Karen Wen Lin Woods wants you to know she has “absolutely” no relationship with the Chinese government or its diplomatic missions in Canada. And she wants the critics who suspect otherwise to know that she thinks they are, variously, “fat and creepy”, “trolls” or “simplistic hacks”. Co-founder of the Canadian Chinese Political Affairs Committee (CCPAC), Woods has become a prominent commentator on China-related affairs in Canada, appearing on the CBC and other broadcasters and publishing lengthy pieces in Canadian newspapers since the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. “[The] Huawei case has put a dark cloud shrouding the psyche of many Chinese-Canadians,” she told readers of The Toronto Star ’s opinion pages in a 750-word lead article on December 18. It warned them of a “new wave of ‘Sino-phobia’”, and grimly concluded that “in a West rebuilt on Cold War ideologies and McCarthyism, there is likely to be little place for Chinese-Canadians”. But what she did not tell them at the time was that her employer, Solstice Public Affairs, had been hired as the lobbyist for the Chinese Consulate-General in Toronto last August. It was a rare relationship: not only was Solstice the first federal lobbyist engaged by China, no other country appears to have engaged a private firm to provide such services in Canada, which are typically undertaken by diplomats. Canada’s Lobbying Act exempts foreign diplomats from registration if they want to lobby Canadian officials. Woods was triumphant on Twitter, even as critics decried her omission. “Gotta love the trolls when their blood boils cuz lobbyists make democracy better,” she wrote a few days later. Gotta love the trolls when their blood boils cuz lobbyists make democracy better...far more effectively . Merry #christmas and happy holidays — Karen Woods (@KarenWenLin) December 25, 2018 <!--//--><![CDATA[// ><!-- //--><!]]> ‘Her perspective is that of a Chinese-Canadian’ A months-long investigation by the South China Morning Post shows how the behaviour of Solstice and its staff blurred the lines between outright lobbying, journalism and private activism. In ways both crude and subtle, they have attacked critics and propelled viewpoints that often hew to Beijing’s talking points and interests on a range of subjects. Neither the Chinese Consulate-General in Toronto, nor China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded to requests for comment about Solstice. Solstice partner Craig Brockwell said last week that the contract was due to have expired on Monday – eight months and two days after it was registered – and that he did not expect it to be renewed. China’s propaganda blitz to counter dissent among young internet users Concerning the Woods article in The Star , its editors added a clarification to the online version of the piece, noting Solstice’s relationship with the consulate-general. The Star did not respond to questions about the circumstances concerning the publication of Woods’ article. The article alarmed some longtime China watchers. Jonathan Manthorpe, author of a new book on China’s influence campaign in Canada, Claws of the Panda , said in an online article last month that the Star article was a “good example of the vigilance needed not only by Chinese-Canadian communities, but Canadian society”. It also highlighted “the difficulties of being certain of the evidence” of Chinese government interference, Manthorpe wrote. Kevin Carrico, an Australia-based Chinese studies researcher, told the South China Morning Post that the article, and Woods’ other activities, were “deeply problematic”. In February, another Huawei-themed op-ed appeared, this time in the National Post and associated publications, styled as an open letter to “Uncle Xi” Jinping, and written by Woods and three other representatives of her CCPAC. The article contended that Chinese President Xi’s anger at Meng’s arrest was understandable but misplaced, and that China should release Canadian detainees Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig – widely believed to have been arrested in retaliation — if it wanted to “win over the hearts and minds of the West”. The article also promoted CCPAC as a straight-talking group, dedicated to “the Canadian values of freedom, liberty and fairness”. “Our organisation is determined to tell the story of China through a thoughtful, critical, and balanced lens,” it said. For this National Post article, though, Woods, a senior associate at Solstice, provided a disclaimer that she was “employed in a company that does government relations work for China”. The disclaimer continued, “Woods avows that she has never and currently does not work on that file and that she does not benefit in her career or in any other personal manner from any business with the government of China”. I don’t feel the ways Chinese-Canadians are engaged in politics are correct. Nor is it efficient Lobbyist Karen Lin Woods But her circumstances are not so simple, and her private political activism, the activities of CCPAC and the interests of Solstice have all intersected. Solstice hired Woods partly on the strength of her Chinese community activism, said Brockwell, who also acknowledged that articles written by Solstice staff in their private capacities simultaneously served as “client development”. Woods and Brockwell have appeared together at Chinese consular functions in Toronto, including the welcoming ceremony for new Consul-General Han Tao last August (where Brockwell and Woods posed for a picture with consul Li Sining). And when CCPAC members met with the former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper at a closed-door event last year, it was Solstice president Stewart Kiff who paid for their tickets and lunch, according to the group. In January, the South China Morning Post interviewed Brockwell, a veteran political lobbyist who is Woods’ senior at Solstice. He told the Post repeatedly, and in multiple contexts, that Woods did indeed work for the Chinese consulate, although her op-ed articles were not part of that work. Rusty on Xi Jinping Thought? China’s most popular app will help you with that “ Post : Does Karen work on the contract that exists between the consulate general and Solstice? Brockwell: At times she does. Karen works on a variety of things on her file, so at times she does, yes.” “ Post : Is she a lobbyist on behalf of the consulate? Brockwell: Yes. She does the provincial work and I do the federal work.” Yet Woods would vehemently deny working on the China contract in any way. “I’m not involved in lobbying for the Chinese consulate … Craig was mistaken,” she told the Post afterwards. Brockwell later agreed that he had been mistaken in saying Woods had registered as an Ontario provincial-level lobbyist for the consulate – something confirmed by a search of the public registry. “She is not required to register and as a consequence doesn’t perform any lobbying activities on their behalf,” he said in his amended comments. He said Woods only worked as a translator on the contract with the consulate-general. He said Ontario authorities had “intervened” in Woods’ relationship with China’s Toronto mission. “She didn’t need to register because the Office of International Relations and Protocol (OIRP) of Ontario is the official government agency that dealt with booking the meetings with the Chinese consulate and the Ontario government,” Brockwell said. “To my knowledge, Solstice and more specifically Karen was not involved in these arrangements.” As for Woods’ op-ed articles, “it was Karen’s opinion that drove her to write … Her perspective was from that of a Chinese-Canadian.” Kevin Libin, editor of the National Post ’s comment section, said Woods pledged prior to publication of the “Uncle Xi” article that she never worked on Solstice’s China contract. Chinese state broadcaster registers with US as foreign agent “Before publication I asked her again to confirm that her career in no way touched any work with the Chinese government and she reassured me it did not,” said Libin. “We included that disclosure on the article. If it turns out that her role at Solstice was misrepresented to us, then we obviously would consider that a serious breach and it would clearly make us strongly averse to accepting any further submissions from her.” The confusion arises when she writes editorials … that essentially recycle PRC government talking points and then presents them as having been published by just an interested citizen Kevin Carrico, senior research fellow in Chinese studies at Monash University Despite dismissing Woods’ newspaper writing as a private matter, Brockwell said her earlier Star article was “partially intended as client development”, written in the hope of attracting and impressing potential Solstice clients. Brockwell attached the same intent of client development to a July 2017 article by Solstice president Kiff, which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen . Written as a piece of investigative journalism, Kiff’s article argued that a disproportionately high level of Canadian government funding had been directed to media outlets linked to the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement which is banned in China. “It is time for a bit more sunshine on what is occurring here,” he wrote. A month after the article, on August 13, his partner Brockwell was formally registered as the consulate’s federal lobbyist. ‘Unless Meng Wanzhou is sent back to China, nothing will change’ Brockwell’s official duties for the consulate were lobbying Canadian MPs and senators and arranging meetings “to promote various economic and cultural relationships between China and Canada”, according to the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying. Despite the consulate’s engagement of Solstice, many activities fell outside the formalities of the arrangement – including media appearances by Woods, her micro-commentary on Canadian-Chinese affairs on social media, and her attendance at political events, documented in her frequent selfies with politicians including Ontario Premier Doug Ford of the Progressive Conservatives; federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau, who is a Liberal; and other MPs and senators. On Facebook, Woods has repeatedly warned that Huawei’s Meng, arrested in Vancouver in December at US request, must be released if Sino-Canadian relations are to improve from their current parlous state. “Unless Meng Wanzhou is sent back to China, nothing will change, ” she wrote on January 31. “Canada got nothing out of this.” In February, she defended Chinese students angered by the election of Tibetan-Canadian Chemi Lhamo as University of Toronto student union president. “If I were an Israeli Jew, I probably wouldn’t vote for someone who’s closely associated with Hamas,” she wrote on Facebook. In his January interview, Brockwell said that there was a “grey area” between Woods’ private political activities and her work at Solstice, and that her political work with CCPAC played a role in her hiring in 2016. “In the broader government relations world you always want to pick a person that either has some political experience or has a political profile,” he said. Woods said she co-founded CCPAC about four years ago, to increase civic engagement among Chinese-Canadians. The ambiguity surrounding her activities continued after Solstice was hired by the consulate. For instance, Brockwell said that without seeing her invitations, he could not tell whether Woods had been invited to Chinese consular events in her capacity as a Solstice employee, a representative of CCPAC, or simply as a Chinese-Canadian. “I don’t ever recall asking Karen to attend such events on behalf of Solstice. So I suppose [her attendance could be] coincidental,” he said. The intersection between Solstice and CCPAC has also extended beyond Woods. In October, CCPAC volunteers attended a sold-out luncheon speech by former prime minister Harper at the Canadian Club of Toronto. This was “thanks to the generosity of Solstice Public Affairs @Stewart Kiff”, CCPAC said in a Twitter post that showed a plate of roast chicken, and Harper signing a CCPAC member’s copy of his book Right Here, Right Now . Reporters were banned from the paid event. Combative with critics Woods has been a combative and vocal presence on social media, decrying and denying suggestions that she acts as a paid mouthpiece for China. She told the Post that journalist Terry Glavin, had “trolled me like a retard”, after Glavin described her December article in The Star as “a public relations exercise”. Kevin Carrico, the Australian Chinese studies researcher, has also been on the receiving end of Woods’ scorn, after he noted her employment by Solstice in December. On Twitter, Woods called Carrico “fat and creepy” and told him “perhaps it’s time to hit the gym”. “She’s quite a character,” said Carrico, a senior research fellow in Chinese studies at Monash University. But he called her political activities, and disavowal of any connection to the consulate, “deeply problematic” and “confusing”. “The confusion arises when she writes editorials like the one she published in December that essentially recycle PRC government talking points and then presents them as having been published by just an interested citizen,” he said. Chinese lobbying had recently evolved by co-opting “the language of concern”, and “elements of Western political correctness, in the service of Beijing-style political correctness”, Carrico added. Again citing Woods’ article in The Star , he said: “The idea that Chinese-Canadians are ‘worried’ about Meng Wanzhou’s arrest, this articulation of concern about racialisation … these messengers are actually engaging in the racialisation of the issue that they say they are concerned about.” He questioned whether there was any point in an obscure “quote-unquote Chinese community group” like CCPAC publishing an open letter to Xi Jinping, except to raise its own credibility and profile in Canada. “It does seem unlikely Xi Jinping will read it,” he said. Woods rejected the idea that CCPAC had anything to do with her work at Solstice. She said she co-founded the group long before joining the firm, and the fact that it was formally registered as an NGO only last August – the same month Solstice’s contract with the consulate began – was irrelevant. She denied that her activities with the committee had anything to do with her hiring. “Absolutely not. Because it never came up in discussion.” She described CCPAC as “multi-partisan” in its goal of increasing Chinese-Canadian political participation. “I don’t feel the ways Chinese-Canadians are engaged in politics are correct. Nor is it efficient,” she said. Rusty on Xi Jinping Thought? China’s most popular app will help you with that As for the larger public relations battle – over the fate of Meng Wanzhou, over the image of China in Canada in general – Carrico said that lobbying of any kind in the current climate would have limited value, since China was “essentially engaged in hostage-taking” in the cases of Kovrig and Spavor. “No amount of public relations or lobbying can cover up that fact … [But] I can understand why they would hire a lobbying firm. It’s better than kidnapping people, I suppose.”