Juno News - Canada needs a China strategy

00:00:00.000 the situation in Hong Kong is having a lot of reverberations around the world especially here

00:00:14.700 in Canada where dueling protesters are taking to the streets and in some cases getting into

00:00:20.580 minor scuffles it's leaving a lot of Canadians asking a lot of questions both about what's

00:00:25.560 happening in Hong Kong and it matters we should be looking into it we should be fully getting

00:00:30.680 informed of everything that's happening there as the people on the streets over a million of them

00:00:35.320 sometimes taking to the streets calling for democracy calling for reform it's also got people

00:00:40.780 asking well what's exactly going on in Canada in these communities of people who are taking to the

00:00:47.740 streets and protesting right here just the other weekend we had a number of people showing up in

00:00:53.820 downtown Toronto Winnipeg Vancouver Calgary other cities as well protesting in support of the Hong

00:01:01.760 Kongers who want democracy and who don't want the mainland China extradition bill but we also had 1.00

00:01:07.960 people show up to counter protest them it's quite remarkable it's really something to have people

00:01:14.940 show up to oppose a pro-democracy protest here in Canada and to even wave the flag

00:01:23.080 of the Chinese government and to speak supportively of the Chinese Communist Party which is what a

00:01:29.500 number of these people were doing I've been sent by a number of sources different reports screen grabs

00:01:34.560 from Chinese social media various other bits of evidence about just how deeply rooted some people

00:01:40.280 have in their support for the Communist Party of China right here in Canada and it's incredibly

00:01:45.320 concerning and we need to take pause and we need to ask well what what is going on here what is the

00:01:50.320 lay of the land how many people here actually are deeply supportive of the Chinese Communist Party

00:01:56.020 such that they're willing to risk violence one social media screen grab I saw had a foreign student

00:02:01.700 who's here in Canada say you know I'm I'm willing to be deported over this I will I will risk

00:02:06.940 everything sacrifice everything for my country and for communism that's really quite something

00:02:13.400 back in 1997 CSIS released a report called the sidewinder report that strove to look at just how

00:02:21.540 involved China was in Canadian society in business in politics how much they were putting money into

00:02:28.900 Canadian politics how much propaganda was involved the relationship with various media here Chinese

00:02:34.860 language media in Canada lots of concerns that a number of media outlets are far too compliant and taking

00:02:40.880 marching orders from the Chinese Communist Party now that sidewinder report it was a controversial

00:02:46.580 affair because nothing of its kind had been done before at the time and a lot of people denounced

00:02:51.060 it a lot of people said this is improper it's flawed it's mediocre work in Jonathan Manthorpe's new

00:02:56.540 book Claws of the Panda there is a full chapter on sidewinder report it's very detailed it's an excellent

00:03:01.900 book and you can take a look at the entire story of it all a lot of people just just wrote the whole

00:03:07.340 thing off as racist that was the accusation they made against all of this look we need to do something

00:03:13.260 similar right now I've previously argued we need a China policy a China strategy Donald Trump has

00:03:20.000 convened something called the Committee for the Present Danger now they've done that in the United

00:03:24.180 States only three times in the past once just after 1945 to deal with the rise of the Soviet Union

00:03:31.360 what all of it means then they did another one in the Reagan years also about the Cold War

00:03:35.240 the third one George Bush convened it and this was to deal with the war on terror now Donald Trump has

00:03:40.340 convened one for China and it's a pretty simple committee they sit down and they say what are the

00:03:46.320 facts what is going on what is China doing what do they want what do they believe in what are their

00:03:52.220 long-term goals what does that mean to us what does that mean to our relationships where do we want

00:03:57.700 the relationship to go and what steps do we take to get in that direction a very rigorous strategy and

00:04:03.280 policy we have nothing like that in Canada right now but it also seems we do not have anything

00:04:08.380 like an updated version of the Sidewinder report where we take a look and say what is going on

00:04:13.180 obviously people in Canada whether they're foreign students or or people you know Canadian citizens people

00:04:18.400 who came from China their parents came from China they have a right to whatever political views they

00:04:21.800 want they have a right to freedom of assembly freedom of speech is that entirely what's going on here or is

00:04:26.640 there something else are there actually agents of the Chinese government involved in a lot of this as has been

00:04:33.440 alleged by very top level reputable sources right now we don't know because we just haven't done a proper

00:04:42.400 hearing on all of this it does not seem that we've actually seriously looked at these questions despite the

00:04:49.300 various different myriad and disparate pieces of evidence and the time is now we've got people waving these flags in the

00:04:55.740 streets of our major cities we have to have the conversation

Juno News - August 22, 2019

Canada needs a China strategy

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