Check It Out: Do we want a ‘made in China’ influence?
By Joan Janzen
Saw this witty note the other day: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the rest was made in China.”
Lately we’re not just seeing ‘made in China’ products on store shelves, but we’re also hearing about China’s increasing influence on our country. Since it doesn’t appear to directly affect our everyday lives, we may be inclined to ignore the topic, which is exactly what the federal government would like us to do.
“It’s obvious the Liberals are seeking to wait out the scandal, hoping to just get through each day and wait for public attention to turn elsewhere.” Spencer Fernando observed in a March 14 article. Although they may want us to become weary of hearing about China’s influence in our elections, their influence extends far beyond that one example.
Andrew Lawton, made the following observation on his show - The Andrew Lawton Show. “This isn’t an isolated occurrence; China is meddling in pretty much every western institution imaginable. You see China’s hands in scientific research, over the academic world, in politics, and certainly the media,” Lawton said. He noted anyone raising concerns regarding an MP getting support from China, either directly or indirectly, is accused of being a racist. “It’s an effective way for China to neutralize itself from criticism.”
Lawton spoke to his guest, Patricia Adams. Adams is executive director of Probe International. Probe International is an independent advocacy group that fights to stop ill-conceived aid, trade projects, and foreign investments. Adams is the author of numerous books, many of which cover the topic of China. She spoke about China’s endeavours to penetrate a number of Canadian institutions.
“It starts at the international level and goes right down to the municipal levels of various countries (not just Canada),” she said. “They are essentially following a strategy of destabilization so they can wield influence in countries like Canada. They want to get into parliament, legislatures, and city councils, who will make decisions that are favourable to them.”
Adams described it as a very clever strategy. Rather than being aggressive, they insinuate themselves into a country, and get friendly, especially friendly with elected representatives. They are seeking representatives who will come up with policies that are friendly to China.
“For example in Canada, they wanted Huawei to have the 5G network, invest in critical minerals, have various contracts with the federal government so they can monitor activity; they’ve done very well in Canada,” she explained.
She sited the example, when a year or two ago China was running the visa office in Beijing. “So anyone applying for visas coming from China would be well known to the Beijing police, who were the owners of the company that were providing the visa,” she explained. “So they have a lot of different ways to insinuate themselves, and universities is a very powerful way they can steal technology.”
“The bottom line is if we don’t have control over our elections, we don’t have control of our country. It’s clear that something very, very serious is going on,” Adams concluded.
For the last decade or more, China has been promoting the popularity of smart cities. A January 19, 2023 article by Olivia Lai, described smart cities in China. In the article she says, Shanghai’s reputation as one of the top smart cities in the world, largely comes down to the Citizen Cloud. This public service platform is a one-stop point for over 1000 different services for city residents, including personal information, medical and health care, transportation, social security, community life, tourism and leisure. Residents can also use it to store documentation such as ID cards, business and driving licences, residence permits, and marriage certificates.
In another of China’s cities people pay with their faces by scanning a QR code and face identification on their smartphones when they purchase goods and services. The cities also feature unmanned retail outlets and restaurants.
All are promoted for their convenience. But they have one thing in common - government control of the population. All money, shopping, travel, entertainment, and carbon footprint are tracked and monitored by a digital ID. Now we are seeing smart cities pop up in Canada.
Canadians consume a wealth of ‘made in China’ products. But I don’t believe we want our culture and lifestyles to resemble those that are ‘made in China’.
We’re living in an era when it is easy to become weary and disillusioned with the effectiveness of standing up for what we know to be the right course of action. But history has repeatedly proven that it’s the people who don’t give up who get positive results.
If you have any comments or suggestions, you can contact me at joanjanzen@yahoo.com.