Host: Dennis Molinaro is a former national security analyst and policy adviser for the Canadian federal government, and the author of Under Assault Interference in Espionage in China's Secret War Against Canada. And he joins us in studio. How are you doing, sir?

Very well. How are you?

I'm doing great. Let's start with a little history lesson here. You say in your book that China's covert actions against Canada go back over 50 years to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. What's the story there?

Oh, there's a story. Yeah. So it goes back really to the time when the PRC, the People's Republic of China, was looking to get recognised by the world and the Communist Party wanted their government recognised as the sole government in charge of China. And so what I learned from declassified documents was essentially one of the principal actors of that era. An individual named Paul Lin was very influential in speaking out in terms of recognition of China that it needed to happen, trying to meet with government members of government, academics, policymakers of all kinds internationally. And it turns out through the records that he was actually an agent of influence, as the RCMP put it, for China. And that really started to change the story of when did interference and influence start? I mean, because it started to look like it was a lot earlier than we may have thought.

When we talk about interference, I want to make sure we distinguish. How do we distinguish between foreign interference versus, say, lobbying.

The covert aspect is the main element, right? So when when something is covert and being done behind closed doors, that's when it changes from something that is really open and legitimate type of lobbying work. When it shifts into the covert space, it becomes generally could be more nefarious. And so that's really what we're looking at is nefarious activity that is at the behest of a foreign state.

Give me an example.

Sure. So, well, you could think about trying to influence a community leader to not speak out against China in some way if we're talking about China, which we are today. So trying to influence community members not to. So somebody could be covertly doing that for the PRC, for China, within Canada, not declaring that activity so secretly working for the state and harassing dissidents or harassing people could be influencing politicians to take a certain policy line, could be stealing intellectual property by getting into partnerships.

Dennis, most viewers and listeners may be familiar with the allegations around election interference, but what other areas has China targeted?

So as I mentioned, a little bit of other areas like research partnerships. So it would be trying to partner with a Chinese institution or company, maybe that's got a state linked influence, trying to partner with academics, trying to form partnership agreements for research and for funding. And behind the scenes, there are clauses to turn over intellectual property. So that's that's another way of trying to influence and trying to gain tactical advantage for China.

When we talk about trade and interference, what does that look like?

Trade is is another one that has a long history in terms of the PRC looking to build trade linkages, which would give them access to different technologies. Again, intellectual property over time, but also in this case, if we're talking about trade in the present modern day era, then we're talking about potentially PRC EVs, right? So the risks here start to become one. Chinese goods and technologies that are strategic, entering into