Time for Canada to stand up for freedom now
We've been soft on China for too long, Erin O'Toole says.
Today, Canada marks a grim milestone. For two years, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor will have been held hostage in China simply for being Canadian.
While Canadians are rightfully concerned about the fate of our two wrongfully imprisoned citizens, China's hostage diplomacy has awoken the Canadian public to a far larger reality. A realignment in geopolitics has taken place over the past 40 years, and Canada has been late to heed its warnings.
For 40 years the great opening of China's free market has not gone as we had hoped. And for the past 30 years, since tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square, the western world has chosen to hope that things would get better.
To this day, every business, public or private, remains subject to the strategic objectives of the Chinese state. This may not have been a big deal when China produced mainly low-tech goods like shoes and toothbrushes, but it has dramatic implications today as Chinese tech firms export facial recognition technology and surveillance drones. All Chinese firms are required by law to collaborate with Chinese intelligence agencies. Yes, that includes mining TikTok videos for data. And it certainly concerns Huawei building our digital future.
For decades, the Chinese Communist Party wooed western companies with promises of cheap labour and, indirectly, without concerns for environmental regulations. Once companies had firmly linked their supply chains to the Chinese economy, demands on them for technology transfers and forced joint ventures sharply increased.
Simultaneously, massive industrial espionage campaigns were launched, and “wolf warrior diplomacy” techniques deployed. Named after a Chinese action movie, this is the use of pressure tactics, outright threats and economic coercion to advance China's strategic aims. Intellectual property theft, counterfeiting and digital piracy are not exceptions to our dealings with China. They are the reality.
Even during this pandemic, China misrepresented its COVID-19 numbers and moved to corner the personal protective equipment market. Despite this record of self-interest, the Trudeau government still decided to prioritize partnering with a Chinese firm to deliver a vaccine to Canadians. CSIS had been flagging CanSino as a national security threat for years, but the Liberals turned a blind eye to our Canadian experts.
After undoubtedly extracting useful Canadian vaccine research, China broke off relations and refused to ship samples. This put Canada at a serious disadvantage and delayed our position accessing vaccines.
For too long, our country has watched the long arm of Beijing establish itself on our soil. In recent years, Canadians of Chinese origin have been threatened by foreign agents in our country. Anti-Hong Kong protests were organized in Canada to bully democracy activists. Uyghur students in our universities have been intimidated in co-ordinated actions led by Chinese consulates across our country.
And the very values we hold dear, like openness, justice and tolerance, have been weaponized against us.
When a dictatorship starts having so much influence that protecting Canadian citizens on Canadian soil is now a question open for debate, you know you have a problem.
I cannot say this enough. The conflict we currently have is with the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese people. The Chinese people have not been holding Canadian citizens hostage for two years — the corrupt Communist regime has.
Facing a challenge as big as this will require a national effort. From the highest levels of government to the individual choices of consumers, we must speak openly about the stakes at hand. Our values require us to speak the truth and to work with like-minded countries to support these values and the rules-based systems they created.
Our Australian friends have tackled the Chinese threat to their institutions headfirst. Our British allies took the courageous step to ban Huawei from their 5G networks. And the United States under President Joe Biden will continue to spearhead a realignment of democracies so that we may unite in confronting the geopolitical challenge of our times.
It is time for Canada to once more stand on the right side of history. It is time for us to stand for freedom — for the two Michaels, for our country and for the future of the democratic world.