Senior Chinese diplomat sought to groom and cultivate politicians for city council and higher office
China’s diplomatic mission in Vancouver has actively interfered in the city’s politics, using proxies in diaspora community organizations and grooming politicians to run in last fall’s municipal election, according to Canada’s spy agency.
Mr. Stewart said he was briefed in late May, 2022, by CSIS’s regional director and one of the agency’s China specialists about foreign interference in municipal politics. They asked a lot of questions about the attacks levelled at him by Ms. Tong and some Chinese-language media, partly owned by China’s government, he said.
A former NDP MP who became mayor in 2018, Mr. Stewart told The Globe that he believes he was a target of Chinese government interference in the municipal election. “CG Tong emphasized this work was necessary, as the candidate will rely on those votes,” the document said. “In parallel, CG Tong indicated they needed someoneThe document was marked secret and shared with senior officials at Global Affairs, Public Safety, Communications Security Establishment, National Defence, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Privy Council Office, which reports directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Mr. Sim was elected alongside Lenny Zhou, who came to Canada from Beijing as a graduate student. Mr. Zhou has said he ran for council in part out of concern over what he called a rise in racism. In January, he made headlines by speaking in Mandarin in the Vancouver council chamber. Mr. Sim declined an interview request, and spokesman Taylor Verrall said the mayor could not comment on any interactions with the national-security apparatus. Mr. Sim has not met with the consulate since becoming mayor, the spokesman added.
“They wanted to see a Chinese face as the mayor of Vancouver,” he said. But, he added, that is not necessarily an indication of foreign interference.It’s common, Mr. Leung said, for Chinese seniors to be organized in support of certain candidates. Some of them live in Canada but owe their financial well-being to Beijing. “There are so many retired mainland Chinese in Vancouver, and they are getting their pension from the Chinese government,” he said.Ms.
“It is Chinese investors who are financing different projects, especially luxury buildings downtown. And all of a sudden the folks that I had worked with for four years … the money wasn’t coming in.”
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