Canada should boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 in response to China’s imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong, says Canada’s former top diplomat to a city whose freedoms are coming under the increasingly direct control of authorities in mainland China.
Over the past few years, relations have been strained between China and a number of major Winter Olympic medal-winning countries, including the United States, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, Japan and Canada, whose athletes are preparing to compete in Beijing even as China continues to incarcerate Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
Canada also counts an estimated 300,000 citizens in Hong Kong, where Beijing is extending its control through the introduction of a new law, expected this month, that will criminalize conduct that Chinese authorities consider secession, subversion, terrorism or foreign interference. Ottawa has unsuccessfully sought to pressure Beijing to release Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor. It has also criticized the new law for Hong Kong, without any result.
Now, it’s time for Ottawa to make a more assertive response, says John Higginbotham, who from 1989 to 1994 was commissioner for Canada in Hong Kong, a role equivalent to an ambassador. Mr. Higginbotham was previously posted as a diplomat to Beijing.
The next “Winter Games are in February, 2022, not long from now. China wants them badly as the latest pageant of national power and prestige,” he said. Canada should organize a boycott of those Games unless China ”lays off Hong Kong,” he said. With the exception of Russia, he noted, “Winter Olympics are easier to organize a boycott than Summer. Medals are concentrated in a few friendly, cold, democratic countries.”
Others, too, have called for a boycott of the Beijing Games. Advocates for China’s Uyghur population have said it would be wrong for Western athletes to come to Beijing at a time when the largely-Muslim group has been forcibly incarcerated for political indoctrination.
China’s actions toward Hong Kong, which it has promised a high degree of autonomy, have created new concern.
“Boycotting the 2022 Olympics is one of the ways for the world to challenge China’s decision and urge for the withdrawal of this evil law,” said Joshua Wong, one of the most visible young activists in Hong Kong.
”The new security law is just another new weapon for Beijing to leverage political pressure, which puts all Canadians working and living in the city under threat,” he added. To defend “the city’s autonomy and the Canadian interests in this global financial city, I call upon the Canadian government to reconsider Hong Kong’s special treatment and take all necessary actions to oppose the national security law.”
Canada’s foreign ministry referred a question on the 2022 Olympics to Canadian Heritage, which said in a statement: “The decision on whether or not to participate in the Olympic and Paralympic Games lies with the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees.” The Canadian Olympic Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
In China, scholars dismissed the possible impact of any Olympics snub. “Unlike small to medium-sized countries, I don’t think a Winter Olympics boycott would bring any detrimental effect to China,” said Wang Yizhou, a prominent Chinese foreign policy thinker who is deputy dean of the school of international studies at Peking University.
Prof. Wang himself raised concern over the impact of Beijing moving too quickly to intrude on Hong Kong’s autonomy. But “I don’t think rising criticism or foreign pressure would wound China,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if some countries decide to quit the Winter Olympics, honestly.”
It’s not the first time people have called for exclusion of an Olympics in China. Across Europe and North America, lawmakers decried the 2008 Summer Games, and some national leaders, including Canada’s Stephen Harper and Germany’s Angela Merkel, declined to attend the opening ceremony.
But Canada and Germany still sent teams to the 2008 Games, which marked a major moment in China’s modern history. The Olympics cast a favourable spotlight on Beijing as a warm host, efficient organizer and co-operative global partner.
Since then, however, views on China have darkened among major Western democracies. China took years of trade measures against Norway after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to imprisoned dissident writer Liu Xiaobo. Chinese authorities angered Sweden after Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong bookseller with Swedish citizenship, was seized from Thailand and sentenced to prison in China. Japan and South Korea have long-standing frictions with China over territorial disputes. Chinese diplomats have created anger across Europe for comments considered insulting or hostile.
The 2022 Olympics “may well be seen by some governments as a possible pressure point on China,” said Brian Bridges, a scholar of politics and sport who is an affiliate fellow of the Centre of Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University.
Against that backdrop, “whether it’s Canada, European governments or the U.S., the idea that they would pull out as a national policy seems far, far more likely” in 2022 than it was in 2008, said Matt Ferchen, head of global China research at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies.
Canada has participated in Olympics boycotts before. In 1980, it joined the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games as a protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Afghanistan. Conversely, more than two dozen countries boycotted the Montreal Games in protest against a New Zealand rugby tour of South Africa.
More bad news regarding Hong Kong institutions and Chinese government repression:
The heads of the governing councils of Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities have backed a plan announced by Beijing last month to impose a national security law on the city, in an act that many academics see as ‘doing Beijing’s bidding’.
Some fear such statements on policies from Beijing emanating from universities could lead to the politicisation of institutions in Hong Kong, which are already polarised between pro-democracy and pro-Beijing groups.
China’s view is that increasingly violent protests over the past year in Hong Kong are a threat to national security. But when it was first revealed last month, the national security law took Hong Kong and the world by surprise – in particular because it would be imposed directly by Beijing on Hong Kong, in contravention of treaties allowing Hong Kong to keep freedoms separate from mainland China under the policy of ‘one country, two systems’.
A resolution was passed in the 28 May session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), to draft the law to prohibit “acts of subversion, succession, terrorism and involvement with foreign interference in Hong Kong”. It would also allow China’s security intelligence agencies to operate in Hong Kong.
The joint statement released on 1 June by the chair of the governing councils of eight Hong Kong universities said: “As residents of Hong Kong, we enjoy the protection provided by the state, and in turn have a reciprocal obligation to protect the state by supporting the introduction of legislation which prohibits criminal acts that threaten the existence of the state.”
”We therefore support the national security laws which will operate under the principle of ‘one country, two systems’, to better ensure universities can continue to create knowledge through research and learning,” it added.
Council statement followed a more limited statement
But hours earlier, university vice-chancellors and presidents of five of the eight universities – Hong Kong University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Lingnan University and the Education University of Hong Kong – issued their own joint statement which said: “We fully support ‘one country, two systems’, understand the need for national security legislation and value the freedom of speech, of the press, of publication, of assembly and other rights the Basic Law confers upon the people of Hong Kong.”
The Basic Law is Hong Kong’s mini constitution.
Conspicuous by their absence were the signatures of the heads of City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. City University sources said the university administration sought to “separate education and politics” while backing the ‘one country, two systems’ principle.
A separate statement from Baptist University President Roland Chin was a more subdued version. “We highly appreciate the importance of national security and Hong Kong’s stability,” Chin said. “It is our earnest hope that the national security legislation will continue to protect academic freedom and institutional autonomy as promised in the Basic Law.”
Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the Centre for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), said: “The council is the highest ruling body in any university so adding the council means doubling down on this protestation of support for Beijing. Usually the [university] president would be enough.”
Lam said he assumed the governments in Beijing and Hong Kong had put pressure on university presidents to profess public support for the national security law. “In the NPC discussion about Hong Kong they emphasised a need to boost patriotic education, so education is very important for the Chinese government. They are very keen to have [university] presidents sign up to this profession of support for Beijing,” Lam told University World News.
“This is standard [Communist] Party strategy to prop up its legitimacy by showing its policies have ‘support’,” said another CUHK academic. “Beijing wants to show that their hated national security law has support of respected academics and academic institutions.”
A proportion of university council members are directly appointed by Hong Kong’s chief executive, who also acts as chancellor of all the publicly funded universities. The two statements came just before a trip to Beijing on 3 June by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other top Hong Kong officials, reportedly to discuss the new law.
Carrie Lam said last week her administration would fully cooperate with Beijing on the legislation, which will be enacted in Hong Kong without any input from Hong Kong’s legislature.
Precedents in issuing joint statements
Academics noted that it was not unusual for university presidents in Hong Kong to issue joint statements, though these were usually in relation to issues directly related to university affairs and student activities, particularly during the Umbrella Movement student protests in 2014-16 and student protests over the now withdrawn Hong Kong bill to extradite criminals to China, which saw weeks of unbroken protests from June 2019 to January 2020.
In June 2019, 10 university heads issued a joint statement urging calm as students began their protests against the extradition bill.
Joint statements from university governing councils are rarer, but in October 2019, in the wake of a large number of students being arrested during protests, and attempts by university heads to assist them in various ways, the heads of eight university governing councils in Hong Kong issued a joint statement saying assistance provided by universities to arrested students and staff did not represent any support for their political views.
In September 2017, 10 university presidents and vice-chancellors issued a joint statement condemning “abuses” of freedom of expression after some students put up banners advocating Hong Kong’s independence from China. “We do not support Hong Kong independence, which contravenes the Basic Law,” that statement said.
Beijing demands support
Beijing-backed groups in Hong Kong have been exhorting companies and organisations to publicly support the proposed law, including civil servants, police and immigration officers, as well as canvassing individuals to sign a petition in favour of the law.
“Calling on university administrations to back the law proposed by Beijing is not the Hong Kong way of doing things. This law is not directly part of campus governance. Instead, it is the Communist Party’s common practice of co-opting groups and individuals to show allegiance and support of the party,” said one normally outspoken academic who asked in this instance to remain anonymous. “Hong Kong’s universities are autonomous; they should not be backing political positions decided in Beijing.”
Lokman Tsui, assistant professor at CUHK’s school of journalism and communication, said via Twitter: “As a professor at CUHK I want to express my opposition to the national security legislation. I am concerned it will harm Hong Kong’s freedom of speech, press freedom, academic freedom and the rule of law that underpins these and other freedoms.”
Well-known Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai, who was arrested on 28 February, along with other major pro-democracy figures on charges of illegal assembly, and was later released on bail, referred to the joint statement by the five university heads in a tweet: “This is the end of academic freedom in HK. Higher education was once a paramount institution in defending our freedom to pursue knowledge.”
Expect the same with respect to Canada if not already in place given the importance of Chinese tourism and standard Chinese regime pressure tactics:
Trade and Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham has labelled China’s warning against its citizens visiting Australia “unhelpful”, as Chinese state media said the warning was issued in response to Australia’s “anti-China” policies.
Key points:
There have been a number of high-profile racist incidents in Australia targeting Asians during the coronavirus pandemic
Nevertheless, analysts say that China’s travel warning is the latest attempt to pressure Australia into cooperation
Incidents of xenophobia and harassment of foreigners have also been recorded in China during COVID-19
Senator Birmingham told RN this morning that he accepted Asian-Australians had faced incidents of racism since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but rejected the idea that Australia was unsafe for foreign tourists.
“Australia’s a country where our leaders and our communities condemn racism and where we have very clear processes in place if violent attacks occur for people to report them,” Senator Birmingham said.
“But I think the idea that Australia, in any way, is an unsafe destination for visitors to come to is one that just does not stand up to scrutiny.”
Australia accused of ‘anti-China’ strategy
An editorial published by the Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, warned the travel ban “may just be the tip of the iceberg”.
“If Australia wants to retain the gain from its economic ties with China, it must make a real change to its current stance on China, or it will completely lose the benefits of Chinese consumers,” it wrote.
“The tourism loss may be just a tip of iceberg in its loss of Chinese interest.”
Another article attributed the travel warning to “Australian animosity” and “rocky bilateral ties”, quoting analysts as saying that the official warning was “reasonable” given “abundant evidence” of racist acts.
“Australia has become a close collaborator of the US in its anti-China strategy at the expense of China-Australia relations,” the Global Times paraphrased Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Centre at East China Normal University in Shanghai, as saying.
Delia Lin, a senior lecturer from the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne, told the ABC the travel warning was “not about genuine concern over racist attacks or genuine concern over the safety of Chinese citizens”.
“If you look at it from a practical perspective, this travel warning is pretty meaningless because nobody can really travel at the moment,” she said.
Jane Golley, director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University, said that Australia’s relations with China had been deteriorating since at least 2017.
“I think we’ve started treating them as an adversary in general, while still trying to maintain that they’re an important trading and investment partner for us,” she told the ABC.
Federal Government defends Australian multiculturalism
Asked by RN whether he believed China was attempting to do diplomatic damage to Australia with the travel warning, Senator Birmingham said it was unclear.
“It’s difficult for me to try to ascribe motivations to other countries; this is an unhelpful statement, no doubt about that,” he said.
“This is a bullying tactic,” said Dr Lin of the Asia Institute. “China doesn’t see it as bullying, they say it as a way of showing strength.”
Senator Birmingham says Australia’s embrace of multiculturalism stood out in the world.
“That’s what frustrates me and disappoints me in relation to China’s statement,” he said.
Mr Birmingham has tried to speak about ongoing diplomatic tensions with his Chinese counterpart over recent weeks, but he said he was yet to hear back from Commerce Minister Zhong Shan.
China has “become very adept at using economic tools to send geopolitical messages,” Professor Golley said.
‘Convenient’ criticism of Australia amid reports of racism
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack earlier rejected the suggestion there had been an increase in racist attacks in Australia.
“I don’t know why this has been stated, I don’t know what was in the thinking of the organisation or the person who made the statement, all I can say is the statement is not true,” he said.
In April, two Melbourne University students were allegedly verbally abused and physically assaulted after a pair of women screamed “coronavirus” at them and told them to get out of the country.
In March, a Bundaberg teenager was charged for assaulting a 27-year-old South Korean backpacker and accusing her of bringing the coronavirus to Australia.
The 15-year-old was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm while armed, assault occasioning bodily harm, common assault and stealing. The matter has been finalised.
Engage for what purpose when the two Michaels are still detained under awful conditions, repression of religious minorities such as the Uighurs continue, and China proceeds to end Hong Kong’s autonomy.
Wilful naiveté at best. Arguments mirror those used by the International Metropolis Secretariat to justify the holding of Metropolis in Beijing that our petition successfully cancelled.
These kinds of contacts should be suspended until the Michaels are released at a minimum:
As Beijing’s behaviour grows increasingly strong-willed and the Canada-China relationship continues to flounder, some are calling for the suspension of a parliamentary association between the two countries, while one of the co-chairs says the group facilitates dialogue.
The 50-member Canadian-side of the Canada-China Legislative Association, which was founded in 1998, is composed of MPs and Senators who work to “promote better understanding” in the bilateral relationship on both common interests and differences.
“There’s so much to be gained from maintaining that discussion,” Independent Senator Paul Massicotte (De Lanaudière, Que.) told The Hill Times. “We have an immense interest in this relationship—[from a] human rights point of view, economically, future growth, climate change. There’s so much to gain from our relationship, in spite of the fact that we have serious disagreements about some key issues.”
Sen. Massicotte is one of two co-chairs of the Canada-China Legislative Association. Liberal MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.), the group’s other co-chair, didn’t respond to an interview request.
“Its [purpose is] to be frank and chat with each other and maintain as good relations as we can, in spite of possible differences—in this case, serious differences between our approach as a country and our value system and their thought pattern,” Sen. Massicotte said about the association. “But just because you disagree with somebody doesn’t mean you put an end to it.”
He said if the association is suspended, the dialogue between the two countries would be damaged.
Macdonald-Laurier Institute fellow Shuvaloy Majumdar called for the association’s suspension in a National Post op-edlast week, citing China’s National Party Congress’ imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong which threatens the “one country, two systems” foundation of the region.
“Canadian Parliament has no business legitimizing the masquerade of Beijing’s National Party Congress as it institutionally represses Hong Kong’s Legislative Council and constitutional rights,” wrote Mr. Majumdar, a former policy director to multiple foreign affairs ministers in the government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper.
Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.) released a joint statement last week with his counterparts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, calling the imposition of the national security law “a deep concern” and “in direct conflict with its international obligations under the principles of the legally-binding, UN-registered Sino-British Joint Declaration.”
Mr. Majumdar told The Hill Times that the parliamentary association gives the Chinese Communist Party “unrivalled access to lobby Canadian Parliamentarians.”
“If you were interested in the spirit of dialogue with the Chinese people, then why not also pursue similar arrangements with Hong Kong’s Legislative Council or with Taiwan’s Parliament in conjunction with the National Party Congress?” he noted. “That’s not happened. So this is not about dialogue.”
Mr. Majumdar added that China’s National Congress has “broken faith” with the sprit of “honest dialogue” with the imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong and that they are “subverting and distorting” an understanding of China in Canada that is coming at the cost of Canadian interests.
“It ought not to be tolerated.”
Sen. Massicotte, who met with Chinese Ambassador Cong Peiwu alongside Mr. Dong on Feb. 26, said he raises the issues of disagreement in all the meetings the association has with Chinese officials.
“You can do it politely,” he said. “You can raise up issues that you don’t agree on, but you don’t have to be disagreeable.”
“Usually we’ll say we agree to disagree because we don’t have the same starting point or same culture. We don’t brush over our differences,” said Sen. Massicotte, calling discussions with the Chinese ambassador “very cordial.”
Conservative MP Michael Cooper (St. Albert-Edmonton, Alta.), vice-chair of the Canada-China Legislative Association, said there should be a consideration to the association’s role going forward.
“I think we do need to review the activities of the legislative association,” he said. “Does that mean suspending the association? Perhaps. But we need to have those discussions in light of what needs to be and what will be a different relationship between Canada and China, at least in the short and intermediate term, as a result of the fallout of COVID-19 and the unlawful actions the Chinese Communist regime has taken against Hong Kong.”
Mr. Cooper said that there needs to be an overall evaluation of Canada’s bilateral relationship with China stemming from how Beijing handled the COVID-19 pandemic, including the use of Magnitsky sanctions on Chinese officials who were involved in “silencing and jailing whistleblowers” in the early days of the virus’ outbreak and officials “involved in the cover-up” of the pandemic.
He said the parliamentary association has not met as an executive since the start of the year.
“So at this point, the association, speaking as an executive, has been inactive,” Mr. Cooper said.
Debate over parliamentary group comes at tipping point for Canada-China relations
It was feared that a B.C. court judge ruling against Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou last week on a “double criminality” principle, which continued her extradition trial, would further inflame tensions between Canada and China.
The Chinese Communist Party-supported Global Times stated that the decision would bring about the “worst-ever” period in the bilateral relationship. So far, retaliation has been muted, as reported by The Globe and Mail, with a Chinese government spokesperson commenting on the 50thanniversary of Canada-China relations
Ms. Meng was arrested in December 2018 at the behest of the United States. The arrest of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in China soon followed in apparent retaliation. The two Canadians have been detained by Chinese authorities ever since.
The parliamentary association took a trip to China in January 2019 shortly after the arrests of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor, during which then-co-chair and now-retired senator Joseph Day said the detained Canadians were not on the agenda. Mr. Cooper, who was also on the trip, brought the cases up and said raising the issues didn’t help “in the sense that they are still in China,” but added at the same time that discussing the issue “did not hurt.”
Former Canadian ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques, who served in the post from 2012 to 2016, said the Canada-China Legislative Association “can be useful.”
He added that it takes “a bit of guts” for Canadian Parliamentarians to raise contentious issues with Chinese authorities, noting that he has experienced foreign affairs ministers that were reticent to raise contentious issues with China.
“If it’s properly managed, we should proceed,” he said. “But, on the other hand, if something dramatic were to occur in Hong Kong, I think we will have to think about sanctions against China and then maybe the suspension of those [association] visits would be required.”
“The key is preparation,” said Mr. Saint-Jacques of when Canadian Parliamentarians in the association travel to China.
He said that when he was ambassador he would “regularly” meet with the members of the association when he returned to Ottawa to give briefings on important issues and prepare them for upcoming trips.
When the group arrived in China, the visit would start with a breakfast at the embassy to give the MPs and Senators the latest information that Canadian diplomats in China have collected before they met with Chinese officials, he said.
With Parliamentarians from many different parties and political ideologies, Mr. Saint-Jacques said it gives the Chinese officials an insight into the Canadian system where politicians don’t speak with one voice, unlike in the Chinese system.
While he said that the association can serve to legitimize the National Congress, it is better than the alternative of no contact.
“If you have no contacts, then you leave them to think that things work the same way here than over there,” he said.
Brock University professor Charles Burton, a former counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, said he has long been calling for the suspension of the association.
“I feel that we are being played by the Communist Party in this association,” said Prof. Burton, a Macdonald-Laurier Institute fellow.
He said the parliamentary association serves as a way for the Chinese government to establish “moral equivalency” between Canada’s Parliament and China’s non-democratic National Congress.
“The Members of Parliament who go have a very pleasant time in China with delicious banquets and interesting tourism … but I don’t see it as furthering the interest of Canada in any way,” he said.
Prof. Burton said Parliamentarians can engage with Chinese diplomats in Canada through other forums such as the Special House Committee on Canada-China Relations.
“Typically, Parliamentarians don’t have the expertise to represent Canada’s position effectively and tend to be put into photo-ops and make joint statements that support the Chinese Communist Party’s agenda in Canada,” he said.
Since the creation of the association, there has been no adoption of democratic reform in the National Congress, Prof. Burton said, adding that the group hasn’t had “any positive impact” on fostering the development of parliamentary democracy in China.
Good opinion piece by former ambassador Guy Saint-Jacques:
“Canada is China’s best friend,” former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji famously said in November, 1998. There was then a heavy flow of visitors in both directions and a genuine desire in China to move forward with the rule of law and gradual democracy. Its impending entry into the World Trade Organization was going to result in more business opportunities and more contacts with the outside world, which would help China move in the right direction. Well, that plan didn’t work.
Instead, China has become more assertive and aggressive – certain that maintaining an authoritarian regime is the best way for the Communist Party of China (CCP) to survive and protect the privileges of its princelings and their families. Technological development has enabled the CCP to better limit freedom of speech and religion, while silencing calls for a more transparent political process.
When Xi Jinping became the paramount leader in November, 2012, he gave a new impetus to this model. He declared that the time had come for China to take its rightful place on the international scene, placing its people in prominent international organizations, creating its own institutions and launching the Belt and Road Initiative to increase its sphere of influence (and the size of its markets). At the 19th CPC Congress in October, 2017, Mr. Xi went further by underlining the economic success China had achieved without adopting Western values.
In terms of its relationship with China, Canada has gradually lost influence. We are now China’s 21st export market, and China has lost hope in concluding a free-trade agreement with us, which would have been its first with a G7 country. This potential agreement was our last bargaining chip. Despite repeated warnings about Mr. Xi’s tightening grip on Chinese society, and events such as the arrests of Kevin and Julia Garratt in August, 2014, some of the political class in Ottawa remained ambivalent about China.
All this changed after the arrests of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in retaliation for the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in December, 2018. The successful campaign to get international support for Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor’s release took Beijing by surprise and tarnished its image of a benevolent superpower that pretends to be the new champion of multilateralism and free trade. Even still, Ottawa decided to adopt an appeasement strategy, hoping that it would lead to the release of our two Canadians.
A year and a half later, what has been achieved? There has been no improvement in the detention conditions of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor, and we lost $4.5-billion in exports in 2019, with a further 16-per-cent drop in the first quarter of this year. We expressed little criticism of what is happening to Uyghurs in Xinjiang and pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. We were late to support Australia’s resolution for an independent investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic. And we tolerate Chinese interference on Canadian campuses, not to mention continuing industrial espionage. China has succeeded in getting us to exercise self-censorship without ever giving us anything in return. The way China handled the new coronavirus pandemic confirmed how the CCP functions. Simply put, China has lost the trust of the international community.
After the decision by Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes in the case of Ms. Meng, we have to brace ourselves for the fact that relations with China won’t improve for a long time. The extradition process may drag on for years unless it is decided after a June hearing that Ms. Meng’s rights were not respected when she was arrested.
It is high time for the Canadian government to adopt a much firmer attitude with China: That is the only language the CCP respects. As Paul Monk put it in the Australian on May 16, “We have nothing to hope for from [Mr. Xi] and must accustom ourselves to playing economic and strategic hardball, because it is the way he is playing the game.”
We should continue to work with like-minded countries to put pressure on China to free the two Michaels and to reinforce a multilateral system. The message should be clear: We want a constructive relationship with a prospering China and constructive change inside China – as long as it respects international laws and treaties and stops acting like a bully when a country does not follow its diktats. We can also take domestic measures to make China realize that while we may be insignificant to them, there is still a price to pay. Finally, we need to build up our China competencies to better inform our dealings with the CCP’s leadership.
Outrageous and a reminder of accepting funding from the Chinese government, one that Canadian universities and institutions also face:
A student activist highly critical of the University of Queensland’s ties to Beijing has been handed a two-year suspension from the institution.
Drew Pavlou faced a disciplinary hearing on 20 May at the university over 11 allegations of misconduct, detailed in a confidential 186-page document, reportedly linked to his on-campus activism supporting Hong Kong and criticising the Chinese Communist Party.
The university ordered his suspension on Friday after the 20-year-old philosophy student reportedly left the previous hearing after about one hour, citing procedural unfairness.
UQ chancellor Peter Varghese said on Friday he was concerned with the outcome of the disciplinary action against Pavlou.
“There are aspects of the findings and the severity of the penalty which personally concern me,” Varghese said in a statement.
“In consultation with the vice chancellor, who has played no role in this disciplinary process, I have decided to convene an out-of-session meeting of UQ’s Senate next week to discuss the matter.”
The University of Queensland has faced media scrutiny for its relations with the Chinese government, which has co-funded four courses offered by the university.
The institution is also home to one of Australia’s many Confucius Institutes – Beijing-funded education centres some critics warn promote propaganda.
Good overview. Of particular interest to me was the quote below Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization.
As you may recall, Howard Ramos and I organized a successful petition against them hosting the 2020 International Metropolis Conference on the grounds that CCG was an organ of the Chinese government.
The quote proves our point and the willful or not naïveté of the International Steering Committee board members:
Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank closely affiliated with the Chinese government and its efforts to exert foreign influence, called the ruling “a very bad decision.”
It’s “really not good for business. Not good for traditional long friendship ties. Not good for any further improvement.”
The decision will generate “a lot of unhappiness among the Chinese people,” he said. It is “really very unfortunate to see Canada following the U.S. on these issues. Canada should be a little bit more independent.”
In order to safeguard global public health, the world must take action against the Government of China for its role in this global pandemic crisis. The Chinese Communist Party of China (CCP) and the Government of China, which the party directs, bear a large measure of responsibility for the global spread of COVID-19.
In the early days of the pandemic’s spread and during the Lunar New Year travel season, the Chinese government downplayed the severity of the illness and its spread. Human Rights Watch said in January that Chinese authorities had “detained people for ‘rumor-mongering,’ censored online discussions of the epidemic, curbed media reporting, and failed to ensure appropriate access to medical care for those with virus symptoms and others with medical needs.” Amnesty International warned soon after that the withholding of information was putting at risk the medical community’s ability to combat the virus.
There is authoritative and compelling evidence – including a study from the University of Southampton – that if interventions in China had been conducted three weeks earlier, transmission of COVID-19 could have been reduced by 95 per cent.
Meanwhile, an analysis of Chinese censorship around COVID-19, by the Munk School’s Citizen Lab, found that “Censorship of COVID-19 content started at early stages of the outbreak and continued to expand blocking a wide range of speech, from criticism of the government to officially sanctioned facts and information.”
The Chinese government’s wrongdoing and the suffering of its victims within its borders and internationally calls out for justice and accountability. There are clear and compelling legal remedies that should be considered to effectively address and redress this matter.
International
The International Court of Justice through a request for an advisory opinion from the United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations Charter provides that the UN General Assembly may request the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to give an advisory opinion on any legal question. Any UN member state can ask the General Assembly to make such a request to the ICJ, and China would not be able to veto such a resolution. The General Assembly could therefore request that the ICJ determine whether the actions of Xi Xinping’s China regarding coronavirus were in breach of its international legal obligations.
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council can pass a condemnatory resolution, or even establish a commission of inquiry into China’s actions regarding the coronavirus. If such initiatives are unlikely to muster the necessary majority of votes by member states of the council, independent statements can be made at the council’s regular sessions. Under agenda item 4 — “human rights situations that require the council’s attention” — any country, whether a member of the council or not, can deliver an oral statement. The wrongdoing of the Chinese government in the global spread of the coronavirus should be a matter of continuing concern at future sessions of the Human Rights Council.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, currently Dr. Dainius Puras, can consider individual complaints, issue annual reports and conduct country visits. Accordingly, he should be asked to address China’s culpability in the spread of COVID-19.
There is a sense of urgency to such a prospective path towards accountability, as the current Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health will be replaced at the Council Session taking place between June 15th and July 3rd.
China was appointed in April to the Consultative Group of the Human Rights Council. The group advises the President of the council on the appointment of special rapporteurs and holds final approval over council appointments. It is therefore unlikely that the council, with a member of the Chinese Communist Party as part of its makeup, would appoint to any specialized mechanism a person who may be critical of the government of China.
The World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) was critical in 2003 of the Chinese Communist Party for its secrecy, dishonesty and cover-up concerning the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Guangzhou, Guangdong of 2002. However, the behaviour of the WHO in the current pandemic is disappointing.
One might have hoped that the Chinese government has learned the lessons of its failures from the time of the SARS outbreak. Instead, of China reforming its policies and practices, it is the WHO that has altered its approach, failing to stand up to China.
The WHO has an important ongoing mandate and responsibility for our health and security which becomes particularly urgent in a time of a global pandemic, such as SARS in 2003 and now with COVID-19. Therefore, the WHO must be a particular focus of accountability efforts and encouraged to do the right thing, which is also the smart thing, for global public health and effectively confronting the Coronavirus.
International Health Regulations
The International Health Regulations were adopted in 2005 by the World Health Assembly of the WHO, to protect humanity from the international spread of disease. The unprecedented global impact of COVID-19 has demonstrated the ineffectiveness of these regulations.
In particular, there are no effective mechanisms when a state party violates regulations. All measures are subject to the approval of the violating state party, an unrealistic expectation when it comes to Xi Jinping’s China.
Yet, these regulations should not be rendered inoperative merely because of the necessity of agreement from Xi Xinping’s China to make them effective. An effort should be undertaken to render these regulations operable, and the very pursuit of this objective will underpin accountability efforts, promote a truthful narrative and mitigate Chinese propaganda.
International Court of Justice through the World Health Organization
The Constitution of the WHO provides that any dispute concerning the application of the constitution not settled by negotiation or by the World Health Assembly shall be referred to the International Court of Justice. A dispute regarding whether Xi Xinping’s China violated the International Health Regulations would likely constitute a dispute that could be referred by any WHO member state to the International Court of Justice.
The World Health Assembly
More broadly, the systemic challenges of the WHO must be addressed, and its next gathering from May 17 to 21 in Geneva presents such an opportunity. Ironically, the assembly may be unable to meet due to the failings of the WHO and the International Health Regulations in combatting the spread of COVID19.
In the World Health Assembly, as in the United Nations General Assembly, Xi Xinping’s China does not have a veto. This an opportunity for the international community to prioritize public health and pursue justice regarding the pandemic.
Any state party to the convention could therefore make a complaint to the U.N. Security Council. Given that the convention has 183 state parties, that includes nearly every country in the world. The UN Security Council, on receipt of a complaint of violation, must investigate the matter and produce a report.
There are six countries with this law. None of them have targeted any rights violators in Xi Xinping’s China. More countries should enact such laws, and all those with Magnitsky legislation should consider implementing them to pursue justice and accountability for those responsible for perpetrating and perpetuating COVID-19.
Universal jurisdiction laws on crimes against humanity through prosecution
Many countries have laws which allow for the domestic prosecution of those who have committed crimes against humanity abroad. While these laws typically apply to permanent residents and citizens, some may also apply to visitors.
The accused would have to be found in the territory of the country in order for the local courts to have jurisdiction. While it varies by country – with some allowing for the private initiation of prosecutions – it is most often the exclusive decision of public prosecutors. Prosecutors are, however, usually reluctant to engage in such prosecutions, due to the prohibitive costs and evidentiary obstacles inherent in a case where the criminality and material evidence is abroad. Where private prosecutions are possible, they should be vigorously pursued.
There are other states, beyond China, that have contributed to the spread of COVID-19 through bad public policy and poor governance. Any liability response should be compelling and comprehensive, holding all wrongdoers to account. Yet, in doing so, the intentional and particularly intensive wrongdoing of China should be duly considered.
The denial, coverup and counter-factual narrative surrounding COVID-19 – underpinned by the use of global political pressure abroad and the repression of whistleblowers and medical heroes at home – has become standard operating procedure for the Communist Party of China. Immunity and impunity invite repetition.
In order to safeguard global public health, the world must act. Short-term political or economic considerations encouraging the indulgence of wrongdoing in Xi Jinping’s China come with a long-term cost. Preventing another pandemic and protecting humanity necessitates pursuing justice and accountability for the Communist Party’s actions.
Good summary by former Canadian diplomat Charles Burton:
In what should be a wake-up call for the federal government, the Canadian public’s perception of China appears to be swinging dramatically.
An Angus Reid poll last week found four in five Canadians want Huawei banned from any role in building this country’s 5G network, and just 11 per cent of respondents felt Canada should focus its trade efforts on China – down from 40 per cent in 2015. And 76 per cent said Canada should prioritize human rights and the rule of law over economic opportunity.
If Ottawa has been delaying a decision all these months while it awaits the “right moment” to announce that the future of Canadian telecommunications lies with Huawei, it is now clear that moment will never come.
Our government continues to behave as if Canada-China relations will resume status quo ante once the matter of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou is resolved. Earlier this year, when Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne chose an adviser for the Asia-Pacific file, he namedPascale Massot, a former senior mentor to Mr. Champagne’s predecessor Stéphane Dion. Mr. Dion was the architect of Canada’s failed policy of strategic appeasement with Russia, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. There is no indication Ms. Massot has undergone any Damascene conversion on how best to engage the People’s Republic of China.
Last month, Canadian Minister of Health Patty Hajdu, consistent with her party’s line, vigorously defended the credibility of the PRC’s actions and reporting of COVID-19 cases, insisting, “there is no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way.” She then told the reporter questioning her on this that they were “feeding into conspiracy theories that many people have been perpetuating on the internet.” A lot of us must be deceived by the conspiracy, as the Angus Reid poll found 85 per cent of respondents believe Beijing has not been honest about what happened in its own country regarding the novel coronavirus.
Certainly, China’s aggressive new “wolf warrior” diplomacy has the attention of Canadians. Lu Shaye, China’s former envoy in Ottawa, suggested last January that Canada and its Western allies were displaying white supremacyby calling for the release of two Canadians imprisoned since December 2018 without any coherent charges. Mr. Lu’s ridiculous, highly offensive blathering obviously went over well in Beijing, as he has since been promoted to China’s ambassador to France.
In a Global TV interview on Sunday, Mr. Lu’s successor, Cong Peiwu, linked the arrests of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor – who have been denied any form of consular access (including by phone or video) since January – to the detainment of Ms. Meng, who faces extradition to the United States. Mr. Cong also refuted suggestions that the Chinese Communist Party has been intimidating or bullying its critics.
If the party has been bullying its critics, it’s not a new tactic in the grand scheme of its political activities. A report released in March by the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China and Amnesty International Canada included details of an apparent intimidation program targeting the Chinese diaspora in Canada.
Last week, Canada’s ambassador in Beijing, Dominic Barton, made headlinesafter he candidly told members of the Canadian International Council that China is alienating other countries by accumulating “negative” soft power in response to international criticism over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the response from the PRC has been both defensive and irrational.
Regrettably, the impact of this disease has led to episodes of ugly racism in Canada against Chinese-Canadians. Obviously ethnic Chinese people in Canada have no connection to the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged false reporting on the spread of the virus, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives globally. It should be a government priority that any race-based persecution in Canada is met with the full force of Canadian law.
As for Mr. Barton, while it is not his place to set Canada’s China policy (an ambassador’s job is to implement Canadian foreign policy), Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has implied support for what Mr. Barton said. The fact that he hasn’t been fired for speaking out of turn – like his predecessor, John McCallum – offers some hope that this government will finally do the China-policy reset voters seem to have an appetite for.
Trevor Noah, the host of “The Daily Show,” has won praise on the Chinese internet for his searing criticism of the Trump administration’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. So has Jerry Kowal, an American who makes Chinese-language videos chronicling the dire situation in New York.
China’s response to the virus has its own sharp-eyed critics at home, and they have found a vastly different reception. One resident of the virus-struck city of Wuhan who writes under the name Fang Fang documented despair, misery and everyday life in an online diary, and has endured withering attacks on social media. Three citizen journalists who posted videos from Wuhan in the first weeks of the outbreak disappeared and are widely believed to be in government custody.
The pandemic unfolded dramatically differently in China from the way it has in the rest of the world — at least, if one believes state-run Chinese media. Chinese news outlets used words like “purgatory” and “apocalypse” to describe the tragic hospital scenes in Italy and Spain. They have run photos of British and American medical workers wearing garbage bags as protective gear.
A lot of the same miseries happened in China, but those reports were called “rumors” and censored.
For the Communist Party, keeping up a positive image for the Chinese public has long been an important part of maintaining its legitimacy. That facade was broken during the outbreak in late January and February, as dying patients flooded hospitals and medical workers begged for protective gear on social media. Some people started asking why the government suppressed information early on and who should be held accountable.
Then the United States and other countries bungled their own responses, and China’s propaganda machine saw an opportunity.
Using the West’s transparency and free flow of information, state media outlets chronicled how badly others have managed the crisis. Their message: Those countries should copy China’s model. For good measure, the propaganda machine revved up its attacks on anybody who dared to question the government’s handling of the pandemic.
For many people in China, the push is working. Wielding a mix of lies and partial truths, some young people are waging online attacks against individuals and countries that contradict their belief in China’s superior response.
These tactics aren’t new. Many Chinese children of my generation read a newspaper column for students called “Socialism Is Good. Capitalism Is Bad.” Each week, it described the wonders of China alongside the hardships of capitalist societies. The lesson: Socialist China takes care of its people, while people in the United States go hungry and the elderly die alone.
Even if the stories were true, they didn’t represent the full picture. Chinese children like me pitied Americans even when almost all of China lived in poverty. How much would we have envied them if we had known that most could eat meat whenever they liked?
Such campaigns became much easier to sell when China’s economy took off, and we could see the country’s progress for ourselves.
Now that mission is getting tougher. Even before the pandemic, China’s economy wasn’t growing the way it once had, and the government has been intruding more and more into everyday life. China’s propaganda machine has ramped up the volume to deliver its message, encompassing all of Chinese official media and the country’s social media platforms.
If that newspaper column existed today, it would be called “China Is Great. Whoever Says Otherwise Is Our Enemy.” And it would be impossible to avoid.
The website of Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the Communist Party, added Chinese subtitles to a video from Mr. Noah’s show that featured President Trump and many Fox News personalities, showing how for weeks they played down the risks of the coronavirus.
The subtitled video was widely distributed by Chinese official news outlets. Many of them used the same headline: “Blood is on their hands and they should all be sued!”
The Chinese official media and online commenters loved Mr. Noah even more after Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, said on his show that the ebbing of cases in China was “very good news.” Global Times subtitled a clip of the praise, which has been viewed nearly 18 million times and liked a quarter of million times on the tabloid’s official account on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform.
“Trevor has the correct value system,” said a comment on a social media article that not only posted the video but translated many angry comments by American viewers. “I love this guy,” another reader commented in English.
“Is he ‘kissing the ass’ of China?” another social media blog postasked rhetorically. “No, he’s just telling the truth.”
Many of the same people praising Mr. Noah have been slinging arrows and rocks at Fang Fang, whose real name is Wang Fang, for telling the truth about China.
Her diary was moderate and personal, and a place where many of us turned for comfort during the darkest hours of China’s epidemic. But after Harper Collins announced plans to publish it in English, tens of thousands of online users descended on her Weibo account, saying she was a traitor for supporting the enemy’s narrative.
In a commentary, Hu Xijin, the Global Times editor, wrote that Fang Fang’s diary would be used by political forces abroad and that the Chinese people might have to “pay the price for Fang Fang’s fame in the West.”
The online backlash has been so severe, Fang Fang wrote on Weibo, that it reminds her of the Cultural Revolution, the decade of political violence and chaos that she saw as a child. The only comfort, she wrote, is that “this type of Cultural Revolution is only conducted in cyberspace.”
More obscure people have also been subjected to hate. A woman in Wuhan who lost her daughter received what she described as a “Fang Fang-scale online attack” after she shared her grief on the internet and questioned whether the tragedy could have been avoided.
One user, who claimed to be a Wuhan resident, too, reprimanded her. “You can only represent the 1 percent who are dead,” the user wrote. “You can’t represent Wuhan. Do not disturb the 99 percent of us who are enjoying life.”
State-run media stands ready to elevate those who reinforce Beijing’s message.
Mr. Kowal, the American video blogger, won millions of views on Bilibili, a video site popular among young Chinese people, for his virus-related content out of New York. His videos also got him a 50-minute live appearance on China Central Television, the state broadcaster, to talk about the field hospital in Central Park and the shortage of personal protective equipment.
But such messages aren’t welcome when they’re about China. Three of Mr. Kowal’s Chinese counterparts, Chen Qiushi, Fang Binand Li Zehua, had tried to do the same thing in Wuhan during the peak of the outbreak. Their videos can’t be found online in China; they were able to upload their videos only to YouTube, which is blocked in the country. All three men have since vanished.
In his last video, which streamed his four-hour standoff with the state police outside his door, Mr. Li, a former CCTV anchor, compared young Chinese people to the protagonist in “The Truman Show,” the Jim Carrey movie in which the title character’s whole life is a lie.
But the lie they are living in is worse, because it is fueled by hatred. A generation of people is learning to hate not only people like Fang Fang but foreigners as well.
After Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, was admitted into intensive care with Covid-19, mocking comments from Weibo users — like “Can I laugh?” — received thousands of likes. When the United States surpassed China as the country with the most confirmed infections, many Chinese commenters gloated, “Congratulations!”
Gauging real sentiment in an authoritarian society is impossible. But the belligerent online environment has made many people uneasy.
Cui Yongyuan, a well-known former talk show host, in a recent article compared the online warriors to the fighters in the anti-foreigner, anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion in 1900.
“There are more and more Boxers online,” he wrote. “The Qing dynasty became the enemy of the world because of the Boxers’ evil behavior. One need not look far for a lesson.”
Multicultural Meanderings 