For both Canada and Taiwan, China is the No. 1 cyber-attack hazard in terms of scope and resources.Dado Ruvic/Reuters
Canada has posted a cyber attaché at its unofficial embassy in Taiwan as Ottawa deepens co-operation with Taipei over combatting computer hacking and disinformation, a significant amount of which originates in China.
For both Canada and Taiwan, China is the No. 1 cyberattack hazard in terms of scope and resources. Canada’s cyberspy agency, the Communications Security Establishment, in a new report last week identified the People’s Republic of China as “the most comprehensive cyber security threat facing Canada today.”
This co-operation is part of a quietly blossoming security and intelligence relationship between Canada and Taiwan, which is grappling with increasing efforts by China to diplomatically isolate the self-governing democracy and is resisting Beijing’s efforts to annex it. China has staged military exercises around the island more than 10 times since 2018.
Canada, which does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, has traditionally been very cautious about anything that might resemble co-operation on security matters with Taipei. Its official position is that it neither endorses nor challenges Beijing’s claim that the island is an “inalienable part” of China. There is no defence attaché for instance, at Canada’s de facto embassy in Taipei.
In January, Ottawa quietly dispatched officials to Taipei to study disinformation operations – many conducted by China – at work in Taiwan’s presidential election campaign. This vote returned the China-skeptical Democratic Progressive Party to the president’s office for an unprecedented third term. Canadian officials wrote up a report for both Ottawa and Taipei on their findings.
Canada is also increasingly helping supply Taiwan’s security buildup. Exports of Canadian military goods and technology to Taiwan, which require explicit approval and permits from the federal government before they can ship, rose to $32.6-million last year, according to Global Affairs’ latest report. That’s the highest on record since Ottawa started publishing military exports data in 1990.
And last November, a high-volume Taiwanese company, E-One Moli Energy Corp., staked a major position in Canada’s growing electric-battery supply chain with a $1-billion plant expansion in B.C. to make lithium-ion cells.
In December, 2023, Canada and Taiwan signed a landmark investment pact that upgrades relations by granting legal protection to business investors in each other’s jurisdiction. The foreign investment promotion and protection agreement offers assurances that a Taiwanese or Canadian investment will not be compromised or appropriated without due process and compensation.
Beijing’s Communist Party considers Taiwan a breakaway province despite the fact it has never ruled the island, where defeated national forces retreated after losing the Chinese civil war more than 70 years ago. China seeks to annex the island of 24 million and will not rule out using force.
The cyber attaché's job in Taipei will include collaborating with Taiwanese government departments on cybersecurity and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). Harry Tseng, the top Taiwanese envoy in Canada, said he thinks Canada seeks to learn from Taiwan’s experience combatting disinformation.
Asked for comment, the Department of Global Affairs said it’s dispatched cyber attachés to five cities in the Indo-Pacific.
“Through the Indo-Pacific Strategy, Canada is committed to enhancing and diversifying its security partnerships and building its cyber diplomacy, especially as concerns over foreign interference, state-sponsored disinformation, cybersecurity and cybercrime have become increasingly significant,” Global Affairs spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod said in a statement.
Cyber attachés are also being posted in Canberra, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo, Ms. MacLeod said, “to deepen partner and multilateral engagement on cyber and digital issues” and monitor developments in the region. China is notably absent from this list of deployments.
Taiwan, of course, is different from Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Japan. Canada has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but like many Western countries, it is building increasingly robust informal ties.
Canada’s One-China policy has governed relations with Beijing and Taipei since October, 1970, when then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau switched diplomatic recognition to the Communist-led People’s Republic of China from the Taiwan-based Republic of China.
It would be close to 20 years later, before Canada opened an unofficial embassy in Taipei, mirroring similar moves by other Western countries. Canada’s top envoy in Taipei, although a veteran diplomat, is not referred to as an ambassador and the mission is called the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.
In September, Richard Fadden, a former national-security adviser to two prime ministers who also once headed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, led a contingent of former Canadian security and defence officials on a trip to Taiwan, an unprecedented level of engagement between Taiwan and a group of private citizens who previously held senior jobs in the top echelons of Canada’s government, security agencies and military.
Mr. Fadden believes there is a growing acceptance in Ottawa that it needs to push back at China’s increasingly aggressive conduct on Taiwan and that, should Beijing succeed in annexing Taiwan, it would only embolden the Chinese government elsewhere. “Taiwan is a bellwether,” he said.
Mr. Fadden said he believes Ottawa has decided “there’s more flexibility” within Canada’s One-China policy and “we’re going to push back.”
He said Canada will not publicize these efforts however, similar to how it never announced the cyber attaché position or collaboration with Taiwan over presidential election disinformation.
“I don’t think they’re going to make a big fuss about it, because the objective is not to poke China in the eye,” Mr. Fadden said. “The objective is to broaden our support for Taiwan, both bilaterally and multilaterally.”