Zhang Bin, the Chinese billionaire and political adviser to the Communist Party of China (CPC) who made a $1 million “donation” to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, wanted to build a monument with the images of dictator Mao Zedong and former -Canadian Prime Minister at the University of Montreal.
Approximately $50,000 was originally earmarked for a statue honoring the current prime minister’s father, Justin Trudeau, which was to be built across from the university’s law school. However, Zhang reportedly proposed an amendment. “He [Zhang] suggested a statue with Trudeau and Mao together,” Geneviève O’Meara, a spokeswoman for the University of Montreal, confirmed to the Globe & Mail on Tuesday.
Zhang made the contribution after the 2015 Canadian federal election that brought Justin Trudeau to power, and attended a subsequent fundraiser in Toronto, which the prime minister was at.
Dictator Mao Zedong, also known as the Great Helmsman, was the founder of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and presided over the country from 1943 until his death in 1976. Mao imposed harmful policies on the largely agrarian country, known as the Great Leap Forward, in an attempt at rapid modernization.
“Mao thought he could catapult his country beyond its competitors by bringing together villagers across the country into gigantic people’s communes. In search of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivized. People had their jobs, homes, land, belongings and livelihoods taken from them,” explained historian Frank Dikötter in an article in the History Today.
However, the Great Leap Forward devastated the newly independent country and claimed the lives of millions of people.
“What comes out of this massive and detailed dossier is a horror tale in which Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962,” noted Dikötter.
Reports published in recent weeks by the Globe & Mail and Global News have revealed that China has engaged in a sophisticated election interference campaign in Canada ahead of the 2021 federal election, in which Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party remained in power.
Sources at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country’s equivalent of the CIA, leaked information to newspapers that Chinese diplomats made undeclared donations during Canadian political campaigns and recruited local businessmen to hire foreign students for campaign purposes, according to reports published last week.
The CCP’s main objective was to prevent the victory of the Conservative Party, which it considered to have a tougher stance on issues such as Taiwan’s sovereignty or human rights in Hong Kong compared to the ruling liberals.
“More importantly, the intelligence reports show that Beijing was determined to prevent the conservatives from winning. China employed disinformation campaigns and third parties linked to Chinese-Canadian organizations in Vancouver and Greater Toronto, which have large communities of Chinese immigrants, to express opposition to conservatives and favor Trudeau’s liberals,” wrote journalists Robert Fife and Steven Chase .
Part of the election interference effort included the dissemination of anti-conservative political messages through local Chinese-language media, including statements such as: “The Liberal Party of Canada is becoming the only party the People’s Republic of China can support.”
Prime Minister Trudeau has sought to refute calls for a public inquiry into the matter, claiming that critics are unnecessarily politicizing the issue. “It’s not about party versus party,” Trudeau said earlier this week.
Trudeau’s allies also sought to draw a parallel to recent American debates over electoral integrity. “This is the same Trump-type tactic to question future election results,” said Jennifer O’Connell, parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs.
©2023 National Review. Published with permission. Original in English.
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