Senator Yuen Pau Woo claims world peace depends on good relations with China.
The 11-month-long Russia-Ukraine war has made it increasingly clear that doing business with a dictatorship will embolden that dictatorship, and engaging a totalitarian regime could lead to bloodshed and war that kills tens of thousands of people.
But when the government of China, a dictatorship that is a lot richer, more powerful and more dangerous than Russia, invites you to their grand event, what will you do? Some Canadian politicians chose to join the party.
On January 16, 2023, the Chinese Consulate General in Vancouver held a Chinese spring festival reception to welcome the Year of the Rabbit. There were 260+ guests who came from business, political, academic and other fields, according to a report on the official WeChat channel of the Chinese Consulate General in Vancouver.
Politicians who attended the event included but were not limited to:
Senator Yuen Pau Woo 胡元豹;
Privy Councilor and former MP Alice Wong 黄陈小萍;
BC MLA George Chow 周炯华, who claimed to be the representative of the B.C. provincial government;
BC MLA Henry Yao 姚君宪.
Chinese Consul-General Yang Shu 杨舒 gave a passionate speech to the audience. He said that the past year of 2022 has been an extraordinary one because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 20th National Congress was successfully held; China's economy grew steadily and continued to maintain its position as the world's second-largest economy and China successfully hosted the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Consul-General Yang claimed that the Chinese government has always adhered to the principle of "people first, life first" in terms of Covid response. Yang also said China has made new contributions to maintaining world peace and promoting common development by carrying out all-around Major Country Diplomacy with Chinese characteristics 中国特色大国外交.
Consul-General Yang didn’t mention the nearly 60,000 deaths in China in just over a month as a result of China’s sudden U-turn of its covid policy, nor China’s increased trade with Russia after Russia was sanctioned by many countries for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
BC MLA George Chow also delivered a speech, standing behind a podium with a huge national emblem of the P.R. China.
Chow said the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games were a huge success, despite the fact that Canadian PM Justin Trudeau had announced that Canada would launch a diplomatic boycott against the Beijing Olympics due to China’s horrible human rights records.
Chow continued to say that China is a major economic and trade partner of B.C., and the volume of trade has grown even during the pandemic. Chow said he looked forward to more cooperation with China in 2023, especially with Guangdong Province, which has a Friendship Province relationship with B.C.
There was a lot of singing and dancing at the event including "Chinese Beauty", "Shaolin Kung Fu", "Silk Road Dance" and "Highland Drumming". The atmosphere reached a climax when the song "Unforgettable Tonight 难忘今宵" was sung by the staff of the Consulate General and the representatives of international students.
"Unforgettable Tonight 难忘今宵" is a classic song in the CCP’s propaganda ecosystem. It was created in 1984 for the 2nd year of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala 央视春晚 and has been sung as the grand finale program in the subsequent 30+ years at thousands of galas in China, especially the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
Senator Yuen Pau Woo, as always, stressed the extremely important role of China on the world stage when he was interviewed by Phoenix TV, a TV network affiliated with the Chinese government.
He said, “We cannot have a prosperous Canada. We cannot have a peaceful country or a peaceful world without good relations with the People’s Republic of China. And we must find a way to talk to them, to work out some very difficult problems in the world today.”
A number of community leaders also appeared at the event. Although the Chinese Consulate-General’s report never mentioned their names or displaced any pictures of them, we can find part of them from screenshots of the report by Phoenix TV.
The most recognizable one was Helen Qian 钱华 (3rd from left in the front row), the woman who worships Mao Zedong 毛泽东，a former leader of the CCP and a mass murderer whose policy killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined.
David Choi 蔡宏安 (1st from left in the back row) was also there. Choi is a real estate tycoon that supported the Hong Kong police’s brutal suppression of the pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong since 2019, and spread the CCP’s lies that Canada recognizes Taiwan is part of China in Aug. 2022.
Also spotted there was Catherine Yuen 袁黄洁玲 (3rd from right), principal consultant of Hong Kong SAR Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in western Canada. In October 2022, Hong Kong Watch published a report calling for Canada and other western countries to close HKETOs as these offices have become the CCP’s overseas arms after Hong Kong lost its free market and democracy.
Canadian comedian Da Shan 大山 (aka Mark Henry Rowswell) was found to be present too. Da Shan can speak fluent Mandarin and often shows up to gatherings that promote China-Canada friendship.