While Beijing’s election interference in Canada has dominated media headlines in recent weeks, Chinese diasporas who have been raising the alarm for years have remained “unheard and erased,” said a rights advocate.

“When the diaspora resists Beijing’s transnational controls, dissidents’ tires are slashed, activists are harassed and threatened, international students’ study permits are declined, and passport applications are rejected,” Ai-Men Lau, adviser to Alliance Canada Hong Kong (ACHK), said while testifying on Beijing’s foreign interference to the House ethics committee on March 10.

“I also want to take this opportunity to urge policymakers to rebuild trust with diaspora communities, many of whom have felt long unheard and erased,” she added.

Recently, China made headlines for a series of alleged foreign interference activities that include meddling in the 2019 and 2021 elections, setting off a surveillance balloon that trespassed North American airspace, and operating clandestine Chinese police stations on Canadian soil—occasions that have prompted Ottawa to summon the Chinese ambassador.

However, public discourse continues to leave out “important cultural insight from the [Chinese] diaspora communities” who have first-hand knowledge and ability to differentiate between a target of foreign influence, an active Chinese agent, and someone with ties to the Chinese consulate, said ACHK executive director Cherie Wong.

She told MPs on the ethics committee, which previously convened to discuss anti-Asian hate, that it’s a fallacy to believe all Chinese or Asian Canadians are siding with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its diplomatic consulates, which reportedly orchestrated the election interference, according to a recent Globe and Mail report.

“The notion that all ethnic Chinese communities are supporters of the Chinese authorities is racist and reductive. These communities are not a monolith, but are vibrant and diverse in language, culture, and politics,” Wong said.

Wong, who has first-hand experience of Beijing’s harassment and intimidation when she spoke out against the CCP and advocated for democracy in Hong Kong, also noted that while Chinese diasporas are the primary targets of foreign interference operations, Beijing also “targets all persons of influence and many Canadians are unaware of their tactics.”

China’s foreign interference operations are part of a modern form of warfare dubbed “unrestricted warfare”—a concept coined in a 1999 book of the same name, published by two Chinese military officials. Contrary to conventional military confrontation, the book depicted how political, economic, and psychological tools can be leveraged to advance its interests.

Vancouver, B.C., is “the beachhead” for the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) unrestricted warfare, said Bill Chu of the Chinese-Canadian Concern Group on the Chinese Communist Party’s Human Rights Violations.

“No soldiers are required to be transported in as the idea is to convert locals into [the CCP’s] foot soldiers,” Chu said. “Through WeChat and other things, PRC has been silently sending official news and directives to tens of thousands of Chinese students and immigrants here.”

He noted that the world has for decades underestimated China until it experienced an economic boom after joining the World Trade Organization in the early 2000s.

“The world has since been bamboozled by its rocket-like rise that most forgot PRC is a one-party authoritarian state, which outlaws ideological pluralism,” Chu said.

“So communism should never be mixed up, even by the self-proclaimed progressives, as a legitimate choice, since accepting it ironically means no more choice.”