Canada needs a China strategy
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Summary
The situation in Hong Kong is having a lot of reverberations around the world, especially here in Canada. As the people on the streets, over a million of them, take to the streets calling for democracy, calling for reform, it s also got people asking, well, what's going on in Canada?
Transcript
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the situation in Hong Kong is having a lot of reverberations around the world especially here
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in Canada where dueling protesters are taking to the streets and in some cases getting into
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minor scuffles it's leaving a lot of Canadians asking a lot of questions both about what's
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happening in Hong Kong and it matters we should be looking into it we should be fully getting
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informed of everything that's happening there as the people on the streets over a million of them
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sometimes taking to the streets calling for democracy calling for reform it's also got people
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asking well what's exactly going on in Canada in these communities of people who are taking to the
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streets and protesting right here just the other weekend we had a number of people showing up in
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downtown Toronto Winnipeg Vancouver Calgary other cities as well protesting in support of the Hong
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Kongers who want democracy and who don't want the mainland China extradition bill but we also had
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people show up to counter protest them it's quite remarkable it's really something to have people
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show up to oppose a pro-democracy protest here in Canada and to even wave the flag
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of the Chinese government and to speak supportively of the Chinese Communist Party which is what a
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number of these people were doing I've been sent by a number of sources different reports screen grabs
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from Chinese social media various other bits of evidence about just how deeply rooted some people
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have in their support for the Communist Party of China right here in Canada and it's incredibly
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concerning and we need to take pause and we need to ask well what what is going on here what is the
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lay of the land how many people here actually are deeply supportive of the Chinese Communist Party
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such that they're willing to risk violence one social media screen grab I saw had a foreign student
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who's here in Canada say you know I'm I'm willing to be deported over this I will I will risk
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everything sacrifice everything for my country and for communism that's really quite something
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back in 1997 CSIS released a report called the sidewinder report that strove to look at just how
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involved China was in Canadian society in business in politics how much they were putting money into
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Canadian politics how much propaganda was involved the relationship with various media here Chinese
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language media in Canada lots of concerns that a number of media outlets are far too compliant and taking
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marching orders from the Chinese Communist Party now that sidewinder report it was a controversial
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affair because nothing of its kind had been done before at the time and a lot of people denounced
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it a lot of people said this is improper it's flawed it's mediocre work in Jonathan Manthorpe's new
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book Claws of the Panda there is a full chapter on sidewinder report it's very detailed it's an excellent
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book and you can take a look at the entire story of it all a lot of people just just wrote the whole
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thing off as racist that was the accusation they made against all of this look we need to do something
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similar right now I've previously argued we need a China policy a China strategy Donald Trump has
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convened something called the Committee for the Present Danger now they've done that in the United
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States only three times in the past once just after 1945 to deal with the rise of the Soviet Union
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what all of it means then they did another one in the Reagan years also about the Cold War
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the third one George Bush convened it and this was to deal with the war on terror now Donald Trump has
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convened one for China and it's a pretty simple committee they sit down and they say what are the
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facts what is going on what is China doing what do they want what do they believe in what are their
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long-term goals what does that mean to us what does that mean to our relationships where do we want
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the relationship to go and what steps do we take to get in that direction a very rigorous strategy and
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policy we have nothing like that in Canada right now but it also seems we do not have anything
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like an updated version of the Sidewinder report where we take a look and say what is going on
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obviously people in Canada whether they're foreign students or or people you know Canadian citizens people
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who came from China their parents came from China they have a right to whatever political views they
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want they have a right to freedom of assembly freedom of speech is that entirely what's going on here or is
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there something else are there actually agents of the Chinese government involved in a lot of this as has been
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alleged by very top level reputable sources right now we don't know because we just haven't done a proper
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hearing on all of this it does not seem that we've actually seriously looked at these questions despite the
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various different myriad and disparate pieces of evidence and the time is now we've got people waving these flags in the
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streets of our major cities we have to have the conversation