Feds Allowed Chinese Forces to Attend ‘Military Sciences’ Conference in Canada: Report

People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers march next to the entrance to the Forbidden City (L) after the opening session of the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on May 22, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

Personnel from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were reportedly given permission to attend an international “military sciences” conference in October 2021 hosted by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) at Canada’s largest military college in Kingston, Ont.

The Chinese military sent a request to the Royal Military College (RMC) in late September 2021 asking if some of its personnel could virtually attend the meeting, according to the National Post.

“Resilience and cohesion in the face of new forms of disruption” was the theme of the RCM’s conference to which the PLA requested access. One of the conference’s sessions was centred on “China and Russia’s information space attacks on democracy.”

The request came just days after Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were released from Chinese captivity on Sept. 25, 2021. Korvig and Spavor were detained for nearly two years on charges of espionage by the Chinese regime, in what was widely viewed as a case of “hostage diplomacy” by Beijing.

The PLA’s attendance request was referred to the deputy minister of the Department of National Defence (DND) and was eventually approved.

“We were not very pleased by the request, but it’s an open conference,” Pierre Jolicoeur, the RMC professor who chaired the event, told the National Post.

“The answer was quickly taken—Yes ... We want to promote contact between different cultures and different knowledge and people with different perspectives.”

No existing records reflect that PLA officers actually attended the event and DND said that all information discussed during the conference was open-sourced.

Canada’s former ambassador to China David Mulroney reacted to the Post’s report, saying that leaving engagement with China to the discretion of various federal departments leads to “chaos.”

“We’ll have chaos as long as individual departments and the [CAF] run their own (self-serving) China policies,” he wrote in a Twitter post on Nov. 15.

“As long as China is engaging in genocide/crimes against humanity, Ottawa should tell the PLA to stay home.”

Security Concerns

The Chinese military’s request to attend the conference came less than a year after it was reported that DND had invited PLA officials to observe winter training sessions for the Canadian military in Petawawa, Ont.

Chinese forces had been invited by CAF to observe the sessions after members of the Canadian military had been permitted to observe PLA winter training exercises in 2018.

“The [Canadian Army] deployed a team of four observers from the Canadian Army Advanced Warfare Centre to China,” read a Twitter post by the Canadian Army on Feb. 9, 2018. “The Chinese PLA accepted a reciprocal invitation from the CA to observe winter survival training in Petawawa.”

CAF cancelled its reciprocal invitation to China after the U.S. military raised security concerns about it, saying China’s observations could lead to “undesired knowledge transfer.”

This past spring, DND said Chinese fighter jets “dangerously” harassed a Canadian military plane flying in international airspace near Japan. The RCAF’s CP-140 Aurora Maritime Patrol Aircraft was deployed on a month-long mission between April 26 and May 26 as part of an international effort supporting United Nations sanctions against North Korea.

In a statement issued June 1, DND said “several interactions” occurred between Chinese military jets and the RCAF’s patrol aircraft.

“In some instances, the RCAF aircrew felt sufficiently at risk that they had to quickly modify their own flight path in order to increase separation and avoid a potential collision with the intercepting aircraft,” read the statement.

China and the Arctic

Experts have warned that Beijing has a strategic military interest in the Arctic region, with former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying last month that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is on a path toward confrontation with the United States by pursuing its objectives in the region.

“Make no mistake about it, the CCP has deep, strategic military intentions in the Arctic,” he said in an interview with the Hudson Institute, a think tank where Pompeo is a senior fellow.

Pompeo said the CCP is encroaching on the Arctic region as part of a wider effort to secure military and economic security against the West.

MPs on the House of Commons national defence committee have also recently heard from experts saying that China has become increasingly interested in the Arctic over the past few years.

CAF’s Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen. Wayne Eyre, predicted at a committee meeting on Oct. 18 that China would challenge Canada in the Arctic in about 20 years, but an associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary thinks it will be sooner.

“The time periods are so short, which means the problem is not 20 years. [The Chinese] are doing the capabilities studies right now,” Robert Huebert told the national defence committee on Oct. 25.

“I agree with General Eyre, the Chinese will be a threat. I disagree with his timeline. I think it will be much more immediate than what he is expecting.”

The committee further heard in early November from the deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) that Canada’s ability to detect any potential Chinese Arctic incursions is “very limited.”

“The North Warning System is very limited in its ability to actually detect the current threat presented by Russia right now and China in the future,” Lt. Gen. Alain Pelletier told the committee Nov. 1, adding that the system is in need of immediate upgrading.

“Russia and China, as well as other countries, are increasingly interested in the Arctic,” he said.

Noé Chartier, Mimi Nguyen Ly, and Omid Ghoreishi contributed to this report.