Opinion: Chinese Canadians deserve the same protection as anyone else if a foreign government tries to influence their vote. The government let them down for years by not taking concrete steps to stop Beijing’s meddling.
Most Chinese Canadians, she said, haven’t gone public because they’re afraid of retribution from Beijing if they speak against the government. “There is a climate of fear that already exists,” she went on. “So many diaspora members don’t even make it to the consideration of whether or not to speak up … They have chosen to be silent.”
So leave aside the overall result of the elections. Even leave aside the possibility that the outcome in a small number of ridings might have been affected. Isn’t it reason enough for concern — and for strong action — that a significant group of Canadian voters has been targeted for intimidation by a hostile foreign power?
But the rest of us — and here I include most of the news media — largely dismissed all this as obscure political infighting among factions in the Chinese community. We didn’t take it seriously for what it was: an organized effort to make a group of Canadian voters fall in line with the views of a foreign government.
It’s an important concern, but think about the impact of failing to take foreign meddling seriously, with action to match. It gave Beijing a clear field to escalate its attempts to persuade, pressure or bully Chinese Canadians into supporting its preferred candidates, or at least refrain from opposing them. It meant abandoning them while another government did its best to push them around.
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