On February 25, 2025, CCBC hosted a sold-out event in Vancouver featuring a panel discussion moderated by Bijan Ahmadi, CCBC Executive Director and COO, alongside remarks from Chinese Consul General Mr. YANG Shu. Mr. YANG shared insights on China’s economic priorities and the importance of strengthening ties with British Columbia. Joyce Lee, CCBC Board Director and Partner and Chair of Asia Group, McCarthy Tétrault LLP, addressed CCBC’s leadership transition and formally welcomed Mr. Ahmadi to the local community.

 

The panel discussion featured Paul Evans, Professor Emeritus in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, David Fung, Vice-Chair of CCBC’s Board of Director and CEO of ACDEG International Inc., and Susan Gregson, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. The conversation explored Canada’s economic outlook, evolving dynamics in Canada-China relations, and the challenges and opportunities in North American trade, particularly in light of recent U.S. tariffs. The panelists discussed the potential impacts on supply chains and trade, while also emphasizing opportunities for innovation, diversification, and strategic policy enhancements to bolster Canada’s economic resilience.

 

 

 

Chen LIU, Ph.D.
Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Professor of Finance
Trinity Western University’s School of Business

 

Dr. Chen LIU is Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Professor of Finance at Trinity Western University’s School of Business. As Associate Dean, Dr. Liu oversees TWU’s MBA and Executive MBA (EMBA) programs in Langley and Richmond, as well as the Great Wall International MBA offered in Tianjin, Shanghai, and Beijing, China.

 

Dr. Liu’s teaching and research center on Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Digital Transformation. Her research areas span topics that include Private Equity, Venture Capital, Leveraged Buyout (LBO), Merger & Acquisition (M&A), Entrepreneurial Finance, and Fintech. In 2016, she co-founded TWU’s value-investing Student Managed Investment Fund, serving as faculty director until 2019.

 

Dr. Liu earned her PhD in Finance from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and holds a BBA from the University of International Business & Economics in Beijing, China.

 

 

Victor Tsao
Partner, Trademark Agent
Bennett Jones LLP

 

Victor Tsao practices corporate law with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, real estate development, cross-border transactions, financing, technology and entertainment law. He is also a registered trademark agent and a member of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada.

 

With years of experience in the Asia Pacific market, Mr. Tsao provides strategic advice to Canadian, Chinese and Japanese clients as they do business throughout the region and beyond. This includes entering new markets, corporate financing, developing their businesses and cross-border transactions.

 

Prior to joining Bennett Jones, Mr. Tsao was the managing partner of the Vancouver office of a global law firm.

 

Mr. Tsao is fluent in English, Chinese and Japanese.

 

About the Speakers:

 

YANG Shu
Consul General
Chinese Consulate General in Vancouver

 

Mr. YANG Shu, the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Vancouver, assumed his duties on September 21, 2022.

 

From 2020 to 2022, he was the deputy head of the International Relations Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. He was also formerly the Deputy Consul General of the Chinese Consulate General in Denpasar and the Executive Deputy Director General of the Consular Assistance and Protection Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.

 

After graduating from university, Mr. YANG Shu worked in the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and has been engaged in consular affairs for many years. He has rich diplomatic and consular work experience, and has previously worked in Chinese diplomatic missions abroad, specifically South Africa and Indonesia.

 

 

Bijan Ahmadi
Executive Director and COO
Canada China Business Council

 

Bijan Ahmadi serves as the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Canada China Business Council (CCBC), overseeing the operations and activities of the Council across its seven chapters in Canada and China.

 

Before joining CCBC, he co-founded and served as the Executive Director of the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy (IPD) from 2018 to 2024. IPD is a non-partisan think tank operating in Canada and the United States, dedicated to fostering constructive engagement and interest-based thinking in international affairs.

 

During his tenure at IPD, Mr. Ahmadi launched the organization’s Asia research program in 2020 and its flagship annual conference, the Indo-Pacific Strategy Forum (IPSF), in Ottawa in 2021. Today, IPSF is recognized as Canada’s premier conference on the country’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific region. He was also the co-editor of Canada-China Brief, a biweekly policy newsletter providing the latest developments and expert insights on political and economic relations between Ottawa and Beijing.

 

In his work on China, Mr. Ahmadi has advised large corporations and SMEs on navigating Canada-China trade, policy, and regulatory developments. He has also spearheaded the publication of numerous research reports on China and Canada-China relations and led Track 2 diplomacy initiatives in collaboration with Chinese and American research institutions.

 

Mr. Ahmadi holds a Master’s degree in Global Diplomacy from SOAS University of London and a Master of Applied Science from the University of Toronto. Before founding IPD, Mr. Ahmadi worked in strategy and management roles in the financial services and real estate sectors, where he honed his skills in organizational leadership and operational planning. He also served on the executive boards of several Canadian non-profits and NGOs, including the Toronto branch of the Canadian International Council.

 

 

Paul Evans
Professor Emeritus in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs
University of British Columbia (UBC)

 

Paul Evans (PhD with distinction Dalhousie University 1982) retired from UBC in June 2023 after 43 years of university teaching. He is currently Professor Emeritus.

 

His academic appointments have been as follows:

• Assistant Professor, Acadia University, 1980-81
• Assistant, Associate and Professor, Department of Political Science, York University, 1981-97;
• Director, University of Toronto – York University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, 1991-96;
• Visiting Professor, Asia Center, Harvard University, 1997-99;
• Acting Director, Liu Institute for Global Issues, 2004-5;
• Director, Institute of Asian Research, 2008-11 and 2014;
• Visiting Professor at the University of Hong Kong, 2011 and 2013;
• Visiting Professor and Head of the International Academic Advisory Panel to the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, 2013-16.
• Visiting Pok Rafeah Chair, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2022-23.

Between 2005 and 2008, he was seconded from UBC to serve as the Co-CEO and Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. And between 2020 and 2023 he held the HSBC Chair in Asian Research at UBC.

 

A regionalist rather than country specialist, he has held visiting fellowships at the Australian National University (1988); National Chengchi University in Taiwan (1989); Chulalongkorn University (1989); the East-West Center (1995); and the National Institute for Research Advancement in Tokyo (1999) and spoken at more than fifty universities and think tanks across the region.

 

An advocate of cooperative and human security, he has been studying and promoting policy-related activity on track-two security processes and the construction of multilateral institutions since 1988. He was a co-founder of the Council for Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific (CSCAP), the Canadian Consortium on Human Security, and the co-founder of the Canada-Korea Forum. He has directed exchange and partnership projects with fifteen research institutes in Asia and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded by governments and foundations in Canada, Japan, the United States, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. Between 1990 and 2002 he organized two dozen meetings involving participants from North Korea.

 

He is currently a Canadian representative on the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Experts and Eminent Persons Group.

 

A member of the Global Council of the Asia Society in New York, he also sits on the editorial boards of The Pacific Review, the Chinese Journal of International Politics, the China Quarterly for International Strategic Studies, and Mexico y la Cuenca del Pacifico.

 

His graduate and undergraduate teaching at UBC focused on Global China and World Order.

 

The author or editor of seven books, his first was a biography of John Fairbank, his most popular the two editions of a lexicon of Asia Pacific security terminology (with David Capie), and his most recent “Engaging China: Myth, Aspiration and Strategy in Canadian Policy from Trudeau to Harper,” published in 2014.

 

His recent writings and media commentaries have focused on Canada-China relations, Asian security dynamics, and the emergence of techno-nationalism as a defining force in regional affairs. Some of them are available here and on his blog. His condensed academic CV is available here, and his complete academic CV is available here.

 

He is married to Catherine Evans and they plan to remain resident in Vancouver.

 

 

David T. Fung, B.Eng., M. Eng., Ph.D., PEng (BC), FEC, C. Dir., LL.D. (Hon.), D.Sc. (Hon.)
CEO
ACDEG International Inc.
Vice-Chair, Board of Directors
Canada China Business Council

 

Dr. Fung is the co-founder, Board Chair and CEO of the ACDEG Group of companies, a global technology integrator. Over the past 35 years, he has founded, co-founded or restructured over 25 business ventures/corporations in agri-food, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and clean technologies in North America, Europe and Asia.

 

Dr. Fung is also the Founding Scientist of EM Fluids Inc. of Ottawa (ON) with water remediation projects on six continents. He is the co-inventor of 46 issued or allowed patents with more than 30 patent applications pending on a variety of chemical technologies including a highly disruptive discovery on the disproportionate responses of the physicochemical properties of liquids to minute external stimuli.

 

Besides the ACDEG Group of companies, his board experience includes Chair of the Chemical Institute of Canada, Co-chair of the Members of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, National Board Chair of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Association, Chair of China Committee of International Science & Technology Partnership Canada, Vice-chair of the national boards of Canada China Business Council, the Canadian Standards Association Group and the Management Board of National Zero Waste Council of Canada. He was the Chancellor and a member of the Board of Governors and the Senate of Capilano University of British Columbia, the President of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering, a member of the Steering Committee of the Metro Vancouver Regional Prosperity Initiative, a Senior Fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and a member of the Advisory Board of the McGill School of Religious Studies.

 

He was awarded the Canadian Asian of the Year (Business and Public Service), 2009 by Asia Network Canada, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, 2012 by the Governor General of Canada, the honorary Doctor of Law degree by Capilano University (BC) in 2014, the honorary Doctor of Science degree by Concordia University (Quebec) in 2020, the Award of Merit by the McGill Alumni Association in 2022 and Fellow of Engineers Canada in 2024.

 

 

Susan Gregson
Distinguished Fellow
Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

 

Susan Gregson served in the Canadian public service with distinction for 35 years, occupying several senior executive positions. Between 2013 and 2016, she was Assistant Deputy Minister for Asia Pacific at Global Affairs Canada. Prior to her last assignment, she served as Assistant Deputy Minister for Human Resources, Director General of Assignments and Executive Management, Director General, Regional Strategies, World Markets Branch, and Director, Human Rights, Humanitarian Affairs and International Women’s Equality Division, all in the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

 

Ms. Gregson has also represented Canada abroad. Her most noteworthy assignments were as Deputy High Commissioner in London, Consul General of Canada in Shanghai and Minister-Counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. She holds a B.A. in anthropology from the University of British Columbia and was Canada-China Scholar at Nankai University and Fudan University.

 

Since her retirement from the federal public service, Ms. Gregson has been a Senior Fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the China Institute at the University of Alberta. Since 2018 she has also been a Senior Fellow with the Centre on Public Management and Policy at the University of Ottawa.

 

 

Joyce Lee
Partner and Chair of Asia Group
McCarthy Tétrault LLP
Board Director
Canada China Business Council

 

Joyce Lee brings a unique perspective to her practice, skillfully uniting Canadian companies seeking Chinese investors with Chinese companies looking to expand into North America. She also regularly advises corporate executives in the financial sector about taking advantage of opportunities and navigating risk.

 

Born and raised in Hong Kong and with over 20 years experience working in the North American marketplace, Ms. Lee has both the cultural and business skills necessary to view potential deals from each party’s perspective. Her communication skills – she speaks English, Mandarin and Cantonese fluently – smoothly guide Asian companies into Canada, including joint ventures in mining and other natural resources sectors; and, the technology, life science and real estates industries.

 

Leadership teams from across Canada and Asia, including public companies listed on TSX, NYSE, HK Stock Exchange, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange asset management companies and investment firms, frequently solicit Ms. Lee’s advice on how to grow their business and make strategic moves in the marketplace, whether within Canada or abroad.

 

As Chair of the firm’s Asia Group and a regular speaker at conferences and seminars focused on business from China and the Asia Pacific region, Ms. Lee has earned an international reputation as an authority in her field.

 

 

Lotta Ygartua
Regional Director, Western Canada
Canada China Business Council

 

As Regional Director of Western Canada, Lotta Ygartua is responsible for building the CCBC membership base throughout the region by connecting Canadian and Chinese businesses, promoting Canada-China bilateral trade, organizing events and supporting the delivery of member services. Ms. Ygartua has over 10 years of marketing experience in the technology, marketing research, communications and art sectors. Prior to joining CCBC, she was Marketing Manager at the China-Britain Business Council based in the UK, promoting trade and business with China and organizing high-calibre events involving the Chinese Premier and the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

 

Ms. Ygartua spent several years living in China, where she studied and worked for a local company that developed products for the Chinese market. Ms. Ygartua studied Mandarin at the University of Nanjing and Nanjing Normal University. She holds a BA in Chinese and BSc in Social and Economic Geography from Uppsala University, Sweden.