Will Canada’s see-no-evil China policy end?
The Chinese communist regime has demonstrated in recent months that, at the very least, it is not a reliable partner on matters of life and death. Its lies, coverup and inaction have been, in fact, a danger to global health and well-being. That is not in dispute from any reasonable quarter in relation to the pandemic.
What then is going to be done about it?
The usual diplomatic, trade and security response has been, over 50 years and supported by all parties of different political stripes: nothing. About the Chinese regime being a tyranny, only a little is grudgingly said, and even less done. Presidents and prime ministers the world over have made sure that whatever Beijing does, it will be business — and above all, business — as usual.
The biggest challenge to the global see-no-evil policy on China was the massacre in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. The scale and brazenness of the atrocity meant that Beijing had broken its implicit promise to Western leaders, namely to keep its repression sufficiently hidden as to make the see- no- evil policy plausible. Something had to be done. Condemnations were made, arms sales and World Bank loans to China were suspended, as were high- level ministerial meetings between G7 countries and the Chinese regime.
President George H.W. Bush, a former American ambassador in China, was keen to signal that while the massacre of innocents in Beijing was mildly troubling, it would not get in the way of business as usual. Bush thus renewed
China’s “most favoured nation” trading status.
As for Canada, it is instructive to look at the comprehensive 1,100-page memoirs of Brian Mulroney on China. While there are pages and pages about South Africa, for example, China, including the Tiananmen massacre, is dealt with cursorily. Mulroney includes a note about getting things back to normal.
“As I prepared to leave office I knew that another signal had to be sent,” he wrote about his last months in office. That signal? Business would be business, as usual.
“I hosted a dinner at 24 Sussex for Chinese Vice- Premier ( and later Premier) Zhu Rongji,” Mulroney wrote. “Attended by (Power Corporation’s) Paul and André Desmarais, the dinner was intended to demonstrate that Canada would be prepared to fully engage with China in the years ahead — cautiously, of course, in light of our appropriate human rights concerns. During a subsequent visit to China after leaving office, I was told that my family and I would forever be welcome in China because of the positive signal I had sent with that invitation.”
That “subsequent” visit was one of the first Mulroney would make post-premiership. In fact, he made it while still an MP in October 1993.
As for any supposed “caution” in “fully engaging” China, that was thrown to the wind by Mulroney’s successor, Jean Chrétien. Within a year of taking office, Chrétien launched his “Team Canada” initiative and arrived in Beijing himself, accompanied by all the premiers save for Quebec’s
Jacques Parizeau, and some 400 of Canada’s richest business leaders. Canada would reluctantly murmur about human rights, but it was not to be taken seriously. There was “another signal” to be sent, to be announced with trumpets and fanfare. Chrétien would return in 2001 with another trade mission, this one even larger, impossible as that might be to imagine, than the first.
It’s important to note that this bipartisan consensus — Mulroney and Chrétien — in favour of practical appeasement of China in all respects, had near universal support in Canada’s corporate, media and diplomatic class. Nine of 10 premiers went along. When Stephen Harper tried to modestly roll back Canadian enthusiasm for the Chinese communist regime, he earned the opprobrium of that class in spades.
This time last year, Beijing’s pre-eminent concern was blocking all news about the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre from the Chinese people over the internet. Last November marked the 25th anniversary of Chrétien’s trade mission, and throughout 2019 Chrétien and his senior officials publicly argued that Canada should take Beijing’s side in the dispute over Meng Wanzhou’s extradition arrest in Vancouver. Meng is an executive with Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Mulroney, for his part, recommending sending Chrétien and André Desmarais to Beijing to make whatever concessions were necessary to secure the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, jailed by Beijing in response to the Huawei arrest.
Will anything change in Canada’s 50- year China policy after the coronavirus pandemic?
The first test will be whether the federal government will give approval to Huawei to participate in Canada’s 5G digital network. It should be an easy decision, given that the Americans and Australians have already excluded the Chinese telecom on national security grounds.
Post- coronavirus, no country should permit Chinese giants — just as much a part of the Chinese regime as the state bureaucracy — to provide critical infrastructure. That will be a challenge for developing countries where Chinese “Belt and Road” grants have proved most effective in persuading local officials. The challenge is not so great for Canada. But we can still fail to meet it. We have been doing so for a long time.
Only a little is grudgingly said, and even less is done.