Dear Canada-China Friendship Society of Ottawa recent and current members,
We hope this finds you all well and that you are making good progress on your New Year’s resolutions. It has been a few years since the Canada-China Friendship Society of Ottawa (CCFSO) hosted a dinner to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year. We are delighted to invite you to mark the Year of the Dragon. The get together will take place on:
Saturday, February 24, 2024 6:00 p.m. Shanghai One Restaurant 1872 Merivale Rd. Ottawa (Merivale and Hunt Club)
The price is $ 30.00 per person (excluding beverages) plus tax and gratuity, to be paid to the restaurant after the meal. Members may bring guests if they wish and there will be door prizes. There is plenty of on-site free parking.
If you wish to attend, please reply to this email at contact.ccfso@gmail.com , by no later than Monday February 19th. Seating is limited. At the same time, please let us know if you have any food allergies, etc.
Should you have any further questions regarding this event, you may contact Stephen Chappell at 613-612-0865 or email him at stbradch_6@hotmail.com.
China’s 14th Five Year Plan: New Policy Directions
Tuesday, March 30th, 2021 at 8:00 p.m.
(Eastern Time)
Patrons Honourable Sheila Copps Ambassador Robert Wright
This year China is embarking on its 14th Five Year Plan. Having successfully built a “moderately prosperous society”, policymakers are now developing an agenda which includes developing technological strength and reducing carbon emissions. Join us on March 30, at 8 PM for a talk by Mark Kruger, who will explain what a shift to a greener and more innovative China entails.
Mark Kruger is the Opinion Editor at Yicai Global. He holds Senior Fellow appointments at the Yicai Research Institute, the Centre for International Governance Innovation and University of Alberta’s China Institute. Mark was formerly a Senior Policy Director in the Bank of Canada’s International Department, a Senior Advisor to the Canadian Executive Director at the IMF and head of the Economic and Financial Section in the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Mark began his career at the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission. You can find Mark’s short, data-driven insights into China’s economy here: Columnist Mark.kruger .
China as a Global Neighbor: Towards a Rethinking of Canada-China Relations
Senator Yuen Pau Woo
Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern Time)
For a video recording including the Question and Answer session please follow this link https://youtu.be/1Esrq1B1VG8
Patrons Honourable Sheila Copps Ambassador Robert Wright
Appointed to the Senate of Canada in November 2016, the Honourable Yuen Pau Woo sits as an independent representing British Columbia. He has been the elected Facilitator of the Independent Senators Group since 2017.
Senator Woo has worked on public policy issues related to Canada’s relations with Asian countries for more than 30 years. From 2005-2014, he was President and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, where he continues to serve as Distinguished East Asia Fellow. He is also Senior Fellow at Simon Fraser University’s Graduate School of Business, and at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission and of the board of the Vancouver Academy of Music. He also serves on the Advisory Boards of the Mosaic Institute, the Canadian Ditchley Foundation, and the York Centre for Asian Research.
Relations with China will be Canada’s biggest foreign policy challenge for the foreseeable future. For the past 50 years, Canadian policy towards China has been largely transactional, with “the China question” seen as a residual of other international policy priorities. This is evident in the decades-long debate around “diversification” of Canadian trade and investment away from dependence on the United States. China today is much more than a “diversification” issue. As an increasingly assertive global power, China’s presence is felt anywhere and everywhere — for better or worse. China has become a global neighbor that we need to get to know much better, and at varying times confront, cajole, or cooperate with. We need to rethink Canada-China relations in a way that respects Canadian values, recognizes China’s place in the world, protects our interests domestically and abroad, and enhances the independence of our international policy. In recent years, Canada-China relations have been unduly shaped by US-China strategic competition, resulting in Ottawa having conflicts with Beijing that have more to do with great power rivalry than with our national interest. Sleeping with one elephant is difficult enough; sleeping with two should keep us awake constantly.
Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern time)
Q&A will follow the presentation.
Registration is required for this free Zoom webinar event. Please register by November 23 at this link: Zoom Webinar Registration Link
After successful registration, you will receive a link and a password to the webinar. Please retain the information for your access to the webinar and do not share it with others.
by Tuesday, November 3, 2020, indicating that you will attend. If you have a family membership, indicate whether the other family member will attend.
If you register to attend the AGM. you will receive the link for access to the Zoom AGM before Nov. 5. If you cannot attend the AGM via Zoom, we encourage you to assign your vote to the President or another CCFS member who is attending, to ensure that we have a quorum to hold the AGM. In order to assign your vote to the President or another member, please follow the instructions in the attached proxy form which provides details on completing the form and emailing it to CCFS before the AGM. Attachments in this mailing
As previously announced, we will not have a guest speaker at the AGM. The next speaker event will be held by webinar on November 24, 2020, with guest Senator Yuen Pau Woo.
Director: Tiffany Hsaiung from Toronto won a Peabody Award for her previous film
In an act of love and determination, director Tiffany Hsiung embarks on a journey to Taipei to uncover the missing pieces of her mother’s fragmented past. This documentary weaves a tender, personal story about unexpected familial healing and connection.
Directors: Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous. USA 93 minutes
Raw and intimate, this documentary captures the struggles of patients and frontline medical professionals battling the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan.
The opening sequences feel like a genre movie — science-fiction, zombie horror, apocalyptic thriller. We watch hospital workers, encased in PPE so that we only see their eyes behind foggy goggles, as they race from one patient to another. At the hospital doors, a desperate crowd is clamouring for entry. The overwhelmed workers can only admit a few people at a time.
The filmmakers of 76 Days capture an invaluable record of life inside Wuhan, China, ground zero for the outbreak of COVID-19. On January 23, the city of 11 million people went into a lockdown that lasted 76 days. This film concentrates mainly on medical workers and patients to give a pulse-racing account.
76 Days excels beyond mere reportage. The camera work is so strong that you could frame still images. In the face of fear and uncertainty, we witness perseverance and humour, as medical workers use magic markers to decorate their plastic outfits. One memorable figure is a head nurse who never fails to make a human connection with patients, even under the most dire circumstances.
76 Days is a lasting work of art for future generations trying to understand this pandemic.
This timely debut from Wang Jing, Jia Zhang-ke’s assistant director, was inspired by a journalist who defended 120 million people’s rights with a pen.
Inspired by true events, Wang Jing’s assured debut illuminates China’s independent film scene with new colours and fresh energy. Set in 2003, in the aftermath of the SARS epidemic, The Best Is Yet to Come addresses issues that echo today’s global scenario, where politics and prejudices sometimes conflict with safety and health concerns.
It is also a touching character study and a thrilling exploration of investigative journalism in China, The Best Is Yet to Come — produced by star auteur Jia Zhang-ke (Platform, Still Life) — informs, moves, and shocks. It is an indelible visual account of lives from a past that is suddenly too close.
Ying Wang is an independent filmmaker based in Richmond, British Columbia, a city with one of the highest new immigrant populations in Canada.
As a migrant navigating between multiple cultures, Ying is fascinated by stories that reveal the geopolitical complexity of global migration. Following the 10-year journey of an elderly Chinese couple searching for the truth behind their son’s death in Canada, her new documentary The World is Bright is a tender portrait of family, mental health and migration, and an indictment of state bureaucracy. Ying received the Sea to Sky Award at the 38th Vancouver International Film Festival in 2019 and Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in 2020.
Her credits as a filmmaker also include writing and directing Sisters, a 87-minute docudrama that exposed for the very first time the life of Chinese women who suffer from eating disorders, as well as producing Tricks on the Dead: The Story of Chinese Labour Corps in WWI, a Canada-China-France co-production that won two 2016 Canadian Screen Awards and the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival Audience Must See Award.
In addition to filmmaking, Ying co-founded Cinevolution Media Arts Society (www.cinevolutionmedia.com) in 2007. Under her leadership, Cinevolution has grown into one of the most promising arts organizations in metro Vancouver.
When we approached Director Wang with the question, “are there Canadian film directors who have made inspirational films about the Chinese-Canadian experience?” she immediately identified Mina Shum as the most important filmmaker in this context. Noting that “Shum has created a body of works that tell the stories of Chinese Canadians, particularly these three works: ‘Double Happiness’, ‘Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity’, and ‘Meditation Park’. There is a handful Chinese Canadian filmmakers, but most of them made films about the Chinese IN China, not IN Canada. Mina Shum is the only one who has created significant works about Chinese Canadians, the early generations of Chinese immigrants. Stories about the new and contemporary Chinese Canadians are extremely rare.”
Via Zoom Ying Wang sat down with Helen Moscicky to discuss the inspiring films of Mina Shum. The resulting insightful interview can be accessed here. https://youtu.be/mGDdc4QryEg
Short descriptions of the films discussed are below along with links where you can watch them.
2020 Toronto International Film Festival
September 10 - 19
TIFF has announced its 2020 line up for online screenings. Only 50 feature length films will screened of which 2 are by Chinese filmmakers about China, plus there is one short film by Chinese Canadian Director Tiffany Hsaiung.
A full list of the films can be found here tiff.net. Digital film screenings for the public will be available in Canada only.
Advance tickets for digital screenings will be available online at digital.tiff.net between August 28 and September 5. However advanced ticket sales to the general public will be available only on September 5 and 6, 2020. The cost for the general public to watch the Chinese films online is $19.00 each.
CCFS Webinar with His Excellency CONG Peiwu, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China on China-Canada Relations
Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern Time)
Many thanks to H.E. Cong Peiwu, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, for joining us as our distinguished guest speaker at our September 10, 2020 webinar. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to have heard first hand from H.E. Cong on such a wide range of crucial topics on Canada-China relations. Thanks also to all the attendees for your active participation by sending in so many candid questions, both prior to and during the webinar. And thank you for your very positive feedback.
Please find here the full text of Ambassador Cong’s keynote speech at the webinar:
Mr. CONG became Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to Canada in 2019. This was his second appointment in Canada. From 2000 to 2003, he was Second Secretary, then First Secretary, at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China here. From 2009 to 2014, Mr. CONG served as Minister-Counsellor, then Minister, at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. During the intervening years from 1992 to 2019, Mr. CONG had various positions in the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was Director-General of that department from 2014 to 2019. Ambassador CONG graduated from China Foreign Affairs University.
Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern Time)
