China has ordered a Canadian diplomat to leave the country after a Toronto-based Chinese diplomat was expelled and accused of trying to intimidate a lawmaker.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that Shanghai-based Canadian envoy Jennifer Lynn Lalonde has to leave China by May 13. It said the move is a reciprocal countermeasure to Canada’s “unscrupulous move” to expel China’s Zhao Wei.
Some commentators said the incidents will fuel Canadians’ anti-China sentiment, which has grown since five Chinese police overseas stations were identified in the country last December.
Background: Trudeau under pressure
In March 2021, China sanctioned Canadian MP Michael Chong, the Tory shadow minister for foreign affairs, in Canada, over his involvement in a subcommittee that studied the situation of the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. The subcommittee had urged the Canadian government to sanction four Chinese officials and a Chinese entity.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a tweet at that time that “China’s sanctions are an attack on transparency and freedom of expression – values at the heart of our democracy.”
In the same year, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) wrote in a document that an officer with the Chinese Ministry of State Security had sought information on a Canadian lawmaker’s relatives, who might be located in the People’s Republic of China, for further potential sanctions.
The strictly-confidential report said the Chinese officer’s effort was to “make an example of this MP and deter others from taking anti-PRC positions.”
The report was made public by the Globe and Mail on May 1. Citing an unnamed national security source, the Canadian newspaper said the targeted lawmaker was Chong while the Chinese officer was Zhao.
Chong said in a statement on May 1 that he was disappointed to learn that the Trudeau government had known two years before that Zhao was targeting his family in Hong Kong.
“When the government became aware an elected MP was being targeted for an intimidation campaign by a PRC diplomat here in Canada, they should have taken two actions,” he said. “First, they should have informed me. Second, they should have declared the diplomat persona non grata.”
“The fact that the government neither informed me nor took any action is indicative of its ongoing laissez-faire attitude toward the PRC’s intimidation tactics,” he said.
Trudeau said he learned of the Chong case only after reading the Globe and Mail story. He said the CSIS had not shared the report outside of the agency before.
Chong later told Parliament that while the CSIS report might not have reached the prime minister, if similar cases happen again they need to be evaluated to higher levels in the government. Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reportedly is investigating the source of the leaked CSIS documents.
It took a whole week for the Canadian government to make a decision to expel Zhao because of the authorities’s fear of China’s economic, consular and diplomatic retaliation, according to Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, writing in an article published Tuesday.
If all Sino-Canada trade were to stop, Canada would face a debilitating blow, she says. However, the Canadian government must not weigh the safety of an MP, or any Canadian, against economic losses the country may incur, she adds.
Canada should encourage the development of new markets in other countries, which respect the rule of law, across the Indo-Pacific region, she says.
The third ‘Michael‘
On Monday, Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced the Canadian government’s decision to expel Zhao.
“We will not tolerate any form of foreign interference in our internal affairs,” Joly said in a statement. “Diplomats in Canada have been warned that if they engage in this type of behavior, they will be sent home.”
“This decision has been taken after careful consideration of all factors at play,” she said. “We remain firm in our resolve that defending our democracy is of the utmost importance.”
Chong was the third “Michael” from Canada targeted by the Chinese government. In December 2018, Canadian consultant Michael Spavor and former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig were detained in China on charges of espionage, shortly after the arrest of Huawei Technologies’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada.
After Meng reached an agreement with US prosecutors and was released in September 2021, both Spavor and Kovrig were freed.
Anti-China sentiment
Simon Lau, a Canada-based Hong Kong commentator, says Trudeau has no choice but to expel Zhao as the Liberal Party he represents needs the support from the New Democratic Party to maintain a majority in the Parliament.
Lau says the book Claws of the Panda, written by a former Canadian security agent in 2019, revealed that Beijing had launched campaigns to influence Canada since the 1990s but the Trudeau government turned a blind eye.
He says most Chinese people in Canada are afraid to speak out against China as they don’t want their relatives in Hong Kong and mainland China being intimidated. As a result, he says, pro-Beijing groups now dominate the voice of Chinese in Canada.
According to Statistics Canada, there are about 1.71 million Chinese people, or 4.7% of the 36.32 million population, in Canada.
Lau also says many Canadians are worried after Madrid-based human rights campaigner Safeguard Defenders revealed last December that Beijing has set up more than a hundred overseas police stations globally, five of them based in Canada.
Citing its latest survey, Angus Reid Institute, an opinion research foundation in Canada, said in March that 62% of Canadians say their federal government should view the Beijing regime as a threat or an enemy. By comparison, 72% of surveyed Canadians say that Russia should be viewed as a threat or an enemy while 58% have a positive impression of the US.
Chinese statements
Beijing’s response to Zhao’s expulsion was bitter.
“China never interferes in other countries’ internal affairs,” a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Canada said in a statement. “Instead of protecting China’s diplomatic and consular personnel’s legitimate rights, the Canadian side has chosen to condone and echo the anti-China forces’ hype-up and conduct extreme actions against a Chinese consular official. China does not accept this completely.”
The spokesperson added that if Canada continues to act wantonly and arbitrarily, it will be met with China’s resolute and strong reactions.
“The Canadian side ignored China’s diplomatic discontent and declared a Chinese envoy persona non grata on the grounds of the lies of China’s interference in Canada’s internal affairs,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, complained during a media briefing on Tuesday. “China strongly condemns and resolutely opposes this, and has expressed diplomatic discontent and lodged strong protests against Canada.”
Wang said it is ridiculous that Canadian media and politicians spread fake information by citing some so-called confidential documents and smear China with their political manipulation driven by ideological bias. He said the expulsion of Zhao violated a basic international principle and undermined Sino-Canada relations.
He said it is just and necessary for China to expel Lalonde. He said if Canada does not stop its unreasonable provocations, China will definitely fight back while Canada will face the consequences.
Read: China ‘will talk,’ but only if US changes its tune
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3