Conservative Rep. Michael Chong, who has been the target of China’s disinformation and intimidation campaigns, has been invited by U.S. lawmakers to testify before Congress.
He is scheduled to appear before the Congressional Executive Commission on China on September 12, according to the CBC.
“This doesn’t happen every day,” commented the MP for Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.
The message I want to convey is that cross-border oppression by authoritarian states like [la Chine] “This is happening in Canada and other democratic countries,” he told CBC. This oppression affects not just people like me, but hundreds if not thousands of Canadians who suffer in silence and whose cases do not make the headlines.
[Je témoignerai] That we as democracies must work more closely together against this oppression, he added.
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The Chinese Embassy building in Ottawa
Photo: The Canadian Press / Justin Tang
The Ontario MP has been targeted by Beijing more than once
Members of the U.S. commission contacted Mr. Chong after reading media reports that his family had been intimidated by Beijing.
On August 9, Global Affairs Canada reported the discovery of a coordinated disinformation campaign against Mr. Chong on the Chinese social network WeChat.
Based on CSIS documents, the Globe and Mail reported last May that the Conservative lawmaker and his extended family in Hong Kong were the subject of an intimidation campaign by the Chinese government in 2021.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau then asserted that he had never been informed of CSIS’s suspicions. However, he added that in the future the intelligence services should immediately inform MPs of any threat that incriminates them.
A few days later, Ottawa expelled the diplomat suspected of orchestrating this intimidation campaign.
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Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei has been declared persona non grata by Canada.
Photo: CBC News
Mr. Chong, who is also a conservative foreign policy critic, is a strong critic of the Chinese regime. In 2021, the MP for Wellington-Halton Hills voted for a motion that described China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority as genocide.
Beijing imposed sanctions on him the following month and banned him from entering Chinese territory.
Mr. Chong’s appearance before American elected officials comes as the United States is considering a series of laws aimed at countering threats of interference from China.
The commission, which Mr. Chong is scheduled to testify earlier, was created in 2000 as part of a landmark bill to normalize trade relations between the United States and China. In these recent reports, the Commission has been highly critical of China, particularly over its abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.
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Thousands of Uighurs interned in camps.
Photo: WeChat account of Xinjiang Judicial Administration
On Thursday, Amnesty International also condemned international inaction since the publication a year ago of a damning UN report on these violations, including the detention of more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims and the forced sterilization of women.
Other witnesses expected on September 12 include Uyghur activist Rushan Abbas, whose own sister was interned in the Xinjiang region, and Laura Harth, whose NGO Safeguard Defenders has documented the presence of more than 50 secret police stations for Chinese on the around the world, including Canada.