"De Facto" Communist Party Intelligence Arm Met With Chrétien and Senator Woo During Canada Visit, Beijing Readout Shows

OTTAWA – A senior official from the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department met with former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Trudeau-appointed Senator Yuen Pau Woo during a four-day visit to Canada in March — a significant development given that Germany’s domestic intelligence service warned in 2023 that the body effectively operates like an intelligence service of the People’s Republic of China. The meetings were documented in a readout and photographs published on the department’s official website.

Images show Lu Kang, Vice Minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in a working meeting with Chrétien and a formal photograph with Senator Woo, flanked by Canadian and Chinese flags, accompanied by the Chinese Ambassador to Canada and the Consul General from Toronto.

The readout states that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s officials, business leaders, and think tank scholars also took part in the meetings. A separate photograph shows the delegation at a meeting held at Gowling WLG, where the Canada China Business Council’s Executive Director Bijan Ahmadi — a former president of the Iranian Canadian Congress, an organization that has publicly called for lifting Canadian sanctions on Iran and opposed the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity — was also present.

The department’s own account of the visit frames it as follow-through on the “new type of strategic partnership” agreed when Carney met President Xi Jinping in Beijing in January, with the “Canadian side” characterized as expressing broad enthusiasm for party-to-party exchanges and the economic opportunities presented by China’s 15th Five-Year Plan.

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution issued a formal July 2023 safety notice warning that the department — also known historically as the International Liaison Department — warrants “particular care.”

“In recent years, the Chinese state and party leadership has significantly intensified its efforts to obtain high-quality political information and influence decision-making processes abroad,” the notice states. The agency warned: “The IDCPC now de facto acts as an intelligence service of the People's Republic of China and is therefore part of the Chinese intelligence apparatus.”

The bulletin, which includes the contact address prevention@bfv.bund.de, warns that “Special caution is therefore advised when dealing with the IDCPC or its members.”

The United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence has described Chinese Communist Party organs as central instruments in Beijing’s efforts to shape foreign political environments, and declassified Central Intelligence Agency documents and other public reporting have described the International Department’s role in cultivating overseas political relationships in coordination with Chinese diplomatic networks.