Liberal candidate who replaced Paul Chiang attended Chinese military parade in 2015

More evidence has surfaced of friendly ties between the Chinese government and the Liberal candidate who replaced an incumbent criticized for his own approach to China.

Peter Yuen, the party’s newly minted nominee in a Toronto-area riding, attended a massive military parade and show of martial strength in Beijing a decade ago at the invitation of a Chinese agency dedicated to influencing ethnic Chinese in other countries.

The former Toronto deputy police chief and about 75 other “overseas Chinese” from Canada were put up in a Beijing hotel, principally to watch a parade marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, stories from Chinese-language media indicate.

Another Canadian invited to the event, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity, confirmed in an interview that Yuen was among the attendees who stayed at the DoubleTree Hilton and sat on bleachers in Tiananmen Square to watch the parade pass by.

The Canadians’ accommodation and food were covered by the Chinese, said the person, who paid for his own airfare to Beijing and said others may have, too.

Canadian delegates also attended other events during the trip, including the awarding of medals to elderly veterans of the war, according to the news stories.

Such trips are a classic tactic of Beijing to woo ethnic Chinese leaders and other key foreigners, said Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China.

“That tells you all you need to know about Chinese interference in our society,” he said. “Make them feel important, make them feel honoured, then they’ll go home and do your bidding for you. That’s human nature, 101.”

Gloria Fung of the group Canada-Hong Kong Link, another prominent China critic, agreed. Being invited to watch the parade along with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said, “was a symbol of status and recognition of Yuen by the CCP, implying the invitee would play an important role in Canada in the years to come.”

Still, there’s no evidence that Yuen has publicly championed China’s interests, and the Beijing trip came at a time of somewhat warmer relations between Ottawa and Beijing, when the Conservative government of the day pursued trade with China vigorously.

The party was unable to respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Yuen took over as the candidate in the Markham—Unionville riding just last week after the resignation of MP Paul Chiang. Chiang faced intense criticism for suggesting people turn Conservative Joe Tay into the Chinese consulate and receive a bounty of about $180,000 offered by Hong Kong police for his arrest. Chiang later apologized for the remarks, and was defended by Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

Though a Canadian citizen and resident, Tay, a native of Hong Kong, was charged under its widely condemned National Security Law for running a YouTube channel here that was critical of the city’s China-dominated government.

Even before he headed to Beijing, there were signs Yuen had friendly relations with China, often appearing at events put on by the Chinese consulate general in Toronto or local groups linked to Beijing.

The September 2015 trip exposed him to what media at the time called a “lavish” show of force by China, which has invested heavily in its armed forces in recent years. The parade included 12,000 troops, 500 pieces of military hardware including tanks and “ship-killing” missiles and 200 helicopters, fighter jets and other aircraft flying overhead. It was a showcase of “military might on an unprecedented scale,” said a BBC report.

The Chinese-language stories said Canadians were invited by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, now a branch of the United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party branch that, among other things, tries to extend China’s influence among the Chinese diaspora and foreign political and government figures.

A 2022 Federal Court ruling in an immigration case concluded it was reasonable to say that the Overseas Chinese office was involved in espionage.

The North American Times news site quoted another Canadian as saying the parade was unforgettable, letting him see the “Chinese people’s re-emergence and the construction of a strong country, which was very inspiring and gratifying. The military parade also showed the world that China is becoming increasingly powerful, and it is the pride of the Chinese people and overseas Chinese.”

Yuen, who immigrated from Hong Kong as a young boy, rose to become the first Chinese-Canadian deputy chief of the Toronto force — the largest municipal police department in the country, and won various awards within the service.

He also appeared at events hosted by the consulate or by groups linked to it. In 2014, the consul general and other Chinese diplomats attended a ceremony honouring Yuen’s promotion to superintendent, according to the consulate website. In her speech at the event, one deputy consul “thanked Yuan for his support to the Consulate General and the Chinese community over the years.”

He was a guest at a 2014 event marking a change in leadership at the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations, a group with close ties to Beijing. Yuen even sang My Chinese Heart, which has been called the anthem of the Chinese diaspora, as the CTCCO’s honorary chair, Wei Chengyi, stood nearby.

In 2017, he attended a consulate celebration of the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic.

After retiring from the Toronto Police Service, he served until recently on the board of the NOIC Academy, a school that caters partly to international students from China. Some of those students were bused to a nomination election in 2019 where MP Han Dong was chosen as the Liberals’ nominee for the Don Valley North riding. The nomination meeting was cited by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue in her report on the federal foreign-interference inquiry as a possible example of meddling by the Chinese government.

Yuen’s affiliation with NOIC was first reported by independent journalist Sam Cooper.