“Deeply Concerned”: Congressional Chairman Demands Philadelphia Cancel China Flag-Raising

Submitted by The Bureau’s Sam Cooper,

The chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is demanding that Philadelphia cancel an official flag-raising of the People’s Republic of China scheduled for next Tuesday, citing Beijing’s repression of diaspora communities and its role in fentanyl trafficking that has “killed or harmed millions of Americans.”

In a letter to Mayor Cherelle Parker, Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan warned the city not to allow itself “to be exploited as a tool for CCP propaganda,” arguing that raising the Five-Star Red Flag “sends the wrong message” in the birthplace of American independence. He cited Beijing’s persecution of minorities, the genocide of Uyghur Muslims, and subsidization of fentanyl precursor chemicals as reasons the ceremony should be scrapped.

“I am deeply concerned that the city government of Philadelphia is partnering with local organizations that appear to be civic associations in name only and, more troubling, have ties to the CCP,” Moolenaar wrote. He singled out the Pennsylvania United Chinese Coalition and Greater Philadelphia Fujian Hometown Association as entities of concern for their links to Beijing’s United Front system.

Canada has been here before, and Moolenaar’s concerns are not abstract, according to The Bureau’s investigations. The Fujian business and hometown associations flagged in Philadelphia connect with the types of organizations at the center of flag-raising controversies in Vancouver, Toronto, and Markham, and they overlap with RCMP probes into so-called CCP police stations in these Canadian cities.

In 2016, Vancouver’s City Hall hosted a PRC National Day flag-raising organized by Chinese community leaders with overt links to the consulate and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, its foreign interference and espionage arm. The event ignited backlash when Canadian officials appeared in bright red neck scarves that some diaspora residents associated with communist youth movements and the Cultural Revolution. Then–Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido apologized for wearing what critics called a “communist scarf,” after some Canadians said the symbolism was painful. But access-to-information records later showed the flag-raising request and invitations were routed through the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, an umbrella for over 100 community groups that former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin—who defected to Australia and testified before the U.S. Congress—has described as a “controlling-level” United Front organization.

Leaders from the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations (CACA), which liaised with Vancouver city officials to arrange the 2016 flag-raising according to records reviewed by The Bureau, were later questioned in RCMP probes into so-called “CCP police stations” in the city. Canadian police and intelligence sources link the group to a nexus of foreign interference operations, including suspected support for Beijing’s election-interference activities in British Columbia at all levels of government. That includes Vancouver municipal politics, provincial races, and federal contests—most notably the 2021 targeting of former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, who faced orchestrated disinformation attacks after proposing a foreign-agent registry.

As part of this investigation, The Bureau has obtained photographs showing senior CACA leaders in recent years meeting with known associates of the Sam Gor syndicate, the transnational fentanyl trafficking and money-laundering organization led by Toronto-area man Tse Chi Lop, a notorious leader of the Big Circle Gang. The images document links between CACA figures and several high-level crime actors, including a Toronto-based Sam Gor leader and Paul King Jin, a notorious Vancouver suspect tied to casino money laundering and synthetic narcotics trafficking probes.

Jin has also been tied to alleged fentanyl traffickers in British Columbia court records, and was a target of RCMP’s high-profile E-Pirate case, which alleged an underground banking network moving billions through casino VIP rooms, Latin American cash pools, and hundreds of Chinese accounts. The case collapsed in 2018 after disclosure failures, with charges against Jin and others dropped.

Three years after Vancouver’s flag-raising, Markham, Ontario, became a flashpoint. A PRC National Day flag-raising sponsored by the Federation of Chinese Canadians in Markham provoked large protests and calls to end foreign flag ceremonies at civic sites. Markham’s mayor faced criticism after participating, and a contemporaneous timeline maintained by local media chronicled how the ceremony moved forward amid public pushback across the Greater Toronto Area.

At the provincial level, Ontario has wrestled with the same questions. On October 1, 2014, then-premier Kathleen Wynne joined China’s consul general to raise the PRC flag on the lawn at Queen’s Park, an image widely distributed by wire services. The ceremony involved leaders from the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations (CTCCO), an umbrella body for dozens of Chinese associations that appears to mirror CACA in Vancouver as a controlling-level organization. CTCCO’s top leaders have repeatedly traveled to Beijing and met directly with President Xi Jinping.

The CTCCO leader present with Wynne has been referenced in intelligence and RCMP investigations on numerous occasions, and a little-noticed legislative aspect of his Fujian group’s engagement in Ontario included pressing and sponsoring, along with Toronto Chinese Freemason groups, a provincial bill creating a Nanjing Massacre memorial—an initiative critics in the diaspora warned supported Beijing’s agenda and United Front messaging in Canada.

Probes involving a Fujian community association in the Toronto area and alleged CCP “police stations” have not resulted in charges, but parallel U.S. Department of Justice filings in New York reveal that a Fujian community leader from Toronto was documented meeting with groups later tied to a CCP police station case that led to charges against Lu “Harry” Jianwang, a New York–based Fujian community leader.

Global News reported that the FBI recovered a photograph from Lu Jianwang’s phone showing the official opening ceremonies for overseas police stations in Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Canada. As alleged in the indictment, Lu and co-defendant Chen Jinping conspired to act as illegal agents of the PRC government. Chen has since pleaded guilty, while Lu maintains his plea of not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Separately, Chinese government records show that directors of CTCCO in Toronto attended the 2022 “Belt and Road” Symposium for Fujian Overseas Chinese Leaders, hosted by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the CCP’s United Front Work Department, alongside Lu Jianwang—later charged by the FBI for acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Beijing.

Meanwhile, documents released under Vancouver’s freedom-of-information law show that leaders of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations arranged the 2016 flag-raising through then–Mayor Gregor Robertson’s community liaison. Robertson himself is now at the center of a political storm as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal housing minister, responsible for Canada’s Infrastructure Investment Bank, after reports of a $1-billion low-interest loan to British Columbia to purchase ferries from a Chinese civil–military fusion enterprise.

These municipal and provincial episodes intersect with Canada’s broader national-security picture. CSIS and the RCMP have warned for years that United Front bodies cultivated by Beijing act as influence proxies, surrounding Canadian political leaders and election candidates. According to the evidence set out in Moolenaar’s letter, and The Bureau’s investigations into United Front associations in cities such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and now Philadelphia, Americans are facing the same intensive infiltration operations long directed at Canada, which has a much higher proportion of Asian diaspora communities than the United States.

The question front and center for next week, however, is whether Philadelphia’s mayor will proceed with a political event red-flagged by the powerful Congressional Select Committee on the CCP.