The timing of Xiaosong's accusations is notable, just before Trudeau is set to take meetings with his counterpart in China on Tuesday. Trudeau is under pressure to call the Chinese government out on its record of human rights abuses, specifically government-sponsored torture and illegal detention. Canada's foreign minister, Stephane Dion, has said that pursuing a closer economic relationship with China would allow Canada to promote respect for freedom and human rights there. Tensions on the matter boiled over in June when China's foreign minister was visiting Ottawa and lashed out at an iPolitics reporter who asked Dion about China's human rights record. The Chinese minister interjected and said the question was "full of prejudice against China and arrogance." "I don't know where that comes from," he continued. "This is totally unacceptable." Recently, China's reach into Canadian politics and media have made headlines. Last year, the Globe and Mail found that Canada's domestic spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, was concerned that Michael Chan, a Chinese-Canadian who serves as Ontario's minister of immigration and international trade, had gotten too cozy with China's consulate in Toronto. Chan is now suing the Globe for defamation. The New York Times recently examined how many Chinese-Canadian activists and reporters are concerned that China's growing economic influence in Canada has threatened their freedom to openly criticize the authoritarian regime. One editor of a Chinese-language newspaper said she had been fired for publishing a piece that received complaints from the Chinese consulate in Toronto. And another publisher of a Chinese newspaper said the consul general asked his publication to stop including advertisements from Falun Gong, a religious sect banned in China that accuses the government of murdering and torturing its adherents. Follow Rachel Browne on Twitter."CDN censorship" incident more like business dispute between production partners, CDN tourism office a bit zealous, shot themselves in foot
— 大山 Dashan (@akaDashan) August 28, 2016
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Chinese TV Star Accuses Canadian Tourism Officials of Trying to Censor Show About First Nations
Justin Trudeau's trip to China is off to a rocky start already.