Chinese diplomat accused of trying to shut down Montreal event in third incident of campus interference

A diplomat from China's consulate in Montreal contacted a number of people demanding that an exiled Uyghur leader not speak to students at Concordia

Concordia University's downtown campus in Montreal.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press/Fil

OTTAWA — A Chinese diplomat in Montreal tried to shut down an event at Concordia University featuring an exiled Muslim minority leader this week, says an organizer, marking China’s third recent attempt to influence activities on Canadian campuses.

Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia, said a diplomat from China’s consulate in Montreal contacted him and others demanding that an exiled Uyghur leader not appear in front of Canadian students.

Matthews received an email from consul Wang Wenzhang on Monday, the day before the event. The French-language email, which he shared with the National Post, said the vice consul general, Xing Wenjian, wanted an “urgent meeting” with him that afternoon or Tuesday morning to “communicate our points of view.” Matthews said he decided not to respond. Neither the consulate nor the embassy in Ottawa responded to a request for comment.

The event featuring Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, went ahead as planned Tuesday, with a few dozen people in attendance including students, journalists and representatives from human rights groups such as Amnesty International. But Matthews soon learned that the diplomat made similar approaches to the City of Montreal, in what he understood was an attempt to seek municipal authorities’ help to shut down the event. The city did not respond to a request for comment.

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Human rights organizations are reporting that between one and two million Uyghur Muslims in China have been detained in camps where they are forced to renounce their religious beliefs, watch propaganda, eat pork and pledge their allegiance to the Chinese state. The Chinese government says its activities are a crackdown on terrorism. But Matthews said it is really a form of “cultural genocide,” intended to erase their identities.

“I think it demonstrates an incredible amount of confidence, bordering on arrogance, that they feel they can do this and get away with it,” terrorism expert Phil Gurski said of the attempt to silence Dolkun Isa in Montreal. “I think it also points to just how diabolical this issue is about the Chinese. I mean look, they’ve been lying to us for months that these are re-education camps.”

Gurski, a former CSIS analyst, now president of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, is in touch with members of the Uyghur minority who live in Canada and are facing harassment, and who tell him this is all “par for the course.”

For diplomats to be involved in trying to shutter debate should give Global Affairs Canada grounds to raise the issue with China, Gurski said. But given Canada’s arrest of a top Chinese tech executive on a U.S. warrant, China’s ban on Canadian canola and its detention of Canadian citizens, he said, “I’d be surprised if this government goes that far. But it’s tough.”

Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, in 2008. 

“Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression is a fundamental right. We expect foreign representatives’ interactions in domestic affairs in Canada to be appropriate,” said Adam Austen, a spokesman for Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland.

 Freeland

“The government of Canada is deeply concerned about the situation facing Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Canada is gravely concerned about the lack of transparency and due process in the case of Uyghurs detained and being put to death, in what the Chinese call ‘re-education camps,’ calling into question China’s lack of commitment to the rule of law.”

Two other recent incidents on Ontario university campuses raised alarm bells as possible examples of China’s influence campaign, although the Chinese embassy has denied any involvement.

Toronto police are investigating the possibility of criminal threats in thousands of messages a Tibetan-Canadian received after being elected as a University of Toronto student president. An online petition with 11,000 signatures demanded Chemi Lhamo’s removal, and she said Chinese authorities were involved.

At Hamilton’s McMaster University, several Chinese student groups protested a talk about human rights abuses facing the Uyghur minority, with other student groups writing to the federal government asking it to investigate possible state involvement. A statement at the time from the Chinese Embassy praised the protesters for being “patriotic,” but denied they were involved or behind anything.

That the Concordia incident appears to be part of a growing pattern is “kind of scary,” said Gurski. “If something is not done, if there’s no reprimand, they’re going to think they’re getting away with it, which means they’re going to continue doing it. Today it’s the Uyghurs. Tomorrow it’s Tibet. The next day it’s Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or Macao.”

“It’s something we should be worried about,” Matthews said, “that some authoritarian governments are not just trying to oppress freedom of thought and freedom of speech and academic inquiry in their own countries, but they’re now doing it in Western countries, which I think is a dangerous sign.”