(Ottawa) Canada is overstating the notion of national security, China’s foreign ministry laments in response to Ottawa’s suspension of an equipment contract for the RCMP linked to a company near Beijing.
Posted at 12:42 p.m
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Thursday put on hold a $550,000 contract that was awarded in October 2021 to Canada-based Sinclair Technologies but which has been owned since 2017 by Hytera Communications, a Chinese company in the Owned about 10% by Beijing, controls an investment fund.
The device is designed to secure terrestrial RCMP radio communications. This potential Chinese access to sensitive data, revealed by Radio-Canada earlier this week, has been denounced by opposition parties in Ottawa, which the Liberals sided with by admitting their concerns.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called it a misguided decision.
“China and Canada are both beneficiaries of economic globalization and together they should reject politicizing economic issues or overextending the concept of national security,” she told a news conference, according to a transcript from Beijing.
These complaints were repeated in the Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Xi Jinping regime, where the government was criticized for modeling its policies on those of the United States – Hytera Communications’ products were banned from sale by Washington.
Observers said the inadequate ban demonstrates Ottawa’s clear “policy over business” approach to China — a move that blindly follows that of the United States and will pose new risks to economic ties and Sino-Canadian trade ties,” it said.
The contract is said to have “never been signed”
Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly reiterated Friday that the contract in question should never have been initialed by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) officials.
“It is indeed very worrying. In fact, our independent civil service should never have signed that contract. […] National security issues are expected to be at the heart of every decision we make,” she said during Question Time in the House of Commons.
“Why is Beijing’s interference important when it’s in the media? ‘ began conservative Luc Berthold, who had previously asked whether this blunder testified to ‘willful blindness’ or ‘the impact of China’s influence on the prime minister’s office’.
defense treaties too
The Canadian Department of Defense has awarded Sinclair several contracts over the past decade, including one last year to supply antennas to Canada’s two main naval bases: Halifax and Esquimalt, British Columbia.
The other orders were placed prior to Hytera’s acquisition of Norsat in 2017.
Sinclair spokeswoman Martine Cardozo declined to comment on the matter Thursday, other than saying Aurora’s business is “a completely independent entity.”
China of all debates
China’s meddling in Canada is the subject of much debate on Ottawa Hill these days.
About a month ago, the Global News Network reported that the Chinese government had unleashed an extensive campaign of foreign interference here at home, including through an underground network of at least 11 federal candidates in the 2019 federal election.
The Canadian spy agency has reportedly uncovered that the Chinese consulate in Toronto ran a program to smuggle funds to a network of at least 11 election candidates – liberals and conservatives alike – and Beijing activists who were in their campaign jobs, according to Global News.
The topic of secret police stations on Canadian soil continues to cause a stir.
With Agence France-Presse and The Canadian Press