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VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Each day when he arrives at his workplace in Metropolis Corridor, Mayor Ken Sim stares at a outstanding black-and-white {photograph} of Chinese language railway employees toiling on the tracks in British Columbia in 1884.
Mr. Sim, the son of Hong Kong immigrants, mentioned the employees’ weathered faces are a each day reminder of the symbolic significance of his election as Vancouver’s first Chinese language Canadian mayor, and of simply how far Chinese language Canadians have come.
Six months in the past, his historic landslide victory was extensively lauded, considered because the triumph of a politically adroit change-maker whose centrist insurance policies had swept him to energy. However since February, the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto has cited labeled intelligence stories in describing an effort by Beijing to control Canadian elections, together with these in Vancouver, elevating questions on whether or not China performed a task in his win.
Throughout Canada, a political storm is raging over the intelligence stories, which haven’t been made public by Canada’s nationwide intelligence company however are mentioned to conclude that the federal government of China and its diplomats needed to make sure victory for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Social gathering within the two most up-to-date federal elections, whereas encouraging wins for some candidates of Chinese language descent.
Mr. Sim has been caught within the furor as a result of the stories say China’s former consul basic in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, sought to groom native Chinese language Canadian politicians to do Beijing’s bidding and spoke of mobilizing Chinese language voters to assist them.
Whereas the leaked intelligence has reverberated nationally, with the opposition Conservatives seizing on the stories to accuse Mr. Trudeau of failing to guard Canadian democracy, the controversy has triggered specific discomfort in Vancouver, the place 1 / 4 of the inhabitants is of Chinese language descent and Mr. Sim had been seen as an immigrant success story.
Mr. Sim mentioned that if there had been Chinese language or any international interference in his election, “I might be mad as hell.” However, he added, Beijing had nothing to do along with his being elected mayor.
He mentioned his sweeping victory had been exhausting gained, and he recommended that he was being focused due to his ethnic background.
“If I used to be a Caucasian male, we wouldn’t be having this dialog,” the 52-year-old entrepreneur-turned-politician mentioned in an interview from his workplace, as Van Halen music blasted from a vintage-style phonograph. “I used to be born right here, raised right here, and this sends the sign that while you lastly get a seat on the desk, persons are going to let you know, ‘You didn’t get there by yourself.’ It’s disgusting.” He added, “The place’s the proof?”
The authenticity and accuracy of the leaks haven’t been verified by Canada’s intelligence company, nor has there been any proof introduced that the goals outlined within the leaks had been carried out.
However Canada’s intelligence company has said unequivocally that China is making an attempt to intrude in Canadian elections, a declare China has denied.
Analysts mentioned that, whereas China sought to wield political affect in Vancouver, no matter function it performed was unlikely to have swung the vote.
Kennedy Stewart, the incumbent mayor and Mr. Sim’s left-wing rival, agreed. “Chinese language interference isn’t the first purpose I misplaced,” he mentioned. “However it could have been a contributing issue.” He obtained 29 % of the vote to Mr. Sim’s 51 %.
Mr. Stewart mentioned Ms. Tong, the Chinese language consul basic, who ended her five-year posting in July 2022, had repeatedly breached diplomatic protocol within the years main as much as the election by denouncing him publicly due to his outspoken assist for Taiwan.
Mr. Stewart mentioned that in Might 2022, about 5 months earlier than the election, officers from Canada’s nationwide intelligence company got here to Metropolis Corridor to transient him in regards to the potential menace of Chinese language meddling, together with the usage of smear campaigns by China and its proxies on-line or on social media.
A couple of months later, in August, a press release attacking Mr. Stewart appeared on the Chinese language consulate basic’s web site, after he expressed assist for former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s go to to Taiwan that month. The assertion warned Mr. Stewart to not play with fireplace on the Taiwan subject, saying, “Those that play with fireplace will burn.”
Vancouver, a multicultural west coast port metropolis of about 660,000, is among the many most picturesque, tolerant cities in Canada, the place residents should purchase CBD canine treats for his or her anxious canines at native marijuana retailers earlier than biking in Stanley Park.
However Vancouver has been convulsed by hovering actual property costs which have made it among the many most unaffordable cities in North America. On the identical time, a drug overdose disaster is raging in its Downtown Eastside, an space blighted by homelessness, poverty and crime.
Mr. Sim promised to assist reverse the city decay by hiring 100 extra cops and 100 psychological well being nurses.
Mr. Sim first ran for mayor in 2018 — and narrowly misplaced, perceived by many as a conservative in a go well with. However in 2022, he wore T-shirts from Lululemon, the well-known Vancouver model, and refashioned himself as a pragmatist.
He owns a profitable well being care firm, Nurse Subsequent Door, which gives caregivers in Canada, Australia and america.
Within the 2022 election, Mr. Sim’s public order message seems to have resonated, serving to him win by a margin of almost 22 factors.
Andy Yan, director of the Metropolis Program at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser College, mentioned Mr. Sim, a former funding banker, additionally outspent his rivals, in some circumstances by two to at least one. He mentioned Mr. Sim had vast enchantment in a area fed up with “San Francisco housing values and Kansas Metropolis wages.”
Mr. Yan additionally pressured that Vancouver’s massive, various Chinese language immigrant group didn’t vote as a bloc.
Stewart Prest, a lecturer in political science at Simon Fraser College, added that Mr. Stewart was perceived as a weak incumbent.
But the leaks, Mr. Stewart’s public requires China’s interference to be investigated, and the nationwide outcry have stored alive considerations about China’s function within the race.
Canada’s nationwide intelligence company, C.S.I.S., mentioned in an emailed assertion that China was making an attempt to affect election outcomes in Canada by exerting stress on diaspora communities, utilizing covert funding or profiting from foreign-language media shops.
Man Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China, noticed that Canada was seen by Beijing as a goal of affect — and subterfuge — partly as a result of Beijing sought to make use of Canada as a lever to press america to melt its opposition to China.
China consultants and Canadian intelligence officers mentioned that China’s affect campaigns overseas sometimes emanated from the United Entrance Work Division, an organ of the Chinese language Communist Social gathering. Amongst its goals was to undermine federal, provincial or municipal officers who criticized China on points resembling Taiwan, Hong Kong and China’s repression of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Within the Vancouver mayoral election, hypothesis about Chinese language interference was additionally fanned by stories within the Chinese language-language media that Mr. Sim’s first cousin is Bernard Chan, a Hong Kong politician and businessman who was a high adviser to Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s former pro-Beijing chief government.
Mr. Sim mentioned that Mr. Chan didn’t affect him in any method and that he studiously prevented speaking to Mr. Chan about politics. “I don’t select the political views of anybody that’s associated to me,” he mentioned.
He mentioned he had purposely underplayed his Chinese language roots throughout the election marketing campaign, cautious of utilizing his ethnic background to win votes.
Mr. Sim is the youngest son of Hong Kong immigrants who arrived in Vancouver in 1967 with their life financial savings of $3,200. He mentioned that in his childhood his mother and father spoke Cantonese at dwelling, however, keen to slot in, he refused his mother and father’ entreaties to be taught the language. He now regrets that call.
The household usually struggled to pay hire, and Mr. Sim moved 5 occasions from the age of seven till 12, forcing him to attend 5 totally different elementary faculties. He remembered at 7 seeing his father fend off a predatory landlord with a bat.
“We lived in concern, asking, ‘The place are we going to stay?’”
On a current day in Vancouver’s Chinatown, many native residents expressed pleasure within the election of a Chinese language Canadian mayor.
However Fred Kwok, chairman of the Chinese language Cultural Heart, which was focused in a suspected arson assault the evening earlier than, mentioned Mr. Sim’s ethnic background didn’t matter to him.
“I don’t care what Ken Sim’s race is,” he mentioned. “I care about safety in Chinatown and somebody doing one thing about it. No one did a factor the previous 4 years.”
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