Michael Chong arrives to a standing committee on foreign affairs and international development in Ottawa on May 4.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Beijing is accusing Canadian MP Michael Chong of hypocrisy for testifying before members of the U.S. Congress this week about his experiences as a target of Chinese government interference.
The Chinese embassy in Canada issued a statement following Mr. Chong’s Tuesday appearance before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, suggesting the Conservative MP’s history of criticizing China’s government itself amounts to political interference.
Mr. Chong, whose father is from Hong Kong, is the Official Opposition foreign affairs critic and has repeatedly spoken out about Beijing’s draconian crackdown on civic rights in the former British colony, its menacing of Taiwan, a self-governing territory, and the repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, a region also called East Turkestan by members of this ethnic minority.
MP Michael Chong testifies before U.S. lawmakers about being target of Chinese foreign interference
In May, the MP learned from The Globe and Mail that Beijing targeted him and his relatives in Hong Kong in the lead-up to the 2021 election, a revelation that led the federal government to expel a Chinese diplomat behind the effort. In July, the government informed Mr. Chong that he was almost certainly the target of a second disinformation campaign orchestrated by Beijing this year, around the same time Ottawa was expelling Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei.
Mr. Chong received a rare invitation to testify Tuesday before the commission, whose membership includes 18 senators and members of the House of Representatives, where he called on Canada and the United States to “name and shame” China’s authoritarian leaders as part of a co-ordinated response to Beijing’s efforts to interfere in Western democracies and bully diaspora communities.
In an e-mailed statement, the Chinese embassy responded to his testimony by accusing Mr. Chong of meddling in Chinese affairs by criticizing its human-rights record.
“A certain Canadian MP, driven by his own political interests, has long been provoking China on issues related to China’s core interests, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang related issues, flagrantly interfering in China’s internal affairs,” the embassy said. “Now, he is acting like a thief crying ‘stop thief,’ hyping up the so-called lies of ‘Chinese interference.’”
China has more than 130 diplomats accredited in Canada, among the highest delegations of any foreign mission in this country.
Mr. Chong, asked for comment on China’s response, defended his record by pointing out how China’s conduct in Hong Kong, the South China Sea and Xinjiang has been widely condemned in the West.
“The People’s Republic of China is violating international law in its crackdown on Hong Kong: by violating the Sino-British Joint Declaration,” he said, referring to the 1984 handover treaty China signed with Britain in which Beijing pledged to let Hong Kong retain autonomy over its affairs and Western-style civil liberties for 50 years. Beijing’s 2020 crackdown in Hong Kong broke that agreement, Mr. Chong said.
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“They are violating international law in the South China Sea. And they’re violating international law in their genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province,” Mr. Chong said.
China’s Xinjiang region, which produces one-fifth of the world’s cotton, has been the focus of reports by media, researchers and rights groups, who say Beijing has committed grave human-rights violations against the region’s largely Muslim Uyghur population, as well as other minority groups there. Among the alleged abuses is the widespread use of forced labour and forced birth control.
Michelle Bachelet, who was the United Nations high commissioner for human rights until August, 2022, visited Xinjiang last year. Her office’s report on the trip said China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the region may amount to crimes against humanity.