Documentary at Ottawa Film Festival Probes China’s ‘Trojan Horse’

Once a senior intelligence officer and manager with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Michel Juneau-Katsuya doesn’t mince words when it comes to China’s Confucius Institutes.

“They’re spies, period,” Juneau-Katsuya said.

“There are many countries and many intelligence services that concur with our conclusions that, unfortunately, this was a Trojan horse.”

Directed by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Doris Liu, the film, which also features interviews with Juneau-Katsuya, shows the controversies around one of China’s largest overseas soft-power initiatives.

The Confucius Institute (CI), promoted as a Chinese language and cultural program, was a way “to collect information in order, eventually, for intelligence officers to target certain individuals that went to that institute to study,” said Juneau-Katsuya.

Zhao is a practitioner of Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, a Chinese spiritual discipline persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She revealed that she and other CI teachers were required to sign a contract stating they would not be involved in any activity the communist regime disapproves of, including practising Falun Gong.

Liu said invitations to participate on the post-film panel were also extended to representatives from Ottawa’s Carleton University, which hosts a CI; however, no Carleton representatives accepted. Carleton is among 12 educational institutions or departments across Canada that host a CI, including the Edmonton Public School Board, New Brunswick Department of Education, Coquitlam School District, University of Waterloo, Brock University, University of Saskatchewan, British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Seneca College, Dawson College, University of Windsor, Saint Mary’s University, and University of Regina.

Kilgour, who lives in Ottawa, said he finds it outrageous that Carleton has a CI. “What’s even worse for me is—I’m from Edmonton—the Edmonton Public School Board has a CI.”

In an emailed response to The Epoch Times, a Carleton spokesperson said the university “values the academic partnership with the Confucius Institute established in April 2012.”

The statement continues: “Carleton doesn’t seek to limit the expressions of divergent viewpoints. ...There is zero evidence that anything prejudicial has been or is being taught in courses sponsored by the institute.”

Juneau-Katsuya said the Chinese have developed a “mass collection process” and try to use influential people to collect information.

“The concepts of manipulating the mind and propaganda have been around for quite a long period of time,” he said. “Thankfully, in our institutions—and Carleton [University] is one of them—we develop critical thinking, and we need to be capable to balance those things.”

“But, and I’ll stop here, from an intelligence point of view, we do have evidence of spy activity and people being targeted after they took a course because they’ve shown interest in China, and that was a way to approach them in a way other than by an intelligence officer,” Juneau-Katsuya said. “The evidence is there.”

The Ontario Ministry of Education gave me an email response; it did not mention any of the concerns, but rather talked about the good, strong relationship between Ontario and China, and said China is a very important partner, which I agree. I agree, but the question is how we engage China.

In B.C., I reached out to one CI hosted by the Coquitlam District School Board ... and reached out to the Ministry of Education in B.C. … [They] said that the ministry had no role in regulating CIs in the Coquitlam School Board, because CI offers weekend and after-school classes, so according to B.C.s school act the ministry would have no say in that program. Again [they] did not respond to any of the concerns, particularly the human rights concerns.

This movie is not an anti-Chinese movie or anti-Chinese culture. Who doesn’t want to learn a foreign language? Who doesn’t want to learn a foreign culture? This is a richness, a gold mine that everybody should try to explore. Unfortunately, within the strategy of the Chinese government was to be capable, under the cloak of friendship, to be able to infiltrate other forms of activities.

The CSIS, which I served for 21 years, which I mentioned—I was in charge of watching what was coming from Asia, not only China, Korea, Malaysia, you name it.

The Confucius Institutes are not [only] being watched by the Canadians. There are many countries and many intelligence services that concur with our conclusions—that unfortunately, this was a Trojan horse. This was a way to bring intelligence officers or to collect information in order, eventually, for intelligence officers to target certain individuals that went to that institute to study, with the right intentions. But that was part of their game.

And again, this is my game, this is my role, what I’ve been doing for so many years. I’m a spook.  That’s what we try to do. We try to understand what the opponent is trying to achieve. And this is what we’ve been capable to uncover.

Now, since what we’ve done in Toronto, since the movie came out, we’ve seen the Chinese government is starting to change its strategy. Not necessarily it’s methodology, but just the strategy, trying to achieve the same thing differently. That’s part of the game and it’s going to go on and on and on for quite a while.

But the question of what the Canadian government is doing about all this, … they expect CSIS to be capable to report and to warn, as much as possible, but there’s an ambivalence with the Canadian government because we want to do business with China … and a lot of elected officials will be lured and seduced by the idea of going to work with China. And they [China] are good—they’re darn good at seducing and wining and dining.

[One person] said that in the movie, he said that. You know, when you argue, “wine and dine me” and stuff like that you’ve got caught like a fish. Exactly, this is the way they do it. It worked. It worked to the point where, did you see on his desk all the Chinese little things that he has there? These are expensive gifts. These are indicators that we look for when we want to see if somebody has been compromised. And there’s a lot of people who get compromised without even realizing because they love China, they love the language. This is a country with a millennia culture, they have so much culture, they have brought so much to the world and to history and at the same time they’re darn good. Really good.

There are alternatives that can teach us about Chinese culture or Chinese language. It would be sad indeed that the Canadians be duped to the point of missing exactly the threat that is in front of us.

CSIS is not in the business of culture or language or anything like this. We don’t compete with other institutions. What we do is we try to protect the Canadian government. When we collect evidence, evidence that is supported by other intelligence services, that certain activities are actually a masquerade in order to be capable to perform a greater harm to our organization or our country, that’s where we step in, stuff like that.

[Referring to comments from an audience member that he had a good experience taking courses through CI at Carleton University,] I’m certain you had a wonderful experience when you took your classes, just like this gentleman [in the film] who went abroad and was wined and dined. He had a wonderful trip as well. When it comes to the trips abroad we say in French, “une voyage puisque la vie,” and it’s really, really important because it forms your experience and your life. But if the trip is organized by a certain organization and they show you what they want you to see, and they tell you what they want you to hear, and they get you to understand only what they want you to understand, in that perspective we might have a little bit of a challenge.

The concepts of manipulating the mind and propaganda have been around for quite a long period of time. Thankfully, in our institutions, and Carleton [University] is one of them, we develop critical thinking and we need to be capable to balance those things and everything. But, and I’ll stop here, from an intelligence point of view, we do have evidence of spy activity and people being targeted after they took a course because they’ve shown interest in China and that was a way to approach them in a way other than by an intelligence officer. The evidence is there.

We are so dismayed, there is only one government in the world that does this to my knowledge, and that government is [the government of] China. … That’s the kind of barbaric regime that’s operating there.

We all respect the culture of China. … The people are wonderful, the government is despicable. As long as we get something like CIs going around hoodwinking naive people...we’re going to have this...Why is there a CI at Carleton? How come the University of Pennsylvania kicked them out...University of British Columbia... Why doesn’t Carleton have the backbone to kick them out too? … It’s an absolute outrage that Carleton University should have a CI. What’s even worse for me is, I’m from Edmonton, the Edmonton Public School Board has a CI.

I was a Chinese-language journalist before I made this film. I worked in GTA, so I know that very well. Chinese firms are thinking to buy our Canadian energy sectors as well. Our current prime minister, I think is very happy about that, engaging China to do that, which I do have concerns.

I am Chinese myself. I came to Canada 12 years ago. [If anyone wanted] to learn Chinese language and culture that would [make me so happy]. That’s my own language and culture. I would encourage everyone to learn that, because we have 5,000 years of history and culture, which we all as human beings can benefit from. But the question is at what cost—what price we are paying to learn that. Is there another alternative than CI where we can also learn Chinese language and culture, and perhaps learn better Chinese culture?  The issue of culture is another issue, I haven’t got time to explore that area of CI in my film, that’s a big topic.

To put that topic into context, we all know China endured a 10-year cultural revolution during the 1960s to 1970s. During those 10 years, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, Chinese traditional culture [was] destroyed, traditional Buddhism, Taoism, religions,  architecture, arts, music, you name it, all forms of culture and heritage [were rooted out] and destroyed mostly. I was born in the 70s, and I am regretful that I couldn’t have a chance to experience such authentic Chinese culture.

When we welcome CI on our own campus, like McMaster University did, .. that means you give your prestige, you give your stage to a foreign government on your campus to dictate what to be taught, who teaches you.

Perhaps the situation at Carleton’s CI is a little bit different. They have their own steering council, they do not really use Chinese textbooks [textbooks from China], they say they have academic independence.

But the thing is, look at the situation happening at McMaster, they didn’t want to close the CI. They spent a good year to negotiate, to discuss with Chinese partners, which is Hanban in China [as well as a Chinese university], who sent them the teachers. They wanted the Chinese partner to withdraw that discriminatory hiring policy, but they failed. They couldn’t do that. Because they say CI have to comply with both Chinese and Canadian law, that’s in the contract. Even though the Chinese law does not have any clause that say you need to discriminate against people who practice Falun Gong, but the reality is practitioners of Falun Gong are not only discriminated against, but also killed in China, and they carry that policy into our campuses.

Even though Chinese teachers at Carleton University’s CI don’t practice Falun Gong, they may say I am not a Falun Gong practitioner, I am not discriminated against by this policy, but every teacher sent to your campus is hired under that policy. Would you say that is non-discriminatory? So even that—regardless of any other concerns with academic freedom or other propaganda material, censorship, self-censorship, espionage— just think about this discrimination [aspect], I would argue, think about it twice.

It’s different if CIs [operate] independently, outside of our campuses, outside of our universities.  We have an open and free society, you can come into our land, but don’t use our name.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in my years in my field from the Chinese is that the Chinese understand one thing a long, long time ago, which is that influence is much more powerful than control.

So somewhere, somehow, you’ve got to work hard, to study hard, and observe for a long period of time to understand. But the notion of them influence is central into their strategy. If I am capable to influence a person to the point where I can now control that person, I already won everything. This is what the Chinese have been trying with these officials. Trying to sort of lure them, seduce them, bribe them, and successfully go there.

Even the previous government, the Conservative government, Mr. Harper was hard like a rock, was able to let himself be influenced. He sold a company in Alberta, a $15 billion oil and gas company. Try, as a Canadian company, as any company, a foreign company, to go buy an energy company in China. It’ll never happen. It’ll never happen because they [know] the importance of that.

I’m a Canadian citizen. If I want to call the premier of Alberta, if I want to call the prime minister of Canada, I’ll probably be put on hold and stay on hold for quite a long time. If I’m a Chinese company controlled by the Chinese government by the way, who just bought for $15 billion a company in Alberta, and I call, I’m put through. This is the notion of influence [China] understood a long time ago. This is the risk that we are facing.

I welcome discussion. The purpose of making this film is to bring the issue to the attention of the public and educators and government. Unfortunately, it’s very very challenging for me to get access to the other side of the story. If you are so confident, why not respond to [those concerns], because they are not small concerns, they are not small amounts of concerns … You should address it; you should respond to those serious concerns. I am not saying you should close today, CI, I really encourage you, any educational institutions [to respond and re-consider].

Carleton values the academic partnership with the Confucius Institute established in April 2012.  The university is open to all languages and cultures and we value the different opinions expressed by faculty members and students. Carleton doesn’t seek to limit the expressions of divergent viewpoints.

There is zero evidence that anything prejudicial has been or is being taught in courses sponsored by the institute.

All of the institute’s activities and programs are in keeping with Carleton’s academic mission and the stated purpose of the Confucius Institute, which is to serve as a platform to explore the growing relationship between China and Canada.