Photo: Edward Ye. Credit: Ina Mitchell.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political warfare actors in Canada waged several successful campaigns in 2019, revealing themselves in the process.

These successes are the reason Canada urgently needs to introduce laws to defend against the relentless political scheming of a hostile foreign power, and in doing so preserve our free, just and democratic society.

Images this past year of Hong Kong’s slow and tragic demise shook the many Canadians with dear ties to that city, and revealed the CCP’s uncompromising ambition to expand its sphere of influence.

This past year it was also revealed in painful detail that a million people from one ethnic group have been placed in concentration camps, that mass rape is now state policy in an area the size of Western Europe, and that hundreds of thousands of Uighur children there have been taken from their families.

Different arms of the CCP’s political warfare arm, the United Front Work Department (UFWD), manage Hong Kong, Uighurs, and infiltration work in Canada, but the ultimate goal is the same: empower the CCP.

This project began with a list of groups in Canada with documented ties to the UFWD — parts of the CCP United Front active throughout the world — and expanded to their subversive work on the ground in Canada, which primarily targets our elected government officials.

Examples and accompanying details below are presented as part of our effort as Canadians to know what to steel ourselves against.

Before you continue, take a moment to read our report on CCP political warfare efforts in Canada in 2018.

2019 BY THE MONTH

CLOSING THE CIRCLE

With documentation as seen above, the right conversation about CCP interference in Canada is happening out there.

It’s just not happening within our political parties — and, particularly, in the one most likely to deal seriously with China. Media long since stripped bare do their best, but rarely have the capacity once held for this kind of work.

Experts on the CCP’s interference efforts around the world grow weary of telling us to take the CCP at its word — the political warfare documented above is not undeclared in Chinese-language sources.

The year 2020 marks 50 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and China, and like 1967 was a chance for Canada to take stock of where we want to go as a free country, at this point we find the CCP has thrust the same question in our face. A reset is needed.

CSIS could, and one might argue has little reason not to, keep the public better informed on CCP interference activity instead of left to rely on our imagination. Canada urgently needs leadership suited for an age of CCP political warfare, and new laws and policies that benefit all Canadians.

Former ambassadors to China have a role to play in this, as do leading think-tanks like the excellent Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

To close, here is a short list of the many conversations Canada needs to have in response to CCP political warfare against us and our way of life:

-There are ways for Canada to fight back

-China does not have to be Canada’s only partner in Asia

-We can counter China’s economic coercion with resolve and diversification

-Magnitsky sanctions are one of the best tools available

-A foreign registry must be part of our anti-interference laws

-The CCP threat is not going away any time soon

-Tough measures are what CCP understands

-The federal government needs better people working on China

-A public response is needed for a challenge this big

-We must support those politicians who do step up to the CCP

-Those of us with Chinese-language and research skills must monitor local UF networks

-We all must educate ourselves on the CCP’s political warfare game

-Journalists who lead the way deserve our support

-Political parties have done us a disservice by avoiding the conversation

-We must start seeing the CCP as an adversary

-We must steel ourselves against the psychological component of the CCP’s political warfare strategy

-We must recognise our own weaknesses where they exist

-We must be honest about the challenges and opportunities Canada faces

-We can imagine a new role for NATO in the CCP high interference era

-We can learn from other countries that have had their weaknesses exploited by the CCP

Most importantly: Canada needs to pass robust laws to defend against the CCP’s relentless political warfare effort.