China journalist denies spying claim by Canadian freelancer who quit Xinhua

OTTAWA – A Canadian journalist says he quit working for China’s news agency because it wanted him to spy on the Dalai Lama in Ottawa.

But the Ottawa bureau chief of China’s Xinhua news agency is dismissing that claim as a product of “cold war” ideology.

Ottawa-based freelance journalist and author Mark Bourrie makes the allegation against the Xinhua news service in an article to be published on Thursday in Ottawa Magazine, and in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The matter will likely revive debate around the long-standing issue of whether Xinhua is an intelligence gathering front for the Chinese government, instead of a legitimate news service.

Xinhua Ottawa bureau chief, Dacheng Zhang, denied Bourrie’s claim on Wednesday.

The parliamentary press gallery, which decides whether news organizations have access to Parliament Hill, is to hear from both Bourrie and Zhang at a later date.