Senator Yuen Pau Woo

Dear Parliamentary Colleagues:

I am writing to alert you to a recent report that poses a serious threat of discrimination and stigmatization against Chinese Canadians and to encourage you to speak out against it.

The Jamestown Foundation, a US Think Tank, has put out a report entitled Harnessing the People: Mapping Overseas United Front Work in Democratic States. It claims to have identified more than 2,000 organizations worldwide that are part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), of which 575 are said to operate in Canada. The report claims that these organizations, which serve the Chinese diaspora, have been co-opted by the Chinese government to “represent the voice of the [CCP]” and “constitute latent capacity that the Party can mobilize to advance the Party’s agenda.”

The report provided just a few examples of the Canadian groups it claims to have identified. Based on the evidence presented in the report, the Jamestown Foundation appears to treat activities such as celebrating Chinese culture, promoting Canada-China trade, and generally representing Chinese Canadian communities as conclusive evidence of co-optation by the Chinese government. The report reflects a broader narrative in which anything short of opposition to China is treated as evidence of loyalty to Beijing, and therefore as contrary to Canadian interests.

Canadians United Against Modern Exclusion (CUAME), an organization that I founded, has produced a critique of the Jamestown Foundation report.

The Jamestown Foundation did not respond to CUAME’s request for the full list of Canadian organizations. The effect of not making public the list of 575 organizations is to cast suspicion on all Chinese Canadian organizations, and to invite discriminatory and stigmatizing acts against every one of them.

The Jamestown report has even listed Chinese Canadian Liberal and Conservative Political Associations as CCP United Front Organizations, without explanation. This is particularly harmful and dangerous for Chinese Canadians who want to participate in the country’s democracy through party politics. Indeed, membership in these associations could be interpreted as evidence of “surreptitious or deceptive conduct” engaged “at the direction of, or in association with, a foreign entity.” Under the 2024 Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act, this offence carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

I know we do not see eye to eye on many political issues, but I hope you are sufficiently concerned by this broad and unsubstantiated accusation against Chinese Canadian organizations to put our differences aside for the protection of the community.

We should be united against malign foreign interference from all sources, especially transnational repression. But accusations of foreign interference must not be based on supposition or prejudice. It is also wrong to accuse Canadians of foreign interference because of the views they hold or because they are proud of Chinese culture.

The danger of this report is profound. If taken seriously, it will lead to systematic discrimination against Chinese Canadians who are deemed to have the wrong views or wrong affiliations. It will be a modern incarnation of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923.

Some of the unnamed 575 organizations are likely in the ridings you represent. They are now targets for persecution by malign forces outside of Canada and by their domestic accomplices. I hope you will speak out against this threat to them and to all Chinese Canadians.

Yours sincerely,

The Honourable Yuen Pau Woo
Senator, British Columbia