To safeguard the integrity of our democratic institutions and core values against the PRC’s interference, we need to first understand the covert tactics that the Communist Chinese government uses to manipulate Canadians for advancing its own interests, often to the detriment of the well-being of our citizens and communities.

 

The United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party is the most important and effective propaganda as well as a coercive tool for the PRC to convert foreign nationals into CCP supporters and collaborators. It achieves such goals through rewards (e.g. money, sex, red-carpet treatments, privileges and sense of contribution or significance) and punishments (e.g., blackmailing, threats, and the withdrawal of funding or opportunities and denying access).

 

Taking advantage of the historical guilt and the Canadian desire to right past wrongs, UFWD uses the “racist card” very effectively to control Canada’s narratives on China, to suppress dissenting voices, silence legitimate criticism, and to create excuses and favourable interpretations for PRC’s unacceptable behaviours and actions. 

 

The racist card has been manipulated in different ways by the UFWD on Chinese Canadians and the non-Chinese Canadians. 

 

Firstly, the UFWD targets Chinese Canadians with the following key messages:

 

1) You are being discriminated and the solution to that is to have a powerful motherland - China. But without the CCP, your motherland will be weak. In other words, your ability to stand tall as a Canadian depends on the CCP, not your own ability or the values of Canadian society.

 

2) The Western world, especially the American Empire, is responsible for all the political problems in China because the United States wants to contain and ultimately destroy China. That is, the PRC under the CCP has no fault in any political unrest in China.

 

Secondly, for non-Chinese Canadians, well-crafted key messages from UFWD are:

 

1) The PRC under the CCP is China; PRC represents the Chinese people no matter where they are. It also represents the Chinese culture, from ancient to modern.

 

2) You are guilty of discriminating against the Chinese people. Since the PRC represents the Chinese people, therefore the PRC is your victim. You should be gentle with the PRC and nurture it, like a mother nurturing her child. “Beware, fragile. Please handle with care!” 

 

3) The PRC is benign and harmless to you. It is simply trying to stand up from being bullied by you and others in the past. Whatever it does domestically to its people doesn’t matter to you, as the PRC has never done any harm nor will it pose any threat to the West.

 

The PRC is adept at turning criticism of itself into a charge of being anti-Chinese and thereby racist. This must be resolutely challenged, because it allows the PRC to deflect Western criticism of their policies on the grounds that it “hurts the feelings of the Chinese people,” a buzz line we hear all the time. It also appropriates the voice of all the Chinese people living outside China.