Canada left hanging high and dry
Country caught between two superpowers and paying the price as ally US remains silent
TORONTO: First US President Donald Trump attacked Canada on trade. Then Saudi Arabia punished it for speaking up for human rights. Now China has the country in its cross- hairs, detaining two Canadians in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive on behalf of the United States.
Canada is caught between two superpowers and taking the punishment – and its ally to the south has been conspicuously absent in coming to its aid.
“We’ve never been this alone,” historian Robert Bothwell said.
“We don’t have any serious allies. And I think that’s another factor in what the Chinese are doing. ... Our means of retaliation are very few. China is a hostile power.”
The two Canadians, Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat in China, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur who lived in northeastern China near the North Korean border, were taken into custody on Monday on suspicion of “engaging in activities that endanger the national security” of China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said. Canadian consular officials have had no access to them.
Their detentions ratchet up pressure on Canada, which arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec 1 at the request of the United States.
The United States wants her extradited to face charges that she and her company misled banks about the company’s business dealings in Iran. A Canadian judge released Meng on bail on Tuesday.
The case has set off a diplomatic furore among the three nations in which Canada has been stuck in the middle.
Until now, Canada had a largely good relationship with China, forged by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father, late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who helped establish the one-China formula that enabled many other countries to recognise China in the 1970s. Canada acknowledged there is one government of China and does not officially recognise Taiwan.
China has since become Canada’s second-largest trading partner, after the United States.
Justin Trudeau has even talked about a possible free-trade agreement with China in a bid to diversify Canada’s trade, which relies on the United States for 75% of its exports.
But the Canadian prime minister has said little since news of this week’s arrests became public.
It’s Canada’s second dispute with a major power this year.
In June, Trump vowed to make Canada pay after Trudeau said he wouldn’t be pushed around in talks to hammer out a new North American trade agreement, an unprecedented attack on America’s closest ally. Trump called Trudeau weak and dishonest, words that shocked Canadians.
Then Trump said this week that he might intervene in the Huawei case if it would help clinch a trade agreement with China, upending US efforts to separate the court proceeding from US-China trade talks and contradicting Canadian officials who said the arrest was not political.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland took a swipe at Trump, saying it was “quite obvious” any foreign country requesting extradition should ensure “the process is not politicised”.
“Normally, Canada can count on the United States to back them up on such an issue,” said Laura Dawson, a former economic adviser at the US Embassy in Ottawa and director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington.
Dawson said it’s unusual for Washington to “leave Canada hanging high and dry”.
“President Trump has made it clear that old alliances don’t matter so much anymore,” she said.
“He has made no secret of his preference for a go-it-alone approach and his lack of regard for traditional alliances.”
In years past, the United States might have defended Canada when it came under attack and other countries would know the United States had Canada’s back. Not now.
In August, the Saudi government expelled Canada’s ambassador to the kingdom and withdrew its own ambassador after Canada’s foreign ministry tweeted support for an arrested Saudi activist.
The Saudis also sold Canadian investments and ordered their citizens studying in Canada to leave.
No country, including the United States, spoke out publicly in support of Canada.
Christopher Sands of the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington said the world took note of how Trump treated Canada during trade negotiations and how the United States stayed silent when Saudi Arabia overreacted to Canada’s expression of human rights concerns over treatment of the Saudi dissident.
“In normal times, the United States sends a signal, usually discreetly, to allies to cut it out and play nice,” Sands said.
“What makes this worse is that China is lashing out at Canada not for Canada’s initiative, but for Canada’s honouring of a US warrant. The damage done by our silence in terms of alliance relations is truly awful,” he said.