New Delhi: Over the past decade, as China increased trade and business with Western countries, it eventually turned into a factory for the world; Got a place on the global stage; and positioning itself as the next superpower, it also exerted influence in Western countries in other ways – by organizing block-voting by citizens of Chinese origin, buying off elected leaders, and getting its moles elected into parliaments and other legislative bodies. By infiltrating.
China’s foreign influence operations have been a vast industry involving its secret service, Chinese-born business figures, its own shady police stations in foreign countries that forcefully deport Chinese-born citizens, local Chinese community bodies, and lots of funds . The House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee in Britain said in a recently released report that the intelligence threat posed by China is heightened by a “whole-of-state” approach with the use of state and non-state players for espionage.
The latest case, the arrest in March of a British man suspected of working for the Chinese government, a researcher for the UK Parliament who works with key MPs on China policy, is just the beginning. The man has denied working for the Chinese government but China’s infiltration of legislative bodies in advanced countries is a widespread practice that has come to light frequently. The most notable cases are in Canada and Australia where Chinese interference in legislative bodies has created major political storms.
China interference in Canada Canada has announced that a judge will lead a public inquiry into whether China, Russia and other countries interfered in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections, including the 2019 and 2021 elections for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Was re-elected, AP reported. Opposition Conservative MPs have called for a full public investigation into the alleged Chinese interference since reports emerged earlier this year, citing intelligence sources that said China had acted to support liberals and not be friendly to Beijing. Has worked to defeat conservative politicians.
Earlier this year, a Trudeau appointee refused to hold a public inquiry into leaked intelligence on alleged China interference, leading to allegations of a cover-up.
Three weeks before Canada’s 2019 federal election, national security officials reportedly gave an urgent, classified briefing to senior aides in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office, warning them that one of their candidates was a member of a Chinese foreign interference network. Was part, Global News had reported
Based on information received from sources in February. The candidate in question was Han Dong, then a former Ontario MPP, whom the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had begun monitoring in June of that year. National security officials claimed Dong, now an MP up for re-election in 2021, is one of at least 11 Toronto-area candidates allegedly backed by Beijing in the 2019 contest. The service also believes Dong is a shrewd accomplice in China’s election interference network, sources say.
“The Liberal Party of Canada is becoming the only party the People’s Republic of China can support,” said a December 20, 2021 report by Canadian spy agency CSIS reviewed by Global News. It said that following the September 2021 federal election, CSIS collected intelligence that Chinese consular officials believed “Chinese immigrants are easier to influence to agree with the PRC’s stance.”
An unpublished 2020 national security document alleged that Beijing conspired to conceal the flow of money between Chinese officials and Canadian members of an election interference network, in an effort to advance its own political agenda in the 2019 federal contest. Used a wide network of groups. Global News had reported in December last year.
In 2021, Chinese diplomats and representatives made undeclared cash donations to political campaigns and hired international Chinese students as full-time volunteers for some candidates. Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family were targeted by the Chinese government in 2021 after he sponsored a parliamentary motion accusing China of human rights abuses.
China’s interference in Australia In April last year, a senior Australian minister suggested that China had deliberately announced its security agreement with the Solomon Islands during an election campaign to undermine its government’s re-election prospects. The allegation by Karen Andrews, then home minister in the Scott Morrison government, was in line with her conservative Liberal Party’s argument that Beijing wanted the centre-left Labor Party to win the May 2022 election because Labor MPs were less likely to stand in opposition to China’s economic pressure.
Labor had described the government’s inability to prevent the deal announced by the Chinese and Solomon Islands governments as Australia’s biggest foreign policy failure in the Pacific since World War II.
Australia angered China in 2018 by passing national security laws that banned covert foreign interference in domestic politics. In February this year, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull told an inquiry that Australian security agencies know China is carrying out “blatant” influence operations despite the lack of listings on the country’s transparency register. Turnbull said he was “puzzled” the legislation his government introduced was not more rigorously enforced but is treated as just a formality.
China trying to control UN, WHO A report by the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee revealed two years ago that China was trying to seize control of top multilateral organisations such as the UN and the WHO so they could be “weaponised” for its own advantage. The report highlighted the “creeping capture” of international organisations by Beijing through steady acquisition of key official positions, use of economic leverage and aggressive diplomacy or “bullying tactics”.
“We have seen attempts by countries such as China to seize control of strategically important organisations and fundamentally redefine the once universally agreed principles on which they are based. This allows multilateral organisations to be weaponised against the founding principles upon which they were built,” the report by the House of Commons committee — made up of 11 MPs — said.
A shadowy arm that manipulates politics abroad The United Front Work Department (UFWD), a shadowy organisation with numerous affiliate bodies and run by the Chinese Communist Party, is at the centre of China’s efforts to manipulate politics abroad. Though it has come under increased criticism for covert efforts to influence politics in other countries, President Xi Jinping has described the UFWD as a “magic weapon” in the country’s soft power arsenal.
The UFWD was supposed to have played a key role in organising Chinese interference in Australia. Chinese donors tied to UFWD-affiliated groups gave money to Australian politicians, providing impetus for Canberra to introduce new laws to limit foreign interference in its government.
Significant resources are allocated to support the UFWD, both domestically and internationally, Sana Hashmi, a Fellow at Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation and George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, has written in TOI recently. Overseas efforts involve influencing ethnic Chinese communities, leveraging the Chinese diaspora, and luring scholars, journalists and politicians alike in host countries to achieve objectives such as presenting a positive image of China and potentially impacting election results in democratic nations. Important examples include Canada’s claims of Chinese interference in its federal elections in 2019 and 2022, and former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull’s assertions regarding Chinese Communist Party’s ‘s concerted efforts to sway public affairs in Australia.
