THE NEW COLD WAR

Chinese government agency that works with Canadians is involved in espionage, Federal Court affirms

Tom Blackwell - National Post

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The Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Ottawa. It’s unclear how many Chinese officials stationed at the embassy and consulates in Canada are involved with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.

The outfit has worked with a top Canadian scientist, a member of the Ontario legislature and children in the Toronto area.

Its name sounds more bureaucratic than menacing.

But the Chinese government’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO) is involved in espionage that harms Canada’s interests, a Federal Court judge has affirmed in what appears to be a precedent-setting new ruling .

Beijing critics say the judgement — upholding an immigration officer’s decision on the issue as “reasonable” — represents a rare official rebuke of the office, now a bureau of a larger Communist Party department.

Despite its apparently longstanding efforts to influence and monitor Chinese Canadians, the agency has rarely been publicly called-out by authorities here, says Charles Burton, a former diplomat in Beijing and senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“I’m thrilled about the ruling,” he said. “I hope it sets a terrific precedent.”

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP both have advised the government about interference by such Chinese organizations, he said, but politicians tend to suppress the information for fear of undermining trade between the two countries.

The actual targets of the Office are often too frightened — for themselves or for their relatives in China — to speak out, said Burton.

A spokesperson for the United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party division that now controls the OCAO, did not comment directly on the court ruling, but through the Chinese embassy in Ottawa depicted its work as above-board and positive.

“The united front led by the Communist Party of China is to unite people’s hearts and minds, gather strength, actively promote harmony in relations among political parties, ethnic groups, religions, classes and compatriots at home and abroad … to achieve national prosperity, national rejuvenation and people’s happiness,” said a statement from the embassy.

In foreign relations, it said, the party has “always advocated tolerance and mutual appreciation among different civilizations in the world.”

The decision came in the case of a Chinese couple sponsored by their adult daughter — a naturalized Canadian citizen — to become permanent residents here. They were turned down on the grounds that the husband had worked 20 years at the OCAO in China, in later years as a senior administrator.

An Immigration Citizenship and Refugees Canada (IRCC) officer cited legislation that bars members of organizations that engage in espionage and hurt Canada’s interests from immigrating here, and concluded that the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office fit the bill.

The couple asked the Federal Court for a judicial review of the decision. The court does not retry such cases but Justice Vanessa Rochester upheld the IRCC ruling , saying it was reasonable to conclude the OCAO was involved in espionage given the evidence available to the officer.

“I would say it’s about time,” said Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China. “It’s about time we stopped dodging the question and confront the fact that there is Chinese spying and espionage and harassment of dissidents in this country.”

Overseas Chinese is a term Beijing uses for ethnic Chinese people living in other countries, even when their families have resided outside China for generations.

The officer’s decision and that of Rochester relied largely on research by James Jiann Hua To , a senior advisor at the Asia New Zealand Foundation who was cited as an expert by both sides in the case.

While the OCAO claims ostensibly to provide support to members of the Chinese diaspora, To wrote, its goal is really to “legitimize and protect” the party’s hold on power, burnish China’s international image and exert its influence.

To that end it gathers intelligence on and tries to influence people of Chinese descent in foreign countries, says To.

Case law on the immigration legislation defines espionage as intelligence-gathering done covertly.

The lawyer for would-be immigrants Yuxia Gao and Yong Zhang argued that while the office’s work may be unpalatable to Canadians, its aims are well known, especially to any of its potential targets.

But Rochester ruled that the evidence available to the IRCC suggested the office’s methods, including surveillance, subversion and intelligence-gathering, are indeed surreptitious.

It’s unclear how many of the large contingent of Chinese officials stationed at the embassy and consulates in Canada are involved with the office. But the agency’s presence here has surfaced repeatedly.

Vincent Ke, a Conservative member of the Ontario legislature , attended a week-long seminar in China in 2013 organized by the office, where delegates were urged to pursue the “Chinese dream.”

An esteemed engineering professor at Polytéchnique Montreal and a University of Waterloo professor on the institution’s advisory “secretariat” have both served as expert advisors to the OCAO.

The Office heaped praise on the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations in an online article a few years ago, citing its willingness to promote Chinese interests.

The website of the greater-Toronto-based Council of Newcomers Organizations described “roots-seeking” trips for local children to China run by the OCAO.

The office was subsumed three years ago into the United Front Work Department, a CCP agency that spearheads influence operations in foreign countries. The merger means China is devoting “far more resources” to such efforts, leading Australian researcher Alex Joske has argued.