Canada Planned To Train Chinese Troops in North America, Trump's DOD Shuts It Down
Troops from China’s People’s Liberation Army would have had access to North American terrain and experts who are skilled at navigating the landscape thanks to a reckless U.S. ally.
Thankfully, the Pentagon put a stop to the training of an adversary’s military in our own backyard.
The plan to train Chinese soldiers was revealed after the Canadian outlet Rebel News made an information request to the Canadian government for records corroborating an April 2019 report in state-owned Russian media outlet Sputnik that claimed Canada had sent a delegation to an event celebrating the 70th anniversary of China’s navy.
Nineteen months later, the Canadian government finally responded with a trove of redacted documents both confirming the delegation’s attendance and outlining planned PLA activities in Canada.
Although the documents contain sensitive military information, it appears censors tasked with redacting the classified information failed at blacking out most of the text. Much of the released information is perfectly visible, despite being marked “secret.”
The documents reveal plans for a training engagement between members of the PLA and the Canadian Armed Forces — more specifically, winter survival training for a small detachment at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ontario, some 150 miles from the country’s border with New York state.
This training was planned for winter of 2019, but “paused” after pressure from the United States.
“The decision to pause the winter survival training was communicated to [Global Affairs Canada] at the [director general] level on the margins of the last Government of Canada DG China Committee,” one ineffectively redacted secret email from January 2019 read.
“General [Derek] Joyce informed Cindy and Sarah Taylor that the [Chief of the Defence Staff] had decided to pause this training due to security concerns, including concerns that were discussed with the US.”
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Another email from that same month had noted that the U.S. “approach hs shifted under the Trump administration] and that “back in December [2018] [Department of National Defence]/CAF were keen to cancel the PLA’s participation in the winter survival training following the request from [the U.S. Department of Defense] to do so.”
Is it any surprise that President Donald Trump’s administration didn’t take kindly to Chinese troops getting the lay of the land less than 200 miles from America?
Potential but unscheduled engagements between Canadian and Chinese forces included high-level meetings on defense cooperation and military education. These were planned to be offered to delegations of foreign soldiers led by high-level PLA officers.
Although the numbers of PLA troops allowed in would have been small, crucial information about operating in one of North America’s harshest conditions could be effectively learned and passed on to soldiers training in China.
Canada’s inability to censor secret information also raises questions about the country’s chance at keeping sensitive information from falling into the hands of PLA agents.
Even before China’s lies allowed a small outbreak of a novel coronavirus to burn across the globe earlier this year, there were plenty of reasons to distrust the People’s Republic.
From the ruling communist party’s torturous treatment of ethnic minorities to threats of conquest against neighboring countries, it’s clear that it’s in nobody’s best interest to give the Chinese military a helping hand.
While Trump’s stance on halting communist China is clear, presumptive President-elect Joe Biden has historically taken a different approach to the Asian powerhouse. After paving the way for a rising China, Biden now sits dangerously close to the presidency.
If left unchecked, there’s little doubt that China’s global ambitions will play out in disastrous fashion in the coming years.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
