Organizers of a Taiwan summit of international parliamentarians, including one Canadian, say they have suffered meddling attempts by the People’s Republic of China.Independent Toronto MP Kevin Vuong, who claims he was attacked in a Chinese interference scheme during the 2021 federal election, attended the recent Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) met in Taipei. The 49 parliamentarians from 24 countries endorsed a motion to re-examine the United Nations resolution in 1971 that effectively barred Taiwan from U.N. membership.Ambassador Harry Tseng, Taiwan’s top diplomat in Ottawa, told Sam Cooper of The Bureau that IPAC participants feel Beijing’s displeasure. “Since its formation, IPAC leaders and members have faced substantial pressure from the Chinese government, with many of its members subjected to sanctions by Beijing,” Tseng said.IPAC claims eight lawmakers from at least five “global south” countries were contacted by Chinese diplomats before they departed for Taipei."Some discovered their party leadership had been contacted to exert additional pressure. One lawmaker was specifically invited to travel to the PRC rather than to Taipei," IPAC stated.In an interview with The Guardian, IPAC director Luke de Pulford said Beijing asked some delegates to hold meetings during the IPAC summit to “express to them why they shouldn’t wade into the Taiwan question.” De Pulford called this “seriously assertive” and “massively overstepping.”CSIS’s investigations into Chinese election interference have also noted Beijing’s efforts to block Canadian MPs from engagement with Taiwan. CSIS investigators found that Liberal Cabinet Minister Mary Ng’s staff allegedly privately met with a Toronto Consulate official regarding China-Taiwan related issues.That Chinese diplomat, Wei Zhao, was deported last year after reports emerged that Zhao and Chinese intelligence had targeted the family of Conservative MP Michael Chong, a critic of the Chinese regime.“We believe Wei Zhao worked with political staffers to provide information on the meetings of elected officials and their whereabouts,” one senior intelligence source told The Bureau. “We know staff have direction to report privately to the consulate on Mary Ng.”Ottawa’s interim report on foreign interference also notes that Vancouver NDP MP Jenny Kwan was the suspected target of Chinese interference in Canada’s 2021 election for “many public statements and taken public positions that are unfavourable to the PRC government.”Vuong, a former Canadian military officer who is ethnically Chinese, posted to Twitter (“X”): “I'm thrilled to be in Taiwan for the @IPACglobal Summit. Now, more than ever, democracies must stand together against authoritarian regimes.”Vuong has publicly alleged that Chinese threat networks in Toronto were involved in attacks on his reputation, and revelations of a withdrawn sexual assault complaint were part of China’s election interference in 2021. The allegations against Beijing are not beyond the realm of possibility, given other revelations. .Department of Justice filings say from September 2021 to March 2022 an MSS agent named Qiming Li directed proxies including an American private investigator (PI) to target a New York election candidate described only as “a former student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests from 1989, who later escaped to the United States and served in the US military.”In December 2021, Lin allegedly told the American PI: “In the end, violence would be fine too. Huh?”“Beat him, beat him until he cannot run for election,” Lin said in a voicemail. “Car accident, [he] will be completely wrecked, right? Whatever ways from all different angles. Or, on the day of the election, he cannot make it there himself, right?”One month prior, Lin instructed the American investigator to use “cops, or lawyers, or the courts” to dig up compromising material on the candidate.“Lin specified that ‘flaws’ could include ‘unreported, unpaid taxes’ or ‘extramarital affairs; uh, sexual harassment; or child porn; eh, [homosexual activity], things of that nature,” DOJ legal filings said.When those efforts failed, Lin directed his team in New York to entrap the candidate.“Go find a girl. Or see how he goes for prostitution, take some photos, something of that nature,” he told the PI.Wiretaps revealed plans to hire a woman for $40,000 “to volunteer to be part of [the candidate’s] election staff in order to ‘have a relationship with him’ and then ‘record the transaction between the two of them.’”
