Biden Addresses Racism Against Asians

[spaminator]

LILLEY: Trudeau claims racism when grilled about Chinese military scientists
Author of the article:Brian Lilley
Publishing date:May 27, 2021 • 14 hours ago • 3 minute read • 354 Comments
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a news conference, as efforts continue to help slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada May 18, 2021.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a news conference, as efforts continue to help slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada May 18, 2021. PHOTO BY BLAIR GABLE /REUTERS
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You know that you’re on to something when Justin Trudeau throws around accusations of racism.

That’s where Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives found themselves on Wednesday as they asked questions about security at Canada’s top microbiology lab and the partnership with scientists tied to the Chinese military.


Apparently, in the eyes of the prime minister, asking what he’s doing to ensure espionage isn’t happening at Canada’s most dangerous and most secure lab is an anti-Asian hate crime.

“In order to work at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, you need a security clearance. In order to work with human pathogens, like Ebola, in that lab, you need a higher level of security clearance,” O’Toole said. “Can the prime minister tell this House, how a person with deep connections to the Chinese military obtained a high-level Canadian security clearance?”

Trudeau didn’t even attempt to answer the question but spoke about how he couldn’t comment on two scientists who were recently fired from the lab over security concerns first raised by CSIS. I think that given what takes place at the lab, Canadians deserve to know more about these two scientists but also about others, like Chinese military scientists, being given access.

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That is what O’Toole was asking about.

As the Globe and Mail reported last week, there have been many collaborations between the NML in Winnipeg and researchers from China, many with ties to the government or military. Feihu Yan, a researcher with the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, was cleared to work at the Level 4 facility, the only one of its kind in Canada.


Most Canadian scientists couldn’t get into that lab, but a scientist with the Chinese military was given clearance. Now two of the people he worked with, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, have been fired with claims that CSIS was concerned they were handing over intellectual property to the Chinese government and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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These are the types of things that should be questioned, repeatedly, until real answers are given. Yet, as O’Toole and his fellow Conservative MPs raised questions, Trudeau became frustrated and resorted to claims of racism.

O’Toole used all five of his questions at the beginning of question period to ask Trudeau about increasing security at the lab, ensuring that people with ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army were not given access and more. Each time, Trudeau gave the vaguest of answers and when other Conservative MPs joined the fray, he accused the party of racism.

“Will he bar scientists who are sent here from the Chinese government and the Chinese military from accessing sensitive Canadian research facilities?” Conservative MP Michael Barrett asked.

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Trudeau responded that the government takes security seriously before launching his broadside.

“We will not give in to pandering to anti-Asian racism. We have seen enough of a rise in intolerance across the country these past months. We need to continue to stand strong in supporting diversity,” Trudeau said.

Here’s a message for Trudeau, diversity doesn’t include allowing China’s military into labs that we won’t allow most Canadian scientists and researchers into. Diversity doesn’t include letting China steal Canada’s secrets, or worse, material that could be used for biological weapons.

Trudeau made the same claim of racism against Conservative MPs Pierre Paul-Hus and Candice Bergen.

“I am not surprised the prime minister just hurls insults of racism, it’s his usual tactic,” Bergen said after Trudeau’s smear.

Sadly, she’s right.

We have a real issue of security to deal with here, two scientists with a long tenure at the NML, with access to the most sensitive of materials, have been fired over national security concerns. We have Chinese military scientists with access to this same material and Trudeau’s reply is to equate this to a hate crime, a beating in the street.

Trudeau is not a serious man and not fit to be the leader of a G7 nation. His answers to these most delicate questions only prove that.

LILLEY: Trudeau claims racism when grilled about Chinese military scientists

You know that you’re on to something when Justin Trudeau throws around accusations of racism.

torontosun.com

 

[mentalfloss]

Assuming this were true, it would obviously be shortsighted on the government's part, but the way this piece is written is not going to change anyone's mind.

 

[Danbones]

Calling "Racism" is for Trotskyite losers. Just ask Soros, he funds that sort of stuff all the time to get the prices for stuff he wants to buy down.

 

[spaminator]

LILLEY: Conservative MPs of Asian descent blast Trudeau's racism claims
Author of the article:Brian Lilley
Publishing date:May 28, 2021 • 18 hours ago • 3 minute read • 59 Comments
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 26, 2021.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK /THE CANADIAN PRESS
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When Conservative MP Michael Chong heard Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claim anti-Asian racism when facing serious questions in the House of Commons, he got very upset, very angry.

“I could feel the blood rise,” Chong told me Friday.


“Many of us have been subject to anti-Asian racism and for the prime minister to accuse us of driving anti-Asian racism is very upsetting.”

Chong wasn’t asking the questions that saw Trudeau invoke the phrase “anti-Asian racism” three times on Wednesday but he was taking part in question period that day. He has also asked the very same kind of questions that led to the accusation.

Those questions include how and why the government allowed Chinese scientists with strong links to the People’s Liberation Army of China full access to Canada’s National Microbiology Lab, a facility most Canadian researchers cannot access. The Conservatives have been asking about this for some time, and Trudeau’s response is to accuse the Conservatives of racism.

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The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg on May 19, 2009.
The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg on May 19, 2009. PHOTO BY JOHN WOODS /THE CANADIAN PRESS
Born in Windsor, Ont., to a Dutch mother and Chinese father who had immigrated from Hong Kong, Chong has faced actual racism throughout his life. To hear Trudeau throw around the term so cavalierly bothered him because he said it plays into Beijing’s propaganda plans.

“Beijing has long had a goal of combining criticism of the government of China with anti-Asian racism and the PM played right into their hands,” Chong said.

“Those critical of China’s government are not causing anti-Asian racism. Many of them are Asian themselves.”


One of those critics is fellow Conservative MP Kenny Chiu. Born in Hong Kong in 1965, Chiu moved to Canada as a teen in 1982. He knows what the Chinese government is like and has been a frequent critic.

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In a statement in the House on Wednesday, Chiu blasted Trudeau’s claims that questioning the government working with scientists who have ties to China’s military is stoking anti-Asian racism.

“I’m an Asian-Canadian and I’m deeply offended by this. How dare the wearer of blackface/brownface use the painful experience of racism to shield this government’s callous dereliction to protect Canada from hostile foreign regimes,” Chiu said.


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He supported Chong’s statement that conflating criticism of China’s government with racism plays into Beijing’s hands. Chiu’s riding is almost 50% ethnic Chinese, those from other Asian countries put it well over 50%, and as he pointed out, many of his constituents are critics of Beijing’s dictators.

Nelly Shin, the Conservative MP representing Coquitlam, B.C., was born in South Korea and raised from childhood in Canada. She too was shaken by the prime minister’s accusations and raised the issue with the Speaker of the House in a point of order.

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Security guards keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team in Wuhan, China February 3, 2021.
EDITORIAL: We need an open investigation into the Wuhan lab leak theory
In this file photo taken on February 03, 2021 members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus arrive by car at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on February 3, 2021.
GUNTER: Canadian questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a news conference, as efforts continue to help slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada May 18, 2021.
LILLEY: Trudeau claims racism when grilled about Chinese military scientists

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“In addition to the prime minister casting aspersions upon members of this House who are only trying to do their job, I find it disturbing that the prime minister is diminishing the significance of the anti-Asian crisis in Canada,” Shin said, noting that Trudeau is making the accusation to shield himself from legitimate questions.

“Canadians of Asian descent do not appreciate being used in this way.”


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Shin cited the rules of the Commons to explain why, in her view, Trudeau had broken the rules of the Chambers and asked that the Speaker order him to apologize. Speaker Anthony Rota, a Liberal MP, noted the need to choose words carefully for all MPs and said he would consider Shin’s request and return at a later date with a ruling.

Beyond the offensive nature of Trudeau’s comments are real concerns over his ability to handle the very serious issue of Canada’s often tense relationship with China.


“I think the PM in his responses in the House shows a complete lack of leadership,” Chong said.

With Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor now in Chinese captivity for more than 900 days, with China continuing to engage in industrial espionage and trade warfare, we need a prime minister who can deal with Beijing without falling into their trap.

Justin Trudeau continues to show that he is not that leader.

blilley@postmedia.com

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1398055659330064384

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1398273229068898306

LILLEY: Conservative MPs of Asian descent blast Trudeau's racism claims

When Conservative MP Michael Chong heard Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claim anti-Asian racism when facing serious questions in the House of Commons, he got…

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Liberals, Tories clash over criticism of Chinese government and accusations of racism
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Christopher Reynolds
Publishing date:Jun 03, 2021 • 7 hours ago • 5 minute read • Join the conversation
In the multiple-exposed image, Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole, left, asks a question and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers during question period in the House of Commons on Nov. 4, 2020.
In the multiple-exposed image, Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole, left, asks a question and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers during question period in the House of Commons on Nov. 4, 2020. PHOTO BY THE CANADIAN PRESS /Toronto Sun
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OTTAWA — Liberals and Conservatives have stumbled into a thorny debate over fears that criticism of China can bleed into bigotry, as wariness of the global superpower rises alongside incidents of anti-Asian racism in Canada.

Tory MPs asked Justin Trudeau last week to respond to reports that scientists at a Winnipeg infectious-diseases laboratory had been collaborating with Chinese military researchers.


“Communist China cannot be trusted,” Conservative deputy leader Candice Bergen said during question period in the House of Commons on May 26. “Will the prime minister commit to ending this research and this co-operation with the regime that … actually wants to hurt Canada?”

Trudeau replied by warning Conservative lawmakers against wading into intolerance.

“The rise in anti-Asian racism we have been seeing over the past number of months should be of concern to everyone,” he said.

The response prompted blowback from Conservatives, who have hammered the point daily in the House of Commons. MP Michael Barrett demanded the prime minister ditch what he dubbed “woke talking points” and address security concerns. Tory MP Kenny Chiu, who was born in Hong Kong, said: “Expressing dissent is not hatred.”

In a Twitter post, Chiu also said Trudeau’s rebuttal resembled “the exact tactics (China’s) United Front Work uses: criticism of the #CCP is a criticism of ethnic Chinese as a whole.” Chiu was referring to an arm of the Chinese Communist Party that gathers intelligence on individuals and groups abroad and co-ordinates influence operations.

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Criticism of the Chinese government has ramped up in recent years, spurred by accusations of suffocating democracy in Hong Kong, systematically repressing Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang, and cracking down on Chinese civil society.

The idea of China as international scapegoat gained renewed strength after former U.S. president Donald Trump used language about COVID-19, including “the Chinese virus” and “Wuhan flu,” that many condemned as inciting racist attacks. Last month, President Joe Biden tasked U.S. intelligence officials with boosting their efforts to probe the origins of the pandemic, including whether it could be traced to a laboratory in China.

A report released in March by several advocacy groups found a disturbing spike in racist incidents against Asian Canadians since the onset of the pandemic, largely in connection with false ideas about coronavirus spread.

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Cherie Wong, executive director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, has experienced hateful harassment first-hand.

“There would be people spitting at me to say, ‘dirty racial slur’ at me. And this has happened to my family and friends as well,” she said. “People became emboldened during this pandemic to even further this hatred and this xenophobia against Asian Canadians.”

As geopolitical tensions with Beijing heighten, anti-Asian prejudice will grow, she predicted, pointing to past discrimination against people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during the Second World War.


Wong stressed the need to confront concerns over foreign interference and domestic human rights violations by Beijing in language free of racial undertones. She also hopes to see more public awareness around the vast chasm separating China’s Central Committee brass from Canadians of East Asian origin, including residents with roots in Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines who also face threats from bigotry that is ignorant of the difference.

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While Trudeau has veered away from his “tolerance and diversity” response to questions about the Winnipeg lab, Conservatives have ramped up their line of attack. On Tuesday, seven Tories asked 13 questions related to national security and the Winnipeg lab.

On Wednesday, legislators passed a motion from Conservative MP Michael Chong demanding unredacted documents from the Public Health Agency of Canada in connection with two scientists who were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019. It was described as a possible policy breach and administrative matter. The two scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were eventually fired in January.

Qiu had earlier been responsible for a shipment of Ebola and Henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, but the public health agency has previously said the events were unrelated.

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Health Minister Patty Hajdu has said in question period that the Conservatives “are playing a dangerous game,” and that the relevant documents have already been provided to the House of Commons special committee on Canada-China relations “with minor redactions for the protection of confidentiality.”

Conservative calls for a harder stance on China are nothing new.

Leader Erin O’Toole has said the regime poses long-standing domestic risks, including threats from its foreign agents to Chinese Canadians and spreading anti-western propaganda through post-secondary Confucius Institute partnerships as well as Chinese media outlets.

But Lynette Ong, an associate professor in political science and China specialist at the University of Toronto, cautioned against “exaggerated” tales of shadowy operators.

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“There’s nothing illegal about trying to exert influence per se, even though, because it’s a ‘communist’ country, people tend to look at influence from China with skeptical eyes,” she said.

“It’s foreign interference that I think we should be concerned with. But I think evidence so far for foreign interference is rather sketchy.”

Questioning China’s influence in North America does not amount to stoking anti-Asian racism, she added. “But I think people who try to criticize China often do it in such a broad brush that they are inadvertently stoking anti-Asian racism.”

Conservative MPs deployed the word “communist” 14 times on May 26, when Trudeau cited tolerance in response to security questions.

“This is a much more interdependent world, and we cannot easily draw a line in the sand trying to divide the world into two halves,” Ong said, calling outsized stress on Chinese communism “alarmist.”

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Weiguo Zhang, associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus, offered an explanation for the potential to overlook racially loaded language.

“Politicians have not focused on anti-Asian racism for years. They believe that anti-Asian racism is not a problem,” he said. Some non-racialized Canadians’ view of Chinese Canadians as a “model minority” translates, in their eyes, into a lack of prejudice — an attitude that can infiltrate new Canadians’ mindset as well, he said.

“I hear some people mention that you should use Chinese wisdom not to fight back directly but to use a kind of soft power,” Zhang said.

“It’s related to a model minority myth: by behaving well you will not be discriminated against. But you know that a model minority myth is a kind of discrimination in itself.”

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1397633176244260864

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1397635084467929089

Liberals, Tories clash over criticism of Chinese government and accusations of racism

OTTAWA — Liberals and Conservatives have stumbled into a thorny debate over fears that criticism of China can bleed into bigotry, as wariness of the global…

torontosun.com