The arrest of Yuesheng Wang by the RCMP is not surprising. What is rather curious is that so few arrests have taken place so far in connection with Chinese espionage.
Wang’s arrest comes after the Canadian government decided to follow the United States in making the Indo-Pacific region its priority and defining China as the main obstacle to global security.
As if the appointment of Xi Jinping and his faction at the head of the Chinese Communist Party last month had sealed, in the eyes of the Canadian government, the totalitarian transformation of China.
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no secret
Be that as it may, the Chinese government’s covert operations are no secret to anyone. In 2021, Paul Charon and Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmair published a work of more than 600 pages on Chinese influence operations in the world at the Presses of the Institute for Military Strategic Research in France. Canada is the subject of an entire chapter, so strong are the Chinese influences.
The book, available free online, provides many examples of China’s modes of influence in Canada. It shows with concrete examples how politicians, the media, social networks or even educational establishments are influenced by China.
Comply with American demands
The Chinese diaspora in Canada is very large. Nearly 1.8 million Canadians are of Chinese ancestry. The vast majority of these citizens are loyal to Canada. And the Chinese of Taiwanese origin are even rather anti-China in Beijing. But this large diaspora allows Chinese spies to go unnoticed.
Canadian companies that want to trade with the United States will have no choice but to comply with Washington’s security dictates. This is bad news for many Chinese Canadians because their relationships will be scrutinized much more than for people of other backgrounds.
But at the same time, governments, universities and businesses have too often naively opened their doors to recent immigrants for key positions. Wang worked in the hypersensitive field of electric batteries for automobiles…
This harsh reality contrasts with the dreams of a transnational country to which Justin Trudeau aspires.