Liberal government’s ‘almost humiliating’ posture toward China a missed opportunity: former top diplomat

2020/04/21 Leave a comment

ICYMI. While David Mulroney is the more “hardline” of the two, the fundamental message from Guy Saint-Jacques is the same:

Two former diplomats are warning that the Liberal government’s recent silence on China could reinforce the country’s increasingly belligerent actions on the world stage, amid concerns Chinese officials actively misled the World Health Organization during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

David Mulroney, who served as Canadian ambassador to China in Beijing between 2009 and 2012, said Ottawa’s “almost humiliating” posture toward China in recent weeks was a missed opportunity to acknowledge the country’s shortcomings during the viral outbreak.

China has drawn criticism for providing potentially faulty information to the WHO, particularly in the first weeks of the spread of COVID-19, which in turn left world leaders largely ill-prepared for the virus.

Guy Saint-Jacques, who served as Canada’s envoy to China from 2012 to 2016, said leaders in Canada and elsewhere need to call for a full investigation of the WHO after it uncritically relayed information from Beijing observers claim could be inaccurate.

He also denounced recent “reprehensible” comments by Health Minister Patty Hajdu, who dismissed claims about faulty Chinese reporting as “conspiracy theories” that originated “on the Internet.”

Mulroney said the recent silence by Ottawa is part of a long-standing instinct to gloss over Chinese aggressions, largely due to its tendency to retaliate and its growing economic heft. But an unwillingness to acknowledge even the possibility of Chinese misdeeds could sow public distrust.

“Ottawa can’t seem to shake this tendency to flatter,” he said in an interview with the National Post.

“I’m not suggesting that we need to insult China or provoke a quarrel. We should simply be guided by the facts. And right now the facts argue for the case that China was delinquent, that it wasn’t transparent enough. That’s not a conspiracy theory.”

“When you start acknowledging the truth, then positive and corrective action is possible. As long as you’re in denial, there’s no hope of action that will ameliorate the situation. This is a tremendous missed opportunity and it’s not too late for the government to slowly turn the ship around,” Mulroney said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has batted away repeated questions about the WHO this week, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would withdraw funding from the organization.

Then on Thursday, Trudeau came closer to acknowledging some of the criticisms of China and the WHO, saying “there have been questions asked” about the organization, “but at the same time it is really important that we stay coordinated as we move through this.”

Both former ambassadors said Trump’s threat to immediately pull funding from the WHO would needlessly and dangerously cripple the organization at a critical time.

Saint-Jacques, who acknowledged that Ottawa is in a “delicate” position with regards to China, said world leaders should call for a thorough review of the WHO’s handling of the pandemic once it is under control.

“You have to draw a line,” Saint-Jacques said. “You have to stop such behaviour. You have to acknowledge that if you dealt with this issue with a lot more transparency we would have avoided an international crisis that has led to one of the greatest recessions of our times.”

The Trudeau government has repeatedly been forced to navigate tense relations with China, particularly after Canadian authorities arrested the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies in 2018, at the request of the U.S.

An attempt by Trudeau early in his leadership to forge a free trade deal with the country quickly evaporated, after Chinese officials made it clear that they were disinterested in certain “progressive” elements put forward by Canada, including proposals around environmental policy and gender-based analysis.

“Cabinet did not fully realize what I call the dark side of China,” Saint-Jacques said of the trade mission.

Criticism of the WHO began in earnest on Jan. 14, when Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the organization, tweeted a message nearly identical to that of the Chinese government, saying researchers “have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the coronavirus.

By Jan. 20 Chinese officials finally confirmed that the virus could indeed spread through human contact, and shut down the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated. Another week passed before the WHO declared a public health emergency.

On Feb. 6, weeks after the body had designated a public health emergency, the organization issued a press release calling on countries to avoid imposing travel bans or “medically unnecessary restrictions” against China, saying such moves could “fuel racism” against the country.

Those directives were absorbed by national governments around the world, who were in turn caught off guard by the scope and nature of COVID-19.

The WHO’s director-general has dismissed much of the criticism of his organization as unnecessary “politicization” of the issue, but he has said the virus exposed some shortcomings at the United Nations group.

“No doubt, areas for improvement will be identified and there will be lessons for all of us to learn. But for now, our focus — my focus — is on stopping this virus and saving lives.”

Source: Liberal government’s ‘almost humiliating’ posture toward China a missed opportunity: former top diplomat

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Guy Saint-Jacques: No end in sight to the plight of the Two Michaels

2019/12/10 Leave a comment

Good commentary from our former ambassador:

I wake up every day thinking about the predicament of Michael Kovrig, a great colleague with whom I enjoyed working at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, and hope that a miracle will happen and free him and Michael Spavor. On this sad anniversary of their first year in detention, the strategy followed by Ottawa has had limited results: Not only have they not been released on bail, but they have not even seen a lawyer!

Since China has warned us that things won’t get back to normal until we return Meng Wanzhou to China, there is no end in sight. Our farmers have lost billions of dollars in sales of canola (exports are down 50 per cent this year), soya, peas and meat. Since the United States created this problem by asking us to arrest Meng, they need to do more to help us resolve the crisis. But knowing Donald Trump’s opinion of our prime minister, can we rely on the U.S.? The message should be that we will be less forthcoming the next time around when the U.S. asks a service from us.

Is it possible to have normal relations with China? As Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times on Nov. 30, it has become more difficult to remain ambivalent after the revelations about China’s campaign in the province of Xinjiang that borders on cultural genocide and its non-respect of the one-country-two-systems agreement on Hong Kong. Assuming that our compatriots would be released next year, I don’t think it is possible to restart the relationship where it was prior to the crisis. Still, we need to look at where we want to be in five or 10 years from now, as China is key to addressing common global problems such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and global pandemics.

The ongoing crisis with China shows the challenges of dealing with a superpower that ignores international rules when they are not to its liking. While Canada is not the first country to be on the receiving end of China’s displeasure and bullying tactics, this is the first time that a targeted country has rallied support from allies. I believe this has taken China by surprise as the reaction affects its image abroad. Our message should be that we are reassessing the relationship and that all official exchanges will be suspended until they release Kovrig and Spavor. After that, we will want to re-engage, but on the basis of reciprocity and mutual respect.

We should start immediately to reassess our engagement strategy with China, recognizing upfront that it has turned into a much more authoritarian state and a strategic competitor since Xi Jinping became secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012. Of course, our capacity to influence China is very limited — our goal is simply to ensure that basic human rights are better protected and that China stops behaving like a spoiled child.

Let’s not abdicate our values. We should react quickly and firmly when we find instances of interference in Canadian affairs, including among Canadians of Chinese origin, espionage activities, or attempts to limit debate on Canadian campuses. The government should look at Australia’s experience and the measures it has taken to deal with Chinese interference. I would also suggest that we undertake a review of ongoing collaboration in the field of high-tech, including artificial intelligence, to ensure that our expertise is not used in China for domestic controls or to limit freedom of expression.

We also have to cultivate expertise on China in all areas of the public service to ensure a well-informed and more sophisticated China policy. This requires supporting universities and think-tanks that study China, but also maintaining contacts in the People’s Republic of China to better understand its objectives and policies, with a focus on the communist party, which has taken over many tasks of the government. We also need programs to entice more young people to learn Mandarin.

As economic opportunities are still available for Canadian companies, the federal and provincial governments and agencies should continue to support Canadian companies in China. There is a need to better integrate information and provide more clarity to companies about assistance available from governments at various steps. In parallel, we also need to diversify our trade by putting more emphasis on other Asian countries to take full advantage of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and other free trade agreements we have in the region.

Clearly, Canada is not in a position by itself to criticize China much on its trade practices or human rights. Therefore, as Western countries all face similar challenges in dealing with China, the strategy going forward should be to work together on ensuring that the multilateral system is protected with the same rules for all. The message to China should be that we welcome it to play a larger role in international affairs and to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as long as it stops bullying countries and becomes a better global citizen.

China has been good at ragging the puck for too long: It’s time to apply reciprocity — i.e. we should allow Chinese companies to invest in Canada when a Canadian company is able to do the same in China.

One day, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor will be free. Let’s hope that they can resume their lives as soon as possible.

Source: Guy Saint-Jacques: No end in sight to the plight of the Two Michaels

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A ‘friend of China’ no more: Why a longtime Canadian ally has become one of Beijing’s fierce critics

2019/11/25 Leave a comment

Good profile and account of her realization that she needed to speak out regarding the need for a reset of Canada-China relations, with Canada needing to take a harder line:

It was 1979 and Beijing was in the midst of its first democracy movement. Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, then a civil servant in the Ontario government opening up after decades of isolation from the outside world.

The Xidan democracy wall, part of a peaceful public outburst against the Communist Party of China, was in full swing and McCuaig-Johnston had been following the story in Canadian media.

“I had never even thought of China. It was not on my radar at all, but this sounded really interesting,” she said. “So, my husband and I went over to China.”

At the time, only group tours were allowed, so she made the trip with the University of Toronto Alumni Association and even managed a trip to see the democracy wall in Beijing, which hosted messages of hope and reform from the mainland Chinese people. From there, McCuaig-Johnston travelled the country and decided to do a master’s degree in international relations focused on China.

For the next 40 years, including working as a civil servant, she collaborated to advance the relationship between Canada and China. Part of her work meant helping China develop its science and technology programs during its reform period.

Eventually, McCuaig-Johnston would become the vice-president of the Canada-China friendship association and consider herself a “friend of China,” a common expression used for those who support partnerships and engagement with Beijing.

But everything changed last December.

That’s when Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, was arrested. She had been passing through Vancouver’s airport when she was detained on a warrant request from the United States. The arrest sparked a firestorm that has torched relations between China and Canada.

McCuaig-Johnston said she’d already had concerns about the direction Beijing was taking on human rights, particularly regarding internment camps for Muslims in the Xinjiang province, as well as the country’s increasing aggression in the South China Sea.

But what galvanized those concerns was the detention without charges of two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who remain in Chinese custody months later. Another two Canadians were sentenced to death for drug convictions, which have not been carried out. Shortly after, Beijing levelled sanctions against Canadian pork and beef.

After decades spent facilitating China’s enhanced ties to Canada, McCuaig-Johnston returned to her hotel room in Shanghai the same week Kovrig and Spavor were arrested to find her locked luggage had been unlocked and rummaged through.

She said she believes it was Chinese authorities because nothing was taken. Then a local business acquaintance told her he had heard authorities had a list of 100 Canadians they could detain and interrogate at any time. McCuaig-Johnston had reached her limit.

“When I came home, I decided to speak out,” she said.

Since then, McCuaig-Johnston has written five editorials in national newspapers critical of China, given 30 interviews and recently published Dragon at the Door through the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The paper calls for Canada to conduct a reset of relations with Beijing, insisting Ottawa to take a harder line.

“Up until January, I had never done an interview in my life,” she said. “But I feel it’s important that friends of China — former friends of China — speak out about this.”

Her paper suggests pulling out of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, using so-called Magnitsky legislation to punish Hong Kong officials who abuse human rights, or sending pandas now living at the Calgary Zoo back to China early. Canada must also pivot to an Indo-Pacific economic strategy, she argued.

Foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole agreed with measures laid out in the paper, but suggested the Liberal government seems unwilling to take such strong action.

“We are rolling over, we are acquiescing, at a time when Chinese aggression is on the rise,” O’Toole said. “We should be working with like-minded allies to send a real signal that such conduct is not condoned.

If keeping quiet and friendly were going to work with China, Spavor and Kovrig “would have been released months ago,” he said.

On Friday, China’s new ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, urged Canada to not pass legislation similar to the United States’ sanctioning China and Hong Kong officials who abuse human rights. The bill is in support of students in the special administrative region who have been protesting for months. About 300,000 Canadians live in Hong Kong.

Cong said it could cause “very bad damage” if Canada were to use similar legislation.

The Liberal government had issued no response to those comments by press time Friday.

Observers have noted that many advisers around the Liberal government have ties and interests in China, including new ambassador to Beijing, Dominic Barton, and McCuaig-Johnston was once among the ranks of such business people, academics and bureaucrats.

But though “friends of China” may express outrage at China behind closed doors, many have told her they will not do so in public for fear of losing their privileges in the country.

In January, more than 140 academics and diplomats around the world signed a letter demanding China release Kovrig and Spavor. But just six Canadian academics signed while another six former Canadian ambassadors to China also signed.

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