Kelly McParland: What will it take for the Liberals to admit that China is dangerous?

Ottawa could speak up about attending the 2022 Beijing Olympics, being hosted by a murderous one-party state, but that would require backbone

Author of the article:

Kelly McParland

Publishing date:

Feb 16, 2021

A member of the Chinese navy stands in front of a billboard showing Chinese President Xi Jinping photographed against a backdrop of Hong Kong, at China's Stonecutters Island naval base in Hong Kong, in a file photo from June 30, 2019. 

You have to wonder how often knowledgeable people need to attest that China’s is a dangerous, predatory and untrustworthy government before the fact of it begins to sink in and action is taken.

Yet as warnings go, you don’t get more authoritative or plain-spoken than the one issued by David Vigneault, head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, during an online forum.

“The government of China … is pursuing a strategy for geopolitical advantage on all fronts — economic, technological, political and military — and using all elements of state power to carry out activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty,” Vigneault said.

Activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty

DAVID VIGNEAULT, HEAD OF THE CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

Beijing’s hackers attack Canada’s biopharmaceutical and health industries, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, ocean technology and aerospace operations in a relentless effort to steal technology and gather data, he said.

In addition, a project supposedly aimed at tracking down corrupt officials and executives outside its borders is routinely used to threaten and intimidate Chinese critics in Canada, with their relatives back home serving as hostages.

“These activities … cross the line by attempting to undermine our democratic processes or threaten our citizens in a covert and clandestine manner,” said Vigneault.

CSIS has been watching “persistent and sophisticated state-sponsored threat activity” for years, and “we continue to see a rise in the frequency and sophistication of this threat activity.”

Beijing’s hackers attack Canadian industries and operations in a relentless effort to steal technology and gather data, says Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director David Vigneault, seen waiting to testify before the Senate National Security and Defence Committee in Ottawa on April 10, 2019.

Hard to shrug that off, even for a government as nervous as this one about its leader’s past infatuations with the wondrous potential of China’s one-party state.

Statements as candid as Vigneault’s aren’t a daily occurrence in Ottawa. Federal ministers and mandarins alike prefer to bury bad news in a blanket of evasion, obfuscation and neglect. But the warnings are coming more frequently, and in blunt terms.

In November another Canadian security agency, the Communications Security Establishment, identified China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as the dangerous practitioners of cyber crime, with the potential to break into power supplies or other critical infrastructure.

Richard Fadden, a former CSIS director, warned in 2019 that Canada had to “shed the blinders of the past and see the world and our place in it as it is.”egins to sink in and action is taken.

Yet as warnings go, you don’t get more authoritative or plain-spoken than the one issued by David Vigneault, head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, during an online forum.

 

Speak about this and this is what one can expect