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Canadians worried about Chinese industrial espionage

Canada is concerned about Chinese spies stealing its industrial and high-tech secrets, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told CTV in an interview due to be broadcast yesterday.

"We're very concerned about economic espionage," MacKay said in the pre-recorded interview with the political pundits program Question Period, CTV announced on Saturday.

"It would appear, based on evidence and reporting, that there is a fair bit of activity here," he said.

"It is something we want to signal that we want to address, and to continue to raise with the Chinese at the appropriate time," he said.

Foreign affairs officials, however, refused to say what, if any, action would be taken by Canada on this matter.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives, while in opposition last year, had pressed the former Liberal government to crack down on 1,000 suspected Chinese agents and informants in Canada, many of them visiting students, scientists and businesspeople.

The figure was alleged by Chen Yonglin (陳用林), former first secretary at the Chinese consulate general in Sydney, and policeman Hao Fengjun (郝鳳軍). Both defected and sought asylum in Australia last year.

Chinese officials in Canada denied the allegations.

Then deputy prime minister Anne McLellan said former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin had "discussed issues of sovereignty and other issues when he was in China" months earlier for a leaders' summit.

But a retired counterintelligence official who once headed Canada's Asia desk told CTV the former Liberal government refused to act on the information because it feared it would "piss off or annoy the Chinese."

"[China is] too much of an important market," said Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agent.

CSIS spokeswoman Barbara Campion said that "Canada is an attractive target for less developed nations", but she refused to name which countries are known to have operatives there.
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