Canada can’t yield to China’s demands

It took several days for news of the Dec. 1 arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver to leak out. Judging by the reaction out of China, that was probably just as well.

The arrest, vice foreign minister Le Yucheng fumed, was “in disregard of the law, unreasonable, merciless and very evil.” The Chinese government issued a statement threatening Canada with “serious consequences” if it did not order Meng’s immediate release. A commentary in the Xinhua News Agency labelled Canada’s actions “lawless, unreasonable and callous.”

In slightly more measured tones, a Chinese foreign industry spokesman complained that Canada had “violated her human rights.” So that was … entertaining. Much subsequent coverage of the story has focused on the economic angle. Huawei is one of the world’s largest technology companies, and a key part of China’s industrial strategy. It is also, however, a key part of its surveillance and espionage strategy, as every Western intelligence agency will tell you — it may not be state-owned, but it is certainly under state tutelage.

Moreover, while it may be tempting to see this as the latest shot in the ongoing U.S.-China economic war — the arrest happened on the same day U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping were meeting at the G20 in Buenos Aires — in neither the U.S. nor Canada is it possible to detain people, even foreigners, at the whim of the government of the day.

In fact U.S. authorities have been investigating Huawei, and Meng herself, for some time, on suspicion of violating U.S. export sanctions on Iran. If there is not persuasive evidence against her, no Canadian court will approve her extradition; if there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, no American court will convict her. The more significant coincidence of timing, perhaps, is with the renewal of Chinese interest in a free-trade agreement with Canada. That China has targeted most of its rhetorical fire not on the U.S., which requested the arrest, but on Canada, which carried it out, is not hard to explain: it has calculated Canada is the weaker link.

The question is whether the Chinese are justified in that calculation. The Trudeau government has seemed at times all too cozy with China: from the prime minister’s promiscuous attendance at private fundraisers with Chinese billionaires, to the strangely hasty greenlighting of the sale of Norsat International to China’s Hytera Communications, to his apparent readiness to discuss an extradition treaty with one of the world’s most repressive police states, the “basic dictatorship” Justin Trudeau once named as the government he most admires on earth seems to hold a strange fascination for him. Indeed, Canada is alone among the countries in the “Five Eyes” intelligence network in refusing to block Huawei from participation in the next generation of wireless telephone infrastructure, known as 5G.

This is more than a matter of “trade diversification.” The Trudeau braintrust appears to have placed a geostrategic bet on China as the next world hegemon, eclipsing the United States. As a matter of empirical observation, that judgment may or may not prove to be correct. As a matter of preference, it is indefensible. Whatever its flaws, the United States remains one of the world’s great democracies. To align ourselves instead with its adversary, never mind one with such a bestial human rights record as Beijing, would be intolerable. That doesn’t mean we should bow to American pressure not to enter into a free trade deal with China. As a sovereign nation, we are entitled to set our own trade policy. But in matters touching on national security, not only our national interest but our duty as an ally clearly point in one direction. We are not “caught in the middle” between the U.S. and China, as some have put it. We are on the side of the Americans.

It was right and proper, then, for authorities in Canada to respond to the U.S. request as they did — as indeed they are obliged to do under the extradition treaty between the two countries. The idea, endorsed by the former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley that Canadian authorities should have instructed the RCMP to botch the job, the better to stay on China’s good side, is utterly unthinkable. The arrest having been made, and the courts having ruled, it would be equally unthinkable to refuse to extradite Meng.

It is true that it remains within the minister of justice’s purview to approve or deny the extradition request. But absent a court finding that her rights would thereby be violated, the minister would have no valid reason to do so. Not only would it do incalculable harm to CanadaU.S. relations, but it would be widely seen for what it was: a concession to Chinese blackmail. And in the way of all blackmail, the payment of ransom would not put a stop to the demands, but encourage more of them.

This was always the concern about negotiating a freetrade agreement with China: not the deal itself — if we do not trade with them others will — but what we would be prepared to give up to get it. No trade deal is worth abandoning Canada’s responsibility to speak out for the victims of Chinese state repression; neither should the pursuit of such a deal tempt us to let down our guard with regard to either our own security or that of our allies. That would remain as much the case after such a deal was struck as before: in considering whether to proceed, due weight must be given to the possibility of China using the threat of abrogation as a weapon. Donald Trump, after all, has offered the template. The Trudeau government has of late shown signs of awakening to the Chinese threat: witness its veto of the sale of Aecon, the construction giant. The Meng case is another such test. It is vital it should pass it.