“It is very, very upsetting to me and to our organization,” Leung said. “This is all about expanding the Communist party’s influence and expanding their capabilities in Canada, in all those agreements, for transnational repression, political interference and disinformation.”
The proposed collaborations can be made to seem quite benign. They’re all about “people-to-people ties and cultural exchanges,” investment in museums, support for “digital content creators” and “visual artists,” heritage, education, “travel exchanges and cultural ties” and cooperation in the “creative industries” deep down into the “sub-national” level. But these are precisely the methods Beijing employs to extend the global reach of its “soft-power” operations in targeted countries.
