Keeping an eye on Communist, Totalitarian China, and its influence both globally, and we as Canadians. I have come to the opinion that we are rarely privy to truth regarding the real goal, the agenda of China, it's ambitions for Canada [including special focus on the UK, US & Australia]. No more can we trust the legacy media as there appears to be increasing censorship applied to the topic of communist China. I ask why. Here is what I find.
A previously suppressed report on money laundering at a popular casino by accounting firm MNP suggests that Chinese VIP gamblers laid down buy-ins sometimes in excess of $500,000 to wash their proceeds of crime.
“I received a series of briefings that caused me to believe that our province could do more to combat money laundering at B.C. casinos,” said Attorney General David Eby, who will now hire an independent review of anti-money laundering practices after MNP cited concerns as to how B.C. Lottery Corporation has been tackling the matter.
In one month (July 2015), the casino accepted $13.5 million in $20 bills alone.
“River Rock staff [members] have fostered a culture accepting of large bulk cash transactions.
“The issue of casinos, [River Rock] in particular, accepting large volumes of cash has now been a growing issue in the province for a number of years,” noted the report.
MNP’s extensive interviews with casino and BCLC staff concluded there are “reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering” via unsourced funds derived mostly from wealthy Chinese gamblers.
“While the patron may be bona fide, the unsourced cash being accepted by the casino may be associated with criminal activity and poses significant regulatory, business and reputational risk,” noted MNP.
Nine people have been arrested after a year-long investigation that identified millions of dollars being laundered through Lower Mainland casinos, according to B.C.'s gang task force.
The probe began last May when investigators say they determined that members of an alleged criminal organization behind several illegal gambling houses were helping drug traffickers launder money, as well as being involved in loan sharking, kidnapping and extortion, said assistant commissioner Kevin Hackett of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU).
"It's safe to say that we're looking at millions of dollars" being laundered," Hackett told reporters at a news conference Tuesday morning.
Assistant commissioner Kevin Hackett of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit talks to reporters about a year-long investigation into money laundering at B.C. casinos. (CBC News)
Investigators say the alleged crime group has links across Canada, as well as to mainland China .
"Money laundering, loan sharking and illegal gaming provide an attractive source of income for organized crime," Hackett said.
"Clients who utilize these services need to be aware that often the cash being provided to them is from illegal activity, and that using such services provides financial support to criminals and funds their illegal enterprises and operations."
Police offer few details
Hackett offered few details about the people who have been arrested, except to say that none of them are in police custody and no charges have been laid. However, he said possible charges could include counts related to money laundering, drug trafficking, proceeds of crime and being part of a criminal organization.
In fact, investigators are revealing very little about the alleged criminal operation, explaining the investigation is still underway and that they anticipate more arrests. Hackett would not identify the casinos where the money laundering has allegedly taken place and would only say that three or four illegal gambling houses have been identified.
At least one of those establishments is located in Richmond and was searched Monday night by officers executing a warrant, Hackett added.
A total of six homes have been searched so far in the course of the investigation, and officers have seized cash and bank drafts, computers, cell phones, drug paraphernalia and several luxury vehicles — including one outfitted with a hidden compartment.
The investigation was conducted by the CFSEU's new Joint Illegal Gaming Investigation Team, which also includes members of the provincial government's Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch.
Officers are asking anyone with information about the alleged laundering scheme or similar operations to call 778-290-2288.
Claims by gang leader Nick Chan that he was unaware of a loaded, semi-automatic handgun under the seat of the vehicle was driving should be believed, his lawyer argued Wednesday.
Defence counsel Michael Bates said Chan should be acquitted on five weapons-related charges in connection with a March 3, 2010, traffic stop in Calgary.
Bates told Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Scott Brooker it made no sense Chan would be so unco-operative with police if he was aware there was a loaded gun under the driver’s seat of his borrowed truck.
The lawyer admitted Chan was “belligerent” with police, refusing to exit the truck and then later not giving them his name, because he believed he’d done nothing wrong.
“He’s mad, he thinks they’re doing something they’re not supposed to do,” Bates said.
“There’s no reason to contemplate any notion there’s knowledge of something illegal in the truck.”
Chan, a purported leader with the FOB gang, an allegation he denied in his testimony, faces five charges, including possession of a prohibited weapon — a folding knife — and possession of a prohibited firearm with readily accessible ammunition.
Chan was pulled over after police tailed the Tacoma he was driving for about eight minutes.
Despite repeated orders to exit the vehicle he refused and was eventually pulled out.
A subsequent search found a loaded, .32-calibre, semi-automatic handgun and buck folding knife under the driver’s seat.
A bag containing a balaclava and dark clothing was on top of two hatchets and a hammer behind the driver’s seat.
At Chan’s first trial, the search was ruled illegal and he was acquitted, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision and ordered a new trial.
Crown prosecutor Bob Sigurdson argued Chan’s gang lifestyle and his frequent use of the truck, which he said he got from his brother, Tim Chan, showed he would know the contents of the vehicle.
Sigurdson noted Chan was stopped by police while in the truck — which had a registered owner listed as Community Cars Ltd. — on four occasions between November 2009 and February 2011.
Chan admitted using the vehicle between 2007 or 2008 and 2013.
He was driving the truck on April 23, 2013, when he was repeatedly stabbed outside a Beltline natural foods store.
“He’s the person who regularly uses that vehicle,” Sigurdson said, in arguing Brooker should disbelieve the accused’s story he didn’t know the weapons were there.
China under supreme leader Xi Jinping is stepping up coordinated intelligence operations aimed at influencing foreign governments into backing Beijing's anti-democratic goals, according to a new study.
Chinese influence operations involve multiple government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence organizations that seek to buy, guide, or coerce foreign governments into advancing its agenda, says the study written by New Zealand professor Anne-Marie Brady, a fellow at the Wilson Center.
"Even more than his predecessors, Xi Jinping has led a massive expansion of efforts to shape foreign public opinion in order to influence the decision-making of foreign governments and societies," the report says.
"China's foreign influence activities have the potential to undermine the sovereignty and integrity of the political system of targeted states," the report warns.
Using New Zealand as a case study, the report reveals that Xi recently urged overseas Chinese nationals and ethnic Chinese residents to infiltrate foreign governments.
In New Zealand, several ethnic Chinese politicians have been elected to the parliament of the South Pacific nation, which is a key intelligence ally of the United States.
For example, New Zealand parliamentarian Jian Yang acknowledged recently that he concealed his past relationship with the People's Liberation Army intelligence unit and membership in the Chinese Communist Party.
"New Zealand, like many other states in the world, is becoming saturated with the PRC's political influence activities, and due to its pattern of engagement with China and its natural assets, it may even be experiencing more political influence activities than most," the report says.
Chinese foreign influence operations in New Zealand raise security concerns here about China gaining accessing U.S. secrets. The government there is part of the British-American intelligence alliance known as Five Eyes—that involves the sharing of secrets among the spy services of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
"New Zealand is valuable to China, as well to other states such as Russia, as a soft underbelly to access Five Eyes intelligence," the report said.
"New Zealand is also a potential strategic site for the PLA navy's Southern Hemisphere future naval facilities and a future Beidou-2 [navigation satellite system] ground station—there are already several of these in Antarctica."
Over the past several decades, China has focused on sowing divisions between the government in Wellington and the U.S., its ally. New Zealand has adopted increasingly anti-American policies, beginning in the 1980s when the nation refused to permit nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed warships from making port calls as part of an anti-nuclear policy.
China has targeted New Zealand's 200,000 ethnic Chinese, part of the country's population of 4.5 million people.
The report on Beijing influence operations was published as Democrats and most news outlets in the United States remain focused on Russian influence operations, specifically activities during the 2016 presidential election.
By contrast, Chinese influence operations in the United States have received little or no scrutiny from Congress or most news media.
The Chinese activities are based on what Beijing calls "united front" work—strategic influence operations first used in the 1940s by communists who eventually seized power in China.
Xi in September 2014 highlighted the importance of united front work in supporting influence activities around the world, calling them the Party's "magic weapons" in pursuit of making China the dominant world power.
Concerned over the growing sub rosa intelligence operations in nearby Australia, the government there had drafted new laws designed to curb Chinese political and economic influence activities, including a ban on all foreign political donations.
In the United States, China has been engaged in widespread influence operations primarily through the hiring of former government officials to lobby on its behalf. Other methods involve coercing American companies operating in China into influencing the U.S. government in support of China's policies.
During the 1990s, Chinese agents were caught by the FBI funding the reelection campaign of President Bill Clinton.
However, for the past 20 years, the FBI, which is responsible for countering foreign influence operations has produced few arrests or prosecutions related to Beijing influence operations.
Dissident Chinese businessman Guo Wengui revealed recently that Chinese companies are used often by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the civilian spy service, to buy off American politicians and organizations in order to promote China's foreign and economic policies.
The influence operations are carried out by Party units identified in the report as the United Front Work Department, the Central Propaganda Department, the International Liaison Department, the All-China Federation of Overseas Chinese, and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
All are key players in covert Chinese foreign and defense affairs.
"United front activities incorporate working with groups and prominent individuals in society; information management and propaganda; and it has also frequently been a means of facilitating espionage," the report says.
A key ploy of Chinese influence activities is creating networks of "friends of China" overseas who are called on to influence host governments and media.
Chinese military intelligence, known as the PLA Second Department, also has worked closely in the past with the International Liaison Department and United Front Work Department in backing revolutionaries in Southeast Asia and spying.
United Front operatives frequently operate under cover as Chinese diplomats who target foreign politicians, business people, and journalists.
Front groups include Chinese community associations and student groups along with organizations funded by China engaged in Chinese language, media, and cultural activities.
Another key influence tool is the numerous Beijing-funded Confucius Institutes that are located on many U.S. and foreign college campuses.
"CCP united front officials and their agents try to develop relationships with foreign and overseas Chinese personages (the more influential the better) to influence, subvert, and if necessary, bypass the policies of their governments and promote the interests of the CCP globally," the report says.
The Party operatives attempt to guide the activities of front groups, oversea agents, and supporters by appealing to nationalist sentiment, such as urging support for the Chinese motherland, the Chinese race, and the Chinese ethnic population within their countries.
"The goal of successful overseas Chinese work is to get the community to proactively and even better, spontaneously, engage in activities which enhance China's foreign policy agenda," the report said.
China has been less successful in targeting overseas Chinese groups opposed to the communist regime, including pro-democracy dissidents, the Buddhist-oriented group Falun Gong, those promoting Taiwan independence, independent Chinese religious groups, and Tibetans and Uighurs seeking independence.
However, all those groups are major targets of infiltration by Party and intelligence agents who seek to divide or subvert the groups.
Recruiting ethnic Chinese as spies is also part of the influence operations, led by the MSS, Ministry of Public Security, PLA Joint Staff Headquarters' Third Department, Xinhua News Service, the United Front Work Department, and International Liaison Department.
The report said a former Chinese spy revealed in 2014 that the PLA Third Department utilizes a network of some 200,000 agents around the world.
Guo, the dissident Chinese businessman, has stated that China dispatched between 25,000 and 40,000 agents to the United States, and increased the aggressiveness of their operations beginning in 2012.
"Political influence activities in the Xi era draw heavily on the approaches set in the Mao years and the policies of Deng, Jiang, and Hu, but take them to a new level of ambition," the report said. "This reflects both the growing confidence of the Xi government in China's international influence, as well as the high stakes strategy he is pursuing to maintain his regime through boosting economic growth and tightening control of information."
The 57-page report, "Magic Weapons: China's political influence activities under Xi Jinping," was presented Sept. 18 at a conference on the corrosion of democracy under China's international influence.
In New Zealand, the report identifies three ethnic Chinese politicians who it says maintain ties to Chinese united front groups and the Chinese embassy, including Yang, Raymond Huo, and Kenneth Wang, the descendent of a Communist Party revolutionary who was a member of parliament from 2004 to 2005.
The report said Yang "worked for fifteen years in China's military intelligence sector," information that was concealed on his New Zealand permanent residency application and job applications in New Zealand.
"The PLA would not have allowed anyone with Yang Jian's military intelligence background to go overseas to study—unless they had official permission," the report said.
As a member of parliament, Yang has been a "central figure promoting and helping to shape the New Zealand National government's China strategy and been responsible for their engagement with the New Zealand Chinese community," the report said.
Yang said earlier this month he is not a spy and has never been a spy but acknowledged being a part of the Chinese military.
Peter Mattis, an expert on Chinese intelligence said Yang's statements at a press conference raised more questions than it answered.
"He claimed to have taught at Luoyang, but he told Chinese media in 2013 that he studied at the school run by China's signals intelligence agency and earned a master's degree," Mattis said.
"New Zealand illustrates the challenge of dealing with Chinese influence operations once Beijing affects the political core," he said. "The potential damage is unknown. Addressing the questions that need answering requires a much higher degree of political will than it might otherwise."
Mattis said whenever Chinese influence activities are a focus of security concerns accusations of racism and ignorance of China are raised.
"The Yang case is no different. Brady's paper shows the problem is neither racism, nor ignorance, but how the Chinese Communist Party operates abroad," he said.
Huo, a member of the New Zealand parliament from 2008 to 2014, and again in 2017, has worked closely with Chinese united front groups, the report said.
Huo has maintained close contacts with China's Zhi Gong Party, one of eight minor political parties under the control of the United Front Work Department.
LNP creates 'Chinese only' branch on the Gold Coast
Members of the Gold Coast LNP Chinese Heritage Branch
by Jeremy Pierce
A CHINESE-only branch of the Liberal National Party has formed on the Gold Coast, dividing the party faithful.
The Gold Coast LNP Chinese Heritage Branch has just held its first meeting, with dozens of members joining several sitting MPs for the inauguration.
The new branch comes just weeks after the launch of a similar splinter group in the Brisbane suburb of Sunnybank, and is reminiscent of the influx of Chinese members to the party's federal Ryan branch when Chinese Australian Michael Johnson was MP.
While LNP officials have embraced the enthusiasm of the new Chinese supporters, some rank-and-file party members are not impressed, questioning why they wouldn't just join existing branches.
"We welcome Chinese members, or members of any racial background, but having their own branch is more like segregation than integration," one member told The Sunday Mail.
"There's a lot of people quite uncomfortable with it."
Space launch from dairy farmafter John Key met China's president Xi
22 Sep, 2017 10:05am
The launch into orbit of a Chinese near-space test flight from a New Zealand dairy farm was sealed in a deal between former prime minister Sir John Key and China's President Xi Jinping.
Just seven months after the two leaders met, a huge balloon carrying a capsule called Traveller was launched from a dairy farm outside Ashburton.
At 5.19am on June 6, 2015, the 40-metre diameter, one-tonne helium-filled balloon called Traveller soared twice the height airliners can fly.
The detail about the "near-space" launch was the single most startling line in a weighty academic report from University of Canterbury professor Anne-Marie Brady, published this week.
Brady's paper raised concerns about China's exercise of soft power to influence New Zealand - and about possible military applications of a near-space flight carried out by Chinese company KuangChi Science from a Chinese-owned dairy farm.
The flight was part of an agreement sealed between Key and Xi at the Agri-tech Innovation Showcase at Auckland in November 2014.
KuangChi Science is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange while Pengxin has bought a number of New Zealand dairy farms.
The launch also saw Airways NZ involved as the New Zealand Government-owned air traffic controller.
Brady's paper raised concerns about China's exercise of soft power to influence New Zealand - and about possible military applications of a near-space flight carried out by Chinese company KuangChi Science from a Chinese-owned dairy farm.
In a section of the report titled "Why New Zealand is of interest to China", Brady stated: "New Zealand is useful for near-space research; which is an important new area of research for the [People's Liberation Army] as it expands its long-range precision missiles, as well as having civilian applications.
"Chinese companies Shanghai Pengxin and KuangChi Science have used Shanghai Pengxin's New Zealand dairy farms for near-space launches."
Near-space is considered to be between 20km and 100km above Earth and is sought after for communications, military and scientific exploitation.
The Traveller development by KuangChi Science makes no reference to any intelligence or military use.
Instead, the company talks of it developing into a low-cost satellite which can carry out "high precision monitoring" of the ground, mapping, agricultural and weather data collection and traffic navigation and high-speed wifi coverage.
It is also talking of developing "manned near-space tourism".
An Airways NZ spokeswoman said it supported the launch with air traffic control services. It was one of a number of companies with an interest in near-space with which Airways had worked, she said.
"At time of the launch our understanding was the company was engaged in promoting services such as internet access, minerals exploration and mining, disaster relief, and forest protection in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa."
Brady's report raised concerns of the safety of New Zealand technology, saying buying into New Zealand companies "could be a means to potentially access strategic information and technology".
Not only did she highlight the Traveller launch but pointed to KuangChi Science becoming the main shareholder of Martin Jetpacks, a Canterbury-based company which has built a potentially revolutionary portable jetpack.
Glenn Martin, the investor who created the jetpack, said protection of technology in New Zealand was through "normal commercial protections like patents".
He dismissed any suggestion there was a need for concern over China.
"The Chinese have a thing called money. If they want to spend and buy stuff, why shouldn't they be able to?"
Martin said he had never had an issue with untoward influence from China. "That sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me. We've had more security issues with the US then we have ever had with China."
He said he had no problems with his jetpack in China but it went missing in the United States and had clearly been disassembled and put back together when returned.
NZ Defence Industry Association chairman Scott Arrell said partner countries had systems which protected the development and export of sensitive technology with intelligence and military application.
He said that wasn't the case in New Zealand, partly because of the size of the export market but also because there was low-level investment from defence and wider Government.
"If you don't have skin in the game, you can't really tell people who they can sell to."
