OTAWA – A federal unit monitoring foreign intervention has identified what appeared to be a coordinated media campaign by Chinese state media to control the domestic narrative about the return of the “two Michael” to Canada.
The Canada Rapid Reaction Mechanism found that the effort also appeared to be aimed at heightening confusion or doubt in Canada and internationally about what Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor did in China before they were arrested in late 2018.
The Canadian press used the Access to Information Act to obtain the unit’s analysis of the events of September 2021, the last window into a tense geopolitical drama that took place between Ottawa and Beijing for almost three years.
Several sections of the document, which were considered too sensitive to publish, had been blacked out.
Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive at Chinese company Huawei Technologies, in December 2018 at the request of the United States, where he faced charges related to US sanctions against Iran.
The move clearly angered Beijing, and two Canadians working in China – Kovrig and Spavor – were arrested shortly afterwards on charges of endangering national security, a move widely seen as retaliation against Ottawa.
Kovrig and Spavor were both convicted of espionage in 2021 in closed Chinese courts.  Canada and many allies said the process amounted to arbitrary detention on false charges in an unaccountable justice system.
The United States worked out a deal to postpone the prosecution in the Meng case, allowing her release, and Beijing allowed the two Michael, as it became known, to fly home on September 25.
A great outburst of relief from the Canadians welcomed their return.  Characteristic of the sentiment was a tweet from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service: “CSIS unites all Canadians to welcome you back to Canada.”
RRM Canada analysis on September 28 says it found a Chinese state media outlet claiming that the two Michaelians “confessed their guilt”, “had been guaranteed for medical reasons” and that CSIS had mistakenly exposed them as Canadian spies .
The unit, based in Global Affairs Canada, produces open data analytics to record trends, strategies and tactics in foreign intervention.  Efforts support the G7 RRM, an initiative to strengthen coordination to identify and address threats to leading industrial democracies.
RRM Canada says it first spotted the “Two Michael” story on September 26, when the Global Times, a state-run media tabloid, published a lengthy English-language article entitled “Two Canadians Confess Guilt, Guaranteed medical reasons before leaving China: source “.
The RRM analysis notes that the story states that the two men were “released on bail”, “confessed to their crimes and wrote letters of confession and repentance in their own handwriting” and left China “according to legal procedures”.
“The author adds that China’s suspicions are not unfounded and points to a recent tweet from CSIS welcoming the two Michaels back to Canada.”
Meng left court in British Columbia on September 24 after a judge agreed to an acquittal that withdrew her extradition request from the United States.
She followed her virtual appearance in a New York court, where she pleaded not guilty to all charges and a judge signed the agreement to postpone the prosecution.
At the time, Nicole Boeckmann, the current US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said that by concluding the deferred prosecution agreement, Meng had taken responsibility for her role in plotting to defraud a global financial institution. .
Boeckmann said Meng’s allegations in a statement confirmed that he had made multiple material misrepresentations to a senior member of a financial institution about Huawei’s operations in Iran in an effort to maintain the company’s banking relationship with the institution.
The same day, news accounts on the Chinese social networking platform WeChat reported that Meng would appear in US and Canadian courts and sign a deferral agreement that would allow her to return to China, according to RRM.
“Because the full details of the DPA were not clear, Canadian WeChat news accounts said it would plead guilty or plead guilty to misleading a global financial institution,” the analysis said.  “The Chinese state media did not include any of these discussions or information in their official accounts of Meng’s release.”
In response, RRM’s analysis says, most of the references to what Meng had agreed to in the postponement agreement were dropped.
WeChat users would see an error message from the developer of the Tencent platform saying, “This content cannot be viewed because it violates the rules”.
RRM notes that this type of message only appears when Tencent or the China Cyber ​​Administration removes content from news accounts.  However, he was unable to determine who had removed the stories.
The Chinese embassy in Ottawa did not respond to a request for comment on RRM Canada’s report.
The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto says China has an extensive censorship system that includes restrictions on the internet, applications and media.  Internet platforms operating in China must comply with local content control laws and regulations, says the research lab.
Fen Hamson, a professor of international relations at Carleton University, suggested that Chinese actions in the online dialogue on last September’s events showed a lack of finesse.
“This shows that they are not very sophisticated and that they can be quite ragged at the same time,” said Hampson, co-author with Canadian Press reporter Mike Blanchfield of The Two Michaels: Innocent Canadian Captives and High Stakes Spionage in the US-China cyber war “.
“This is Chinese state censorship on the move.”