The Decibel - The view from China on foreign interference in Canada

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

On Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly condemned Canada’s expulsion of Chinese diplomat, Zhao Wei for allegations of foreign interference. In response, China expelled a Canadian diplomat in Shanghai.While headlines about Chinese interference have been front and centre in Canada ever since the Globe first reported on China’s interference attempts back in February, this latest row has also hit a nerve in China. Today, The Globe and Mail’s Asia correspondent, James Griffiths, explains how the current escalation in tensions are viewed in China.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Hi, it's Menaka. Your support means a lot to us here at The Decibel, and your feedback matters too. And we want to know what you think of the podcast. So we've set up a quick survey where you can tell us your thoughts. And as a thank you, there's a chance to win some prizes. We'll tell you how at the end of today's episode. Canada declared a Chinese diplomat persona non grata based on the false accusation of Chinese interference in Canada's internal affairs, was strongly condemned and firmly opposed this, and has launched a serious democracy and a strong protest to Canada. China never interferes in other countries' internal affairs. At a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday,

the Chinese foreign ministry condemned Canada's expulsion of Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei from Toronto's consulate office. Tensions are high between the two countries. Yesterday, we talked about how this is playing out in Canada. So today, we're talking to The Globe's Asia correspondent, James Griffiths, to give us the view from China. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. James, it's great to have you back on the podcast.

Thanks for having me. We've been following this story very closely here in Canada, but James, you're in Hong Kong and you're our Asia correspondent. So I want to know from you, how is this story being talked about there? So the initial stories about alleged Chinese interference in Canada, they didn't get too much play. You know, it was more of a Canadian story. And it's not a story that particularly makes China look great. So it wasn't getting too much play. But the expulsion of the diplomat Zhao Wei and the cancer expulsion by China that has had a lot of play on Chinese media and especially prominent on Chinese social media. And obviously, Chinese

social media is incredibly censored. So the fact that something is being talked about a lot means it's allowed to be talked about. And this was the number one topic on Weibo, which is a massive social network for quite a long time this week. Wow. I mean, I'm a little surprised by that, that this was like a number one topic on social media. Can you tell me a little bit about like how it's being talked about? Yeah, so whenever we talk about conversations on Chinese social media, you know, we always have to recognize that they're censored. So they're not necessarily a representative view of what people in the real world are necessarily talking about. But what is it, you know, more of you have the limits of the conversation. But what I was

seeing a lot was, you know, kind of some anger at Canada for expelling this diplomat, you know, quite a lot of, you know, more performative outrage. There's a lot of a sense of Canada is a small country, especially compared to China. And, you know, how dare they do this. And there was a, you know, a lot of people wanted to see China slap back and actually slap back harder than it did. You know, people were saying, look, if they kick out one of our diplomats, we should kick out two of theirs or shut a consulate or something like that. So, you know, there was definitely appetite for a response. That's really interesting to hear. Okay, so of course, Canada expelled Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei. And in response, China expelled a Canadian diplomat. What do we know about that, James?

Yeah, so Jennifer Lalonde, who is a consul at the Consulate General in Shanghai, she's been with the Foreign Services for a long time. She was previously in Sri Lanka. We don't know exactly too much about what she does. She's been on various panels and she did some corresponded with Zhao Wei. So if you think about it, Shanghai is, you know, the biggest city in China, it's the financial capital, it pretty neatly maps with Toronto. She's a consul, Zhao Wei is a consul, this seems to have been they looked for who is the equivalent person, right, kick them out. And what was what was the reasoning that China gave for why they expelled her? They were pretty open that this was they literally called it a reciprocal countermeasure. They you know, this was they're open that this was a tit for tat. Of course, they blame Canada for this entire situation. They don't accept Canada's claims that Zhao Wei was acting in a way that went beyond what diplomats are supposed to do and was acting in a way that was inappropriate.

But they didn't try and say that Jennifer Lalonde did anything similar. And Zhao Wei, of course, was given only five days to leave the country. So by the end of this week, and how long does Lalonde have to leave China? She's been given the same deadline. So she has to be out by Saturday as well. I probably would argue that he had a bit longer because while he was only given a few days officially, everyone in Ottawa and everyone in Toronto knew this was coming well before it happened. So I'm sure his bags were packed long before the announcement came out. Yeah. So it does definitely sound like this is kind of a tit for tat, one diplomat, one diplomat, the way it's happened so far. But there is, of course, talk that China could retaliate further. Well, what else could China do here, James?

Absolutely. And there is some concern, and I think it's valid there, that in the Chinese statement announcing this expulsion, they, you know, reserved the right for further action. When the Chinese foreign ministry gave a press conference, they suggested they could take further action. And, you know, probably what that would be what most people expect is some kind of limits on Canadian trade. So halting imports into China, or limiting them in some way. And we saw that during the two Michaels saga, we saw limits being put on imports of Canadian canola oil, we've seen limits put on Canadian beef. And so we kind of see some like this, or we could see something even perhaps more severe, which is when there was a spat between China and Australia.

China, you know, more actively was sanctioning certain goods and was really cutting off the flow of them into China. OK, and I want to talk about trade and I want to talk about what happened with Australia too. But first, James, you mentioned the two Michaels. And I think this is something we should address as well, because all this talk of retaliation kind of reminds me of that situation with Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were held in China after Canada detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. And then, of course, they were released just after she was released. So this makes me wonder, does this fraught relationship now between Canada and China, does this actually pose a danger to

Canadians in China? We would hope not. And I think given the relatively restrained reaction we've seen so far from China, I don't, you know, that would be such a huge escalation that there doesn't seem to be any sign that that's going to happen. The concern I think would be that this spat does come just after China adopted a new anti-espionage law, which creates a lot of very broad offences, as offences tend to be in China. And also from the wording of it does seem to make it easier to arrest or detain foreigners or slap them with exit bans, which are a very common thing in China, preventing them from leaving the country. So it's not the best environment to have poor bilateral relations. We've also seen just in

the past week, a number of raids by Chinese authorities across the country on consultancies, on due diligence firms, foreign due diligence firms, including several pretty big names, Bain, Mintz Group, Cat Vision. And they've been raiding these firms, they've been detaining executives for behaviour that they claim it was breaching national security, but from what we can tell seems to have been tolerated in the past, you know, kind of trying to understand the Chinese economy in liaise with various officials and things like that. And so it's an uncertain and uncomfortable time to be any kind of expat in China right now. And I think especially so for Canadians. Yeah, I mean, that that does definitely does sound concerning, and maybe something that people,

you know, just would be on your radar if you're there. And I want to ask you, James, I mean, you're a journalist working in Hong Kong. But I wonder, do you feel any pressure now in your in your day to day? For myself in Hong Kong, I think there isn't too much concern. I think probably for most Canadians here as well, there isn't too much concern. People on the mainland, I did speak to Canadians about, several Canadians about this, business people, people who work in various industries, and, you know, they kind of described it as discomfort, but not necessarily alarm just yet. But certainly they're not, you know, people are watching this very closely. Okay, Yeah.

MP Michael Chong, who we talked a lot about on the podcast on Wednesday, he says he hasn't been in contact with his family in Hong Kong, which he said was due to an abundance of caution because he was outspoken about China's treatment of Uyghurs. Michael Chong is a Canadian parliamentarian, but James, is his situation a common one amongst Canadians who, you know, maybe live elsewhere, but have family in that part of the world? Incredibly common. And this is something that people in the diaspora and exile Hong Kongers,

Chinese, Tibetans, Uyghurs have been talking about for a very long time and have been trying to raise the alarm for a very long time. NDP parliamentarian Jenny Kwan, whose own family is also from Hong Kong, and represents Vancouver, which obviously has a huge Hong Kong population. She said in Parliament last week, the constituent came to her and said, Look, I was threatened, I went to the RCMP. And Ms. Kwan said, quote, what then what happened? Nothing, nothing happened. And you know, she said, who will dare to speak up when even a member of parliament and his family could be threatened, you know, this and Michael Chong was able to raise the alarm because of who he is. But ordinary Hong Kong Canadians or Chinese Canadians have been saying, look, we've tried to raise the alarm and nothing happens.

We'll be back in a minute. Canada is not the first Western government to accuse China of political interference. In 2018, Australia did. They also created a foreign agent registry, which Canada is currently working on as well. And Australia also blocked Huawei from its telecoms networks. So, James, how did China respond to Australia doing all of that? Yes, the situation in Australia is definitely instructive that we saw relations start to take a turn when Australia started to tackle foreign interference. And then in 2020, we saw relations

really take a downturn when then Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent investigation into the origins of the COVID pandemic, strongly implying that they weren't believing the data that was coming out of Beijing about how this had started and, you know, saying that we basically can't trust Beijing to investigate this. We should bring in outside investigators. And Beijing responded. They cut imports of Australian wine, barley, beef, coal, some of which has only just recently started to recover.

We also saw, you know, it's difficult to pass just how related these things are, but it's important to raise. We also saw a detention of an Australian Chinese journalist, Chang Lei, who's still in detention over a thousand days. Two Australian journalists working in China were basically told by their embassy, you know, get out of the country and they've left and have not gone back. And relations were in this deep freeze for years and have only just started to pick up since last year when Australia changed government. That kind of created this window for a new approach from China and they've started to repair them ever since. But this was a really clear punishment of Australia and this from Australia's most

important and largest trading partner. So this trade war essentially must have affected them pretty substantially. Did Australia come out worse for it, I guess, at the end? Well, what's very interesting is that Australia was actually able to weather it pretty well. They're able to, you know, diversify their dependency and do what a lot of countries have been trying to do since the pandemic. And since China has got kind of more aggressive on these issues and more concerning, you hear a lot of talk about de-risking of, you know, coming or coming up with a China plus one strategy. And Australia didn't necessarily ever intend to do that. But they were forced to do it when Beijing imposed these trade sanctions. And they weathered it fairly well. And you know, there is a strong argument for saying

that Australia basically came out on top in this spat. So so what might be different here? So like, how is Canada versus China different geopolitically and economically than Australia versus China? Well, economically, you can make a strong argument that Canada is in a better position than Australia was. China is an important trading partner for Canada, but it's not the most important and it's still a very distant second to the US. So if China was to pursue the same type of very aggressive tactics that they did with Australia, Canada should be able to weather them far easier. And you know, we said, like we said, Australia managed to weather this, Canada should be able to do the same. Geopolitically as well, Canada has been taking a more forceful approach to China,

we saw the with the Indo-Pacific strategy and some other measures. And part of that has been building up relations with allies, both locally, so of course, the United States, but also in Asia. So there has been a big push to improve relations with Japan, which is also reassessing how it approaches China. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is actually going to be in Japan next week for a meeting of the G7. So, you know, I'm sure China will be a major issue at the G7. And I'm sure Canada will be looking for support from its closest allies in regards to that. Earlier, James, you mentioned that one way China could retaliate is through tariffs and trade. We've talked a little bit about that. But let's get into this a little bit more specifically. What exactly could they target? So probably one of the main things they would target is agricultural imports, so things like

soy, canola, which canola, of course, was targeted during the Two Michaels saga. Probably what they won't target is actually one of Canada's main exports to China at the moment for the past couple of years, which has been coal and iron ore, because we saw during the Australia spat, even as they hit Australian wine, Australian beef, they never hit Australian iron ore, which is a hugely important product for China to have for economic reasons. And so you know, there are limits on what China can do to Canada, both because of the size of the trade, but also because of the type of the products that China doesn't necessarily want to cut its own nose off to spite its face on

this. It wants to hurt Canada, it doesn't want to hurt itself. And that actually might limit some of the reaction. That's really interesting. So even if there is a spat that escalates, there's there's some stuff that they might not touch because because they need it too much, essentially. Exactly. And China is very practical when it comes to protecting itself. You know, they want to come out on top of this. And if that means importing Canadian coal and iron ore is more important than hurting or annoying Ottawa, then they'll continue to do that. And we're talking a little bit hypothetically, and you know, the possibilities that could happen here. But I wonder, currently, what is the business relationship like between those two countries, Canada and China, right now?

If you look at the headlines and you see especially things like this diplomatic spat, you see the comments that are coming out from Beijing and Ottawa, you would probably actually assume that it's worse than it is. Even at the height of the two Michaels saga, this trade relationship was going relatively well and didn't take as big of a hit as you might have expected. The political relationship is in probably its worst state in years, but that hasn't affected trade too much. Canadian firms have been able to continue doing business. There hasn't been any boycotts of Canadian products. You know, Chinese consumers love certain Canadian products, especially Canada Goose. Tim Hortons has a presence in China and, you know, really leaned in actually to their Canadian branding in China. So there isn't this kind of boycott that we've seen with certain other countries when they've had diplomatic disputes. Let's talk a little bit more, though, about the political relationship between these two countries. There was a poll late last year that said a majority of Canadians believe that China is a

negative influence on world affairs. It was 84% of Canadians. This is a Nanos research poll that was done late last year. And this is even before all the news that came out early this year about Chinese interference in Canadian politics. But what about the other way around, James? What does China think of Canada politically? Yes, well, some of the harsh response that we've seen, especially to the most recent span,

to the growing hostility towards China and Canada, some of that is, you know, it's almost a sense of hurt feelings that there used to be a very strong relationship between Canada and China. And China used to view Canada very well. Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, when he was prime minister, he played a really instrumental role in helping to open up and connect China with the rest of the world in the 1970s. And he is still regarded very highly in China, as are some other Canadian political figures. And so there's almost this sense of betrayal that Canada, which was once a firm friend, is now seen as following the US in trying to contain China and pushing back against China.

There was an editorial in a state-run newspaper this week that said, quote, under pressure from the US, Canada has repeatedly made wrong decisions, pushing it further away from becoming a middle power known for mediation and reconciliation. Just lastly, before I let you go, James, I wonder where you see this heading. It seems like we're learning more and more about China's foreign interference in the past are necessarily going to go away. I think there's probably more to come, especially if it sounds like the people who've been affected by them haven't necessarily been briefed. And so we might see some of those people being briefed and going public in future. Even if that doesn't happen, there still seems to be a very strong chance that lawmakers in Ottawa will adopt some kind of foreign agent registry, or at least some other kind of legislation tackling foreign interference, it will be very, very difficult to frame that as, you know, not targeted as China. And I think that will prompt

another reaction from China, as we saw with Australia. So we've got those two hurdles in the relationship built in, as it were. And there's also a degree to which in australia china was able to kind of wipe the slate clean because there was a change in government and there was a change in government to the labour party who were traditionally seen as slightly more you know not pro china but slightly more agreeable easy to do business with than the conservative liberals. In Canada, our Liberal Party are the party that are traditionally seen as, you know, better at doing business with China. If there's going to be a change in government, it's likely going to be a change in government to a conservative party who are very tough on China. Michael Chong is a conservative MP. And so that's not necessarily

going to create any opening for bilateral relations to change. And so this increasingly hostile relationship might be the normal for quite a long time. James, thank you so much for taking the time to go through all of this with me. Thanks for having me. So about that survey on the decibel, we want to know about you and what you want to hear on the show. Just go to thedecibelsurvey.ca, fill it out, and as a thank you, you'll be automatically entered to win one of three grocery gift cards worth $100. Again, that's thedecibelsurvey.ca. We can't wait to hear from you.

That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our interns are Wafa L. Reyes, Andrew Hines, and Tracy Thomas. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.