this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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The funny thing is that you can actually check the official Canadian source right here that links to two posts directly (one and two) and if you use some browser translation you can see exactly what the articles actually say which is... literally just a news update for Chinese audiences offering a summary of Carney's past behavior and achievements. It's not even really negative, if anything it's just vaguely uncertain.
I have read them both twice and am not really really finding any false narratives to speak of. The only real editorializing is in portrayal of current exchanges between Trump, Carney, and Trudeau, and if we're going to consider any kind of characterization of foreign political leaders as somehow pushing a false narrative then we should probably take a look at how all our own media reports on the US, EU, and elsewhere ourselves.
Granted, I don't speak mandarin and there is always a possibility that there are more skewed statements that are being lost in translation, but I don't really understand why these particular posts summarizing Canadian electoral politics for Chinese readers on wechat are somehow some kind of election interference.
A snippet, from one of the posts that is being framed as some kind of attack on Carney, which is actually titled "The United States is facing a tough prime minister from Canada":
I can read Chinese so I can verify that the few articles that were linked are linked certainly don’t seem to mention anything negative about Carney. That translation you’ve shared there is accurate.
I was being rather cautious about the source while reading, cause the official source mentions that this is the channel where mis/disinfo was spread about that Lib MP who had to be removed due to election interferences (sorry, can’t recall his name at the moment). But so far, nothing stands out to me here. The article does seem like a base where they could build their own narrative though, since they don’t cite anything (eg when quoting Carney), making it hard to verify whether a statement was truly said or not, and mixing truths and lies is exactly how they like creating false narratives, to make it incredibly tedious to disentangle truths from lies.
As for the other article, nothing stands out too. It’s written quite a lot more sensationally (eg. something like “Trump’s strategy is as such: ‘You (you being Canada here) either kneel down and be our (American) son, or get roasted (by me) on Twitter till you become a shut-in’”). It’s clear that this isn’t a credible news source, but the Chinese (in Asia, not just China, as there are large Chinese diasporas who aren’t Chinese citizens, e.g. Singaporeans and Malaysians) are used to consuming news from these sorts of non-credible channels.
That said, yeah, I’m confused about how and why the gov seems to have selectively linked these articles to say that false narratives have started. There’s potential for it, but these don’t seem to be it
Yeah it would have been more appropriate to say "Chinese-speaking audiences" on my part, especially given the concern seems to be that it was aimed at Canadian voters who can read/speak the language.
The second link was definitely the one I was more referring to when talking about editorializing and characterizations, it's more emotive language overall but it still doesn't really say anything wrong or misleading. Disagreeing with the characterization could be reasonable, but the tone of it is like any sensationalized news aggregator blog or social media account anywhere else in the world. Like we don't call it misinformation when people post a video called "[Public Figure] DESTROYED in HEATED DEBATE!" even if we roll our eyes at the language, and similarly any kind of social media format lends itself to catchier and more dramatic descriptions.
The lack of attribution could actually be the real source of concern. It's possible there's some disagreements on wording in a translation, or that not having direct links to sources is viewed as misleading but again... it's not hard to see that's exactly how just about any social media news account tends to function these days.
It just honestly feels like this is the Canadian government grasping at straws, especially given that this is being treated like overt election interference from the Chinese government. Given that there is a much more present and obvious concern about US interference. Most of our media outside the CBC and all of our social media is directly owned by US corporations that are backing the fascist threatening to annex us. I don't understand why the fed and CSIS keep issuing these warnings about often dubious claims of malicious state actors from elsewhere, it's maddening.
Makes me think that the government should be consulting trustable people who speak Chinese before jumping to these conclusions. This just feels like they’re frantic and possibly extreme in their view of China. We can dislike the Chinese government and be wary of its many machinations, but we should also judge fairly, lest we undermine our own credibility and essentially give the CCP ammo to label the Canadian government as an extremist and xenophobic.
Also, I would say that Chinese, American, and Russian-controlled media all need to be taken with caution. I understand that the US is a more immediate threat, but the other two have long known to be in the game, and especially the Chinese cause they have large diasporas here, and has a large social media arm worldwide.