Unraveling Chinese Meddling
Takeaways, fuck-ups, and lingering questions from Canada’s investigation into Chinese meddling
MAY 23, 2023
EXCERPT from article
Attribute, attribute, attribute
I am a really big proponent for attribution. In interviews and conversations with various Canadian political and intelligence types over the years, I’ve always bemoaned that Ottawa’s aggressive penchant for secrecy actually hobbles Canada’s ability to disrupt this kind of foreign influence. If you have evidence of a coordinated effort by a hostile or adversarial power to muck up domestic politics, you have an obligation to tell the public, with the caveat that you must protect the sources and methods that provided that intelligence. Yet, time and time again, Canada hides behind secrecy, insisting that any disclosure at all would jeopardize collection methods. This, even as other countries — with more impressive intelligence services — regularly disclose and declassify much more information.
But this whole ordeal happened because of this culture of secrecy. And it has been a long and painful process.
And even if the news reports got plenty of specifics wrong, the thrust of the story is true: China ran a much more sustained and serious meddling operation in Canada than the public, or the rest of the world, ever knew.
