MP Michael Chong urges co-ordinated response by Ottawa and Washington to Beijing interference

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, a repeated target of Chinese government intimidation, told U.S. congressional hearings Tuesday that Ottawa and Washington need a co-ordinated response to Beijing’s concerted efforts to interfere in Western democracies and bullying of diaspora communities.

Mr. Chong received a rare invitation to speak to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, an 18-member panel from the Senate and House of Representatives that monitors human abuses in China and is examining Beijing’s global-repression campaign.

“Foreign interference is a serious, national-security threat to Canada. It threatens our economy, long-term growth, social cohesion, our Parliament and our elections. It requires a suite of measures to combat, including closer co-operation among allied democracies,” Mr. Chong told the commission.

Mr. Chong outlined two known instances where China had targeted him because of his outspoken criticism of Beijing’s brutal treatment of its Muslim Uyghur minorities and crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

In May, he learned from The Globe and Mail that Beijing targeted him and his relatives in Hong Kong in the lead-up to the 2021 election, a revelation that led the Liberal government to expel a Chinese diplomat behind the effort. In July, the government informed Mr. Chong that he was almost certainly the target of a second disinformation campaign orchestrated by Beijing in May of this year.

The government later disclosed that former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole and NDP MP Jenny Kwan had also been targeted by Beijing in the 2021 election.

Full story here by Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife and Senior Parliamentary Reporter Steven Chase. The video link to the executive-commission hearing is here. Mr. Chong’s appearance begins at the 30-minute mark.

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