Under Assault

Amidst heightened tensions between Western nations and China, Canadians have found themselves astonished by hostage crises, cyberattacks, harassment of members of our government, and theft of intellectual property worth untold billions of dollars. From PM Pierre Trudeau's earliest journeys through the 'Middle Kingdom' prior to his election to Parliament in the 1960s, the communist government of the People's Republic of China has perceived Canada as a staging ground for spying on and pressuring its ultimate target, the United States. As Canada's first tech giant, Nortel, was plundered of intellectual property by digital spies; as Canada was manipulated into advocating against the independence of Taiwan, infuriating our closest ally; and as Chinese Canadians were targeted in the country where they thought they d escaped Mao's terrors, Canada's leaders have too often seen only what they want to see in China: an emerging market of inestimable value, and fertile soil for democratic change for a long-tyrannized people. Generations of Communist leadership have gladly allowed Canada's government to labour under these misapprehensions, even when the evidence of China's spying, theft, and harassment of Canadian citizens has been happening right before its eyes. Canada has rarely allowed itself to believe what the rest of the world has long understood. Thoroughly researched and guided by the author's experience as a historian and China specialist, and informed by numerous interviews with generations of politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats, as well as members of diaspora communities targeted by China who have endured this harassment for too long, Under Siege is a timely, eye-opening account of a country compromised by its own illusions in a time of rising global conflict.

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