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In September 2011, Canada’s political circle was rocked by a murky email scandal. The main characters were a married Canadian Member of Parliament and a married Chinese woman.
This scandal was dubbed as the “Ambiguous Email Gate,” drawing attention from various mainstream media outlets in Canada.
The reason for the intense interest was that the politician involved was not just any ordinary member but held a prominent position as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada. The Chinese woman was not just an ordinary immigrant either; she was the chief reporter of the Toronto branch of Xinhua News Agency, the official press agency of the Chinese Communist Party.
Speculations arose in Canadian political and media circles questioning whether the Xinhua reporter’s ambiguous relationship with a senior Canadian politician had ulterior motives. This suspicion stemmed from a former Xinhua reporter’s revelation that they had been used to gather information on dissidents.
Let’s revisit this sensational ambiguous email scandal that made waves in the Canadian political scene.
On September 8, 2011, contacts from several Canadian media outlets, academic institutions, political, and business organizations received a large number of emails. These emails were private exchanges between Bob Dechert, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Shi Rong, the chief reporter of Xinhua News Agency’s Toronto branch.
The emails included many ambiguous expressions of admiration from Dechert towards Shi Rong, all sent from Dechert’s parliamentary email account.
In one email sent from Dechert’s office on April 17, 2010, he wrote, “You are so beautiful. I really like the photo of you smiling by the water, you look so cute, I like you like this. Now, I miss you more.” Signed, “Bob Dechert, Member of Parliament.”
In another email from April 20, 2010, Dechert informed Shi Rong to watch a live TV broadcast of a parliamentary vote, saying, “I will smile at you.” Dechert ended the email with, “It feels good to think of you while driving. I miss you, love you. Bob.”
Shi Rong sent a photo from seven years ago to Dechert on April 17, 2010, titled “Me seven years ago.”
The person who exposed these ambiguous emails claimed to be Shi Rong’s husband. The emails were all sent from Shi Rong’s Gmail account to more than two hundred contacts in her Gmail address book.
In the emails, the person exposing them wrote, “Shi Rong, in order to love this Member of Parliament, did not hesitate to request the dissolution of her existing marriage during her overseas post. This is the Shi Rong you should understand.”
After the private emails were exposed, both Dechert and Shi Rong issued statements denying any ambiguous relationship between them.
Dechert, in a written statement on his parliamentary website, admitted to sending the emails and apologized to anyone who may have been hurt.
He stated, “The hacking of Shi Rong’s emails is part of her ongoing family disputes.”
Initially, Shi Rong told the English newspaper “Ottawa Citizen” that her email account was hacked, and the emails were forged. However, in an interview with the Canadian English newspaper “The Globe and Mail,” she changed her stance, admitting that her husband hacked her emails, and it was indeed her husband who distributed the ambiguous emails.
At that time, Dechert was the parliamentary secretary to Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, a position equivalent to a Deputy Foreign Minister. When the ambiguous emails were exposed in September 2011, he was 53 years old, married, and had a promising political future. He was also the vice-chair of the Canada-China Legislative Association.
Shi Rong graduated from Peking University and had been a visiting scholar in the UK, with a short internship at Reuters. She had been working in Canada for just over a year. Her exact age was undisclosed, but based on photos, she appeared to be in her thirties, with a significant age gap between her and Dechert.
As the ambiguous email scandal involving Shi Rong and Dechert gained more attention and traction, it was later revealed in the media that Shi Rong was abruptly recalled to China, citing a “scheduled vacation” as the reason. Following this, Shi Rong did not return to Canada.
The publication of Shi Rong and Dechert’s ambiguous emails received extensive coverage in Canadian media, sparking attention from both the political and public spheres. Canadian media started to extensively report on a warning issued a few months earlier by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Richard Fadden, stating that Chinese spies had infiltrated Canadian politics, and labeling Xinhua News Agency as a Chinese intelligence organization that required caution when dealing with.
The response from the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa to the ambiguous emails was that it was a private matter between the Member of Parliament and Shi Rong, and China did not want to comment on it. The statement further mentioned, “It is irresponsible to discredit the Chinese government over this matter.”
Canadian media reported that some journalists sent abroad were appointed by the Chinese National Security Department, fitting the modus operandi of Chinese intelligence agencies seen in the “Ambiguous Email Gate.”
Jim Munson, a former Canadian Member of Parliament who served as a journalist in China for five years, expressed to Voice of America that the reason Dechert’s conduct was seen as inappropriate was that “our investigative and intelligence services believe that there may be contacts in Xinhua that may have connections to Chinese (Communist) intelligence.”
David Harris, the Strategic Planning Manager at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, previously stated that Xinhua News Agency had “multiple spy missions” and that in fact, Xinhua News Agency acted as a front-line intelligence agency for China (Communist).
Was Shi Rong really just a journalist? Even that aspect was brought into question.
Charles Burton, a former diplomat, professor in the Political Science Department at Brock University, and an expert on China, during an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, remarked that Xinhua News Agency’s role was not to provide news but to gather information, some of which was for internal (Communist Party) use.
He mentioned that using news reporting as a cover, Xinhua News Agency worked for Chinese intelligence organizations, with about a quarter of its news staff not professionally trained journalists but individuals working for intelligence agencies. Contacting Xinhua News Agency was akin to dealing with foreign government intelligence agencies, warranting extreme caution.
Burton also pointed out that despite Shi Rong being the chief reporter at Xinhua News Agency Toronto branch, she had minimal articles published by Xinhua News Agency, in contrast to Canadian news agency reporters who were more frequent in their publications, indicating that Shi Rong likely had ample spare time for other activities.
Analyzing a disclosed ambiguous email from April 20, 2010, where Dechert asked Shi Rong about an interview with the Royal Bank, Burton noted that Shi Rong replied three weeks later on May 9, 2010, saying she was starting to write the article, indicating that the article she wrote for Xinhua News Agency contained 1,160 words.
Burton questioned why it would take a journalist three weeks to complete a not so long interview report.
Columnist and political commentator Cao Changqing also questioned Shi Rong’s identity as a journalist.
On Shi Rong’s name card, she was listed as the head of Xinhua News Agency Toronto branch. The branch employed three staff members, including a reporter, a photographer, and a cameraman, who were not part of Xinhua News Agency’s official setup, but rather reporters.
Cao Changqing remarked, “The combined salaries of the three staff members total over a hundred thousand dollars annually. Where would this money come from? Based on the reports, these three assistants were not part of the Xinhua News Agency’s official setup; Shi Rong’s salary was limited, making it improbable for her to afford these expenses. This raises doubts about whether the funds came from the Chinese National Security Department.”
Cao Changqing criticized Xinhua News Agency for operating under the guise of a news organization while actually engaging in activities completely different from reporting news. He asserted that domestically, Xinhua News Agency focused on government propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party audience, acting as its main mouthpiece, and internationally, the agency was tasked with intelligence gathering, a widely known fact.
He further mentioned that the former head of the Xinhua News Agency branch in Hong Kong held the position of Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Hong Kong and Macau Working Committee, while his successor, Zhou Nan, was a Deputy Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, highlighting that they were not only overseeing intelligence collection but also serving as local Chinese Communist Party officials.
An anonymous Chinese journalist told Bill Schiller, a veteran journalist at the “Toronto Star” stationed in China, that Chinese authorities often placed agents posing as reporters in Xinhua News Agency’s overseas offices. These “journalists” occasionally wrote news reports but were primarily tasked with intelligence collection.
The Chinese journalist indicated that individuals sent to their department from the national security department were not actual members of their organization but were appointed by the Chinese National Security Department. They were not only “approved” by the Chinese national security but were also “appointed” by them.
These individuals typically studied foreign languages and espionage methods at international relations universities in Beijing or similar institutions in Nanjing, focusing on intelligence collection.
They would work overseas for several years, and then, “disappear, and you won’t see them again.”
They emphasized that by having special agents pose as journalists, China gained access to various individuals without resorting to illicit means due to the credibility associated with being a journalist.
Mark Bourrie, a writer and freelance journalist in Ottawa, was a full-time reporter at Xinhua News Agency’s Ottawa branch but later resigned.
Bourrie disclosed to the Canadian media that he resigned because Xinhua News Agency requested him to surreptitiously monitor Chinese dissidents in Canada.
In 2010, during the G20 summit in Toronto attended by then-Chinese President Hu Jintao, Xinhua News Agency instructed Bourrie to confirm the identities and addresses of protesters.
He was tasked with monitoring dissidents’ participation in gatherings and events. However, these reports would not be published but directly transmitted to the Chinese intelligence agency.
He experienced that Xinhua News Agency reporters were also members of the Canadian government and Parliament Hill Press Gallery, which allowed access to events that regular reporters couldn’t cover.
It’s not just in Canada; Chinese spies using the guise of journalists are active in various countries.
In 2020, British authorities expelled three Chinese journalists on espionage charges. Reportedly, these three spies were operatives of the Chinese National Security Department, embedded in different news organizations.
In April 2024, Sweden imposed a lifelong entry ban on a 57-year-old Chinese female journalist, suspecting her involvement in “activities endangering security.”
In November 2024, the German intelligence revealed that such faux journalists were also engaged in covert activities in Germany.
That concludes today’s program. Thank you for watching, and we will see you in the next episode.
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