Ex-Canada deputy PM urges democracies to oppose China's law

Taipei, Aug. 4 (CNA) Former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday urged democratic countries to publicly oppose China's "Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law," warning that it mirrors tactics Russia used before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Freeland, who served as Canada's 10th deputy prime minister from 2019 to 2024, told a security forum in Taipei that parts of the law targeting individuals and organizations outside China's borders for undermining ethnic unity were "particularly sinister."

These bore a "dark kinship with Russia's malign use of linguistic, cultural, and ethnic ties to justify illegal encroachment on the sovereignty of its neighbors," Freeland said.

Freeland noted that in July 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin published his essay, "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians," arguing that Russians and Ukrainians shared a common ethnic and historical heritage. "Seven months later, he sent in the tanks. The lesson of history is clear."

Following the implementation of China's new law on July 1, Freeland said democracies needed to "state plainly and in one voice that a foreign law which assigns political loyalty on the basis of ethnicity has no force on our territories."

"[It] has no application to our citizens -- whatever their ancestry, whatever their passport, wherever they or their parents were born," she added.

Freeland praised the Taiwanese people for their courage and determination in defending freedom and democracy, noting that this year marks the 30th anniversary of Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996.

She said preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait was important, as was supporting Taiwan's inclusion in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a regional trade bloc of which Canada is a member.

Freeland was speaking at the 10th Ketagalan Forum, a one-day event jointly hosted by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research focusing on Indo-Pacific security issues.