Pick a lane on China

The Trudeau government is trying to have it all ways on the hot-button issue of China’s appalling treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority. Not surprisingly, it’s ended up pleasing precisely no one.

Certainly, anyone who has paid attention to reports over the past year or more about the oppression of the Uighurs can’t be impressed by the government’s cavilling over whether it fits the international legal definition of “genocide.”

There’s evidence aplenty of that, however awkward it may be for Canada and other governments to say it out loud.

Mass detentions, forced labour, political re-education, compulsory sterilizations — even, according to a recent BBC report, systematic torture and rape of Muslim women in the far northwestern Xinjiang province. These are among the worst allegations of human rights abuses in decades and would certainly align with any common-sense understanding of genocide.

The Liberal government doesn’t want to say that, but neither does it want to go on record as denying it given the mounting evidence of atrocities. Hence the spectacle on Monday of cabinet ministers abstaining in a Commons vote on the issue even as backbench Liberals joined the Conservatives and other opposition MPs to condemn genocide against the Uighurs. Exactly zero MPs voted against that.

The government clearly doesn’t want to poke a stick in the eye of the Chinese government and further inflame Ottawa’s frayed relationship with Beijing. In particular, it doesn’t want to make things even worse for the “two Michaels,” the Canadians imprisoned in China in retaliation for the detention of a Chinese telecom executive in Vancouver, pending extradition to the United

States.

But Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have now been held, for absolutely no valid reason, for 806 days and counting, and their release is nowhere in sight. By stifling itself on human rights issues, the government is actually giving

Beijing evidence that its brazen tactic of diplomatic hostage-taking works — that it can successfully mute criticism from other governments by jailing their citizens as surety against the truth.

This is a no-win situation for Canada. If Ottawa were to shut up about the Uighurs in return for the freedom of the two Michaels, that would at least be a trade — a shameful one perhaps, but a trade nonetheless. As it stands, Canada is bending the knee in Beijing’s direction and getting what exactly in return? Nothing so far.

The whole affair underscores the fact that Canada hasn’t yet worked out a consistent and principled policy toward the increasingly aggressive China of President Xi Jinping. The Liberals’ first instinct was to work at improving relations with Beijing, but it takes two to do that tango and China has demonstrated over and over that its current government prefers bully tactics on everything from trade to the plight of the Michaels.

The government has promised to present a new framework for relations with China, but it hasn’t come up with much yet. It needs to do that work now, fully realizing that past illusions about Beijing won’t stand up to current realities.

For reminders about that, it could start by listening to the head of its own intelligence service. David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), issued a grave warning only two weeks ago that China’s government is “using all elements of state power to carry out activities that are a threat to our national security and sovereignty.”

According to the CSIS director, those activities are being conducted “on all fronts — economic, technical, political and military,” targeting key economic areas like biopharma and artificial intelligence, and including intimidation of Canadians of Chinese descent.

It’s a sobering picture, one the Liberal government should take on board as it develops a new and more realistic approach to dealing with Beijing. To start with, it’s going to have to make some tough choices (such as the endlessly delayed decision on whether to let Huawei have a role in Canada’s new 5G networks). And it’s going to have to lead rather than dither on issues like the Uighurs.

All this will involve vacating the middle of the road when it comes to China. Right now the government is learning the truth of the old saying that that’s where you’re most likely to get run over.

As it stands, Canada is bending the knee in Beijing’s direction and getting what exactly in return? Nothing so far