are being compelled by their government to share work that they've carried out with western researchers with China's military, security and industrial apparatus. That seems to be an area of potential conflict that has to be resolved.
Would that be one of the things you need to understand more, as academics, before you can accept the fact that there might be some changes?
The second question is more tantalizing.
China's diplomats tell us, as individuals, that there are things on which China and Canada can co-operate and work together, such as fighting climate change. Is that an area where we could, in fact, try to do something positive with China once we resolve the issue of the two Michaels, who need to be repatriated as quickly as possible?
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Could I tackle the second question very briefly, Paul?
First, I'd say that there is no solution to climate change without China. They are far and away the largest producer of greenhouse gases. The effects of mercury landing in our north from Chinese coal generation and electricity generating plants is unstoppable without Chinese collaboration and co-operation. We cannot do that on our own, but perhaps with our American and other allies we can reach a consensus internationally with the Chinese to reduce those threats.
Despite the rocky record of COVID-19 originating in China and this failed vaccine, the reality is that 70% of the medical supplies needed to fight COVID in Canada in March and April of last year were arriving from China and 40% of our medical supplies that are necessary to fight COVID are still coming from China. In medical terms, that vast number of doctors is going to be a benefit. My son's hand operates because of Chinese micro-surgery techniques. Medicine should know no boundaries. We need to be open to those collaborations.
Picking carefully, I would say that climate change, environment, health and perhaps some dimensions of culture would be the safe areas where there are good prospects for collaboration once we get beyond the three Ms.
I want to build on what some of my colleagues have raised earlier about anti-Asian racism.
My father was a Chinese immigrant who came to this country in 1952, only a few short years after the Chinese exclusion act was repealed by the Canadian Parliament. Even though the act was repealed, the sentiment behind it clearly had not been. Growing up as a half-Chinese kid in the 1970s, I know full well what discrimination and racism is all about.
I want to ensure that something else I've seen first-hand is put on the record. Many Canadians of Chinese descent who have been critical of China, such as Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and human rights groups, have been attacked and intimidated online and in person by their fellow Canadians of Chinese descent for not being sufficiently loyal to China and for not supporting the motherland.
I just wanted to make sure that this was on the record, because that community is a minority within a minority in many respects, and often they feel very isolated. I think we need to give voice to the voiceless.
Seeing that my time is limited, I have a very quick question for Mr. Houlden.
You mentioned in the industry committee that much of China's FDI, its foreign direct investment, arrives via third countries. Could you possibly elaborate on that a bit more?
Good evening. I'd like to thank the chair of this special committee, distinguished vice-chairs and members of this committee and members of Parliament for your kind invitation.
I would also like to acknowledge the support and guidance of the clerk and her colleagues. I appreciated the information they provided for this process in order to prepare for our discussion.
My name is Justin Li. I'm the director of the Confucius Institute at Carleton University. I'm a Canadian citizen. I came to Canada as a landed immigrant in 1996 and I received my Canadian citizenship from then-Governor General of Canada the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean on July 1, 2009.
I was employed by an Ottawa-based high-tech company called JetForm as the country manager to launch its operation in China in 1998. After JetForm was bought by Adobe in 2002, I became an independent consultant engaged in international marketing for Canadian firms seeking business in China.
When I applied to become the director of the Confucius Institute at Carleton in early 2011, the process included a round of interviews with faculty members from various departments, including business, public affairs, language and arts.
Our goal is to promote understanding, share knowledge and strengthen the human bonds between the people of Canada and the people of China, and I'm honoured to have the privilege of contributing to these efforts.
Our institute focuses on three areas: We support the delivery of Chinese language training, we offer some cultural programming, and we assist visiting scholars from China. Simply put, I connect Carleton with the Confucius Institute's network of Chinese language instructors from China.
The Chinese academics who are interested in coming to Canada as visiting scholars for the purpose of providing language instruction initially contact our institute either individually or through their own universities. When Carleton requires instructors, I offer a selection of candidates to the university.
These individuals are interviewed and selected through the normal Carleton process. Successful candidates must go through Canada's immigration process, which includes both health and security checks.
Our cultural programming is another area of focus. This has included workshops on traditional arts, including calligraphy, paper cutting, food and tai chi. Most of these activities are hands-on sessions for students at Carleton, providing experiential learning and immersive experiences.
We have also offered music events, and some are innovative. For example, we collaborated on an evert at which music students and alumni of Carleton performed their own fusion music works—jazz on traditional Chinese musical instruments. On another occasion, our music students were invited to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to perform an open concert for public education purposes.
Since 2013, we have organized study tours in China. The students are responsible for covering the cost of transportation to and from China. The institute acts as a host once they arrive in China. Each tour is accompanied by a Carleton faculty or staff member as a chaperone and supervisor. The student selection is managed by the relevant Carleton departments and faculty members.
We always inform the Canadian embassy in Beijing of our China tours. In 2017 our music student group was invited to the embassy when the former Governor General, the Right Honourable David Johnston, visited China. It was a major highlight for our students.
Finally, I assist our visiting scholars while they are in Canada. This is an informal role that can include helping them to access health services or find a grocery store when they first arrive, and generally welcoming them to Canada.
To be clear, the institute at Carleton University is not involved in any elementary or high school programs. We focus solely on delivering Chinese language instruction to the students at Carleton, as well as to adult audiences for professional development purposes and their own points of interest.
I hope this offers a clear sense of our activity at Carleton.
In closing, I would like to state that I'm proud of our work at Carleton's Confucius Institute and I feel privileged to contribute to a shared understanding and closer relationship between the country of my birth and the country where I have chosen to live and raise my family.
Thank you.
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Mr. Chairman, I have not put in any written remarks, but I did want to make a few comments before the session begins.
First, let me say it's a pleasure to appear before the committee. Some of my views are public on issues such as Huawei and the Meng case, and the detention of the two Michaels, so I won't spend a lot of time dealing with those issues, but I'm happy to answer questions with respect to any of them or on my views with respect to any of them.
On the broader issue with respect to China, I think two things that happened in the last week or two are important. One is the meeting between the Americans and the Chinese on climate change. The other is the comments made today by the American Secretary of State in London, in which he essentially said that the goal of the United States was not the containment of China but rather that the competition with China, the relationship with China, needed to be conducted in an appropriate way in accordance with the multilateral system that we and in particular the Americans have spent many years trying to build since the Second World War.
I thought both of those events were important, and they suggest that there is perhaps a better way forward than under the previous American administration, but obviously that will take some time to develop.
My background, Mr. Chairman, is largely on the intelligence side. Indeed, I spent over 25 years in intelligence. I did want to make a couple of points with respect to that area.
First, let me say that there is more than one country that collects intelligence in Canada. China is by no means the only one that does so. It is, however, probably our largest counter-intelligence target, and that would have been true back as far as the late 1990s, so that isn't really a change.
The methods that China uses have not really changed either. There are some new cyber-tools that were not as advanced in the late 1990s, but those are in many respects only tools that allow agencies to do things that they did through other means in an earlier time.
The Chinese have over the years exercised a wide range of intelligence collection capabilities, including what we used to call “vacuum-cleaner collection”, which was everybody collecting all the time, so any visiting delegation would spend some of its time appearing in places where they were not supposed to be to take photographs or collect other information.
They also have very professional organizations that are dedicated to collecting intelligence in the normal ways that intelligence agencies, both in the west and in other parts of the world, collect information.
The Chinese also spend a great deal of time in developing those who they see as supporting their interests. Not all countries are so heavily engaged in that exercise as the Chinese, but certainly over the years the Chinese have emphasized developing the relationships that they see as possibly advancing the interests of China in dealing with a country like Canada or with other countries.
Finally, let me say that I think there is a tendency—or at least I have observed a tendency, because so little happens in the counter-intelligence world, or apparently so little happens in the counter-intelligence world—to believe that nothing is happening. Speaking as an intelligence professional, I guess, I would make the comment, which I hope is useful to the members of the committee, that the fact that you're not seeing anything doesn't mean that nothing is happening.
Counter-intelligence is not like counterterrorism, wherein the goal is to arrest a terrorist and either expel them from Canada or imprison them. Counter-intelligence is a much more long-term and much slower investigation, in which prosecution is not necessarily the aim of the game at the end of the day—
Mr. Elcock, back in December, you appeared before committee to discuss what you saw as the relatively minor procurement of Nuctech, but I want to focus on remarks that you made previously, when you said we should not be looking at one company when it comes to investments but at the Chinese government as a whole.
Before committee you discussed enhancement to security reviews, declaring that you might continue to want to buy from China if you've taken all of the security issues into review. Earlier this year, we issued revised guidelines on the national security review of investments to ensure that Canadian businesses must consider what national security review provisions mean for their business planning and supply chains, especially in the case of investments by state-owned or state-influenced investors.
What are the benefits to this approach and what else can be done?
In 2000, so 21 years ago, when you appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, you said CSIS was still processing visa applications from abroad manually, which was slow. You also stated that the transition to a computer-based system would speed things up but that computer links abroad gave rise to larger security concerns.
Things have changed. As you know, Canada contracted VFS Global to oversee visa applications in Beijing. The company is backed by a Chinese investment fund and subcontracts the work to a Beijing security company.
I should say right off the bat that CSIS did not even conduct any security checks on the company, which is managing people's personal information.
Do you think the situation is more secure now than it was in 2000?
Good evening, Mr. Elcock and Mr. Li.
Mr. Li, we are very glad to have you with us. You are now the director of the National Capital Confucius Institute for Culture, Language and Business. You said you applied for the position in 2011. You talked about the institute's three areas of focus: language, culture and assistance.
As I'm sure you know, a number of witnesses have talked to the committee about foreign interference and threats. We have asked you about that. A witness in the previous panel, Paul Evans, likened Confucius institutes to a Chinese propaganda machine.
When you hear comments like that about Confucius institutes, how do you respond?
Before I get to my question for Mr. Li, I would like to address some incorrect information shared by Pierre Paul-Hus. In one of his questions, he claimed that a report entitled “The Security Dimensions of an Influential China” was written by CSIS.
That is not true. The preamble to the report clearly states that it was not authored by CSIS. Rather, the report reflects the views of independent scholars and analysts presented during a conference hosted by CSIS. It is not a CSIS report.
I just wanted to make that clear so there is no confusion among the committee members or in the committee's eventual report.
My question is for Mr. Li. I want to come back to the question Mr. Dubourg asked.
Mr. Li, as the director of the Confucius Institute at Carleton University, would you agree to higher someone who practises Falun Gong?