Who paid for Meng’s fake supporters, and what should be done about it

That Chinese authorities are not particularly interested in the truth is no secret. But is their disregard so total, and so cynical, that they’d corrupt one of the most basic and universal forms of political expression–the public protest–by using paid actors?

That is the question at the heart of the mystery of who paid the poor dupes who showed up in front a Vancouver courthouse on January 20, 2020, holding signs expressing solidarity with Huawei CFO Meng Manzhou.

The most recent reporting reveals that a Vancouver-area woman of Chinese descent, Jiaming Zhou, who also goes by Helen, was the one who asked a Vancouver-area producer, Costa Vassos, if he could help them find some “extras” on very short notice. (As an aside, I spoke to Vassos about all this. He told me his own son was among those duped, something he’s not particularly happy about.)

Meanwhile, another woman of Chinese descent, Joey Zhang, who has a phone number and WeChat account suggesting that she lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, handled the task of actually paying the actors at the scene of the staged protest.

Neither has overt, obvious links to the Chinese state apparatus, and various official entities, including Huawei, CCTV, and the Chinese Consul General in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, have indicated that they don’t know who hired them.

Meanwhile, CCTV has aired footage of the staged protest, uncritically describing the duped actors as local Canadians who support Meng.

Given all this, there seem to be two main possibilities. The first is that neither Zhou nor Zhang had any connection to the CCP or to any other Chinese authorities. If so, the question becomes what their motive was.

The second, of course, is that behind either Zhou or Zhang or both are state actors of some kind. If so, the question of motive becomes a bit more clear–to shape public opinion into believing that Meng–and, by proxy, the CCP and the Chinese government–have more support than actually exists.

My view is that the second possibility is orders of magnitude more likely than the first.

I recognize, of course, that a genuine love of China might motivate Chinese nationalists to turn out in support of Meng without the prodding of the CCP. But this wasn’t a pro-Meng protest carried about by Chinese nationalists. It was a knowing, deceptive scheme using non-Chinese people as props. And though it can’t be ruled out that genuine love of country, or some other strange motive, might have prompted Zhou and Zhang to organize the scheme on their own, that seems highly unlikely compared to the possibility that they were themselves recruited into the effort by organs of the CCP.

As for what it all means, beyond the obvious–that Zhou, Zhang, and anyone else who knowingly misled the actors into playing pro-Meng protesters are guilty of exceedingly shitty behavior–I’m interested in seeing what kind of accountability there might be, beyond public shaming.

Legally, I can imagine Zhou and Zhang being liable to some or all of the actors civilly, under a variety of theories, including intentional infliction of mental suffering, and civil fraud. I’m not a criminal lawyer, but based on the definition of criminal fraud, I can also see a risk for them there. The same liability would exist, of course, for anyone who might stand behind Zhou and Zhang. The question then becomes whether any of the actors are interested in pursuing a private action, whether any Canadian lawyers are willing to help, and whether Canadian law enforcement is interested in a criminal investigation.

Another consequence I’m interested in seeing is accountability for what CCTV has already done–and what is has not. It has aired demonstrably deceptive footage and demonstrably deceptive descriptions of that footage. And it has not, to my knowledge, issued any kind of retraction or correction for that deception. That failure is, in and of itself, a concrete fraud, deserving of censure and opprobrium.

Indeed, assuming CCTV doesn’t run a correction, what I would really like to see is a hard-hitting piece by a Canadian outlet that includes an interview with CCTV officials asking them why they haven’t done so.

Here’s hoping.