The Chinese regime’s strategy of using members of the diaspora who are under its control to run for political office is more advanced in Canada than other countries, says Australian scholar Clive Hamilton, whose new book chronicles how Beijing uses elites in target countries to extend its influence abroad.
“The Chinese Communist Party always goes where power lies,” Hamilton, a professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, told The Epoch Times in an interview.
His latest book “Hidden Hand,” co-authored with Berlin-based researcher Mareike Ohlberg, examines the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in North America and Europe, and the many tactics—some new and some old—the Party uses to advance its power and reshape the world.
The CCP has greatly enhanced its strategy to grow its influence abroad over the last two decades, Hamilton says, but some of these tactics have been in its armoury since even before the communists came to rule China in 1949.
One such tactic was developed when the CCP retreated from cities during its struggle with rival Nationalist Party and continued its fight from the countryside in the pre-1949 era. Lessons learned from this strategy, dubbed “using the countryside to surround the cities,” were later employed in other arenas by the CCP.
“This slogan should not be understood only in the literal sense; the idea is to go to areas where the CCP’s enemies are weak or not well represented, organize the population there, and then use them to encircle the enemy’s strongholds,” Hamilton and Ohlberg write in their book.
Hamilton says this tactic is currently being used in Europe, where the CCP is consolidating its influence in the periphery of the European Union’s “citadel,” Germany.
“The CCP has been working hard to establish influence in Southern Europe—Italy and Greece—and a number of Eastern and Central European countries,” he says. “It’s surrounding the EU and exerting influence from the edges.”
In some other countries targeted by the CCP, such as Canada and Australia, the tactic can be seen in how the regime attempts to develop influence over municipal, provincial, or state-level politicians.
According to “Hidden Hand,” the CCP’s connections with these local politicians are leveraged to pressure national governments.
In his famous CBC interview in 2010, then-head of Canadian Security Intelligence Service Richard Fadden said cabinet ministers in two provinces, as well as some municipal politicians in British Columbia, were suspected of being under the control of foreign governments. He hinted that China is the most aggressive of the countries trying to gain influence in Canada.
The Globe and Mail later revealed one of the provincial cabinet ministers Fadden was referring to was then-Ontario cabinet minister Michael Chan. Chan has since filed a lawsuit against the Globe for their reports.
On an annual basis, Beijing has been hosting a cocktail reception at the yearly convention of Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM). Last year, the CCP’s sponsorship was heavily criticized by Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West who said it was inappropriate for the regime to pay to have access to municipal officials. UBCM eventually decided to end the practice amid a public outcry, despite the support of several B.C. mayors for the foreign sponsorship to continue.
Fadden said in his 2010 interview that foreign interference in many cases involves foreign governments going after members of their diaspora, in some cases “somebody who’s second, third generation,” so that “there’s the old country connection.”
A relationship is then formed with the individual, and the individual is offered trips back to the home country, he explained.
When the individual later assumes a position of power, he said, “all of a sudden decisions aren’t taken on the basis of the public good but on the basis of another country’s preoccupations.”
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