# ‘Old Friends’ of Beijing: Dennis Molinaro on Trudeau and the Elite Networks That Rewired Canada–China Relations

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-bureau-podcast-6621098/old-friends-of-beijing-dennis-molinaro-on-trudeau-and-the-elite-networks-that-rewired-canada-china-relations
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-bureau-podcast-6621098/old-friends-of-beijing-dennis-molinaro-on-trudeau-and-the-elite-networks-that-rewired-canada-china-relations.md
Podcast: [The Bureau Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-bureau-podcast-6621098)
Published: 2025-12-08T18:12:17+00:00
Episode link: https://www.thebureau.news/p/old-friends-of-beijing-dennis-molinaro
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/181065232/5cde0d34941f991700277d2519369ff0.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3474

## Resource

OTTAWA — In this episode of The Bureau Podcast, I chat with Canadian author, historian and former national security analyst Dennis Molinaro to unpack Under Assault: Interference and Espionage in China’s Secret War Against Canada — the book The Bureau has reviewed in three pieces, and which covers a vast array of cases revealing how Beijing has shaped Canada’s trajectory for more than half a century. One of the central themes of the conversation is Molinaro’s insistence that you cannot understand the evolution of Canada–China relations by looking only at diplomatic files or security reports. “We can’t just detach security from diplomacy and from relations,” he says. “So I wanted to try to tell that complete story as best I could.” That fuller picture includes a re-assessment of Pierre Trudeau and the 1970 recognition of the People’s Republic of China. Molinaro is careful with his evidence, but blunt about the pattern it reveals. On the recognition decision, he tells me: “I would say that the recognition of China, I’m comfortable in saying that likely looks like it was a foreign interference operation by the PRC … because of Paul Lin.” Molinaro walks listeners through the previously obscure figure of Paul Lin, an academic who moved between the West Coast, the United States, China and finally McGill University. Newly released RCMP and allied intelligence files show Lin under heavy surveillance and flagged as a likely Chinese Communist Party influence operator. In Molinaro’s words, the Mounties “flat out say that this is part of his task of being an agent of influence is to get China recognized.” At the same time, Beijing’s internal language about Canada’s leaders was far from neutral. Drawing on the testimony of defector Chen Yonglin, Molinaro explains how Chinese interna…

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