Dysfunctional ties with China come into focus

Jonathan Manthorpe says Meng ruling is welcome.

The crisis in Sino-canadian relations sparked by the detention on an extradition warrant of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China’s leading communications company Huawei Technologies, was long overdue and should be welcomed.

The fallout from Meng’s detention on charges of fraud and evading sanctions against Iran lodged by the U.S. Department of Justice has exposed the contradictions and incompatibilities in the relationship between Canada and the People’s Republic of China.

Those tensions and the crisis in bilateral relations will intensify following the decision on Wednesday by B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes. In January, Meng’s lawyers had argued that the charges she faces are not crimes in Canada, and that she should therefore not be extradited to the U.S.

Holmes, however, ruled that the essence of the charges would also be crimes in Canada, and that the extradition case must proceed. As that happens, the political clamour around the case is likely to become more tumultuous.

Since diplomatic relations with the PRC were established in 1970, leading elements among Canada’s political leaders and the country’s business and academic establishments have become enmeshed in the relationship with Beijing. The PRC has become Canada’s second-largest trading partner, but it is an unbalanced relationship. In 2019, imports from China totalled $46.8 billion, and exports to China were $24.4 billion. In several universities and colleges, tuition revenues from Chinese students are a dangerously large part of the budget.

Promoters of the relationship argue that making the PRC a stakeholder in democratic and law-driven institutions and customs will encourage political and social reform in China.

The establishments of the totalitarian regime in Beijing by leader Xi Jinping, the Huawei affair, and Beijing’s determination to crush the movements for democratic reform in Hong Kong, have shown that there is no hope of reform. Without it, Canada cannot have a stable, mutually respectful relationship with the PRC.

There is no meeting ground between the PRC and Canada

on questions of human and civic rights. The Chinese Communist Party’s view of the relationship between the citizen and the state is diametrically opposed to that in Canada.

The PRC does not accept and cannot understand respect for the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Canada and China have no common view on international institutions or the objectives of the world order.

The essential dysfunction of the relationship was shown with brutal clarity when Beijing’s agents detained two Canadians in China, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor. The two have been held in solitary confinement for more than a year and a half. For several months last year, they were tortured with sleep depravation while being subjected to daily interrogations.

They have been charged with endangering the security of the PRC, but have not been allowed to consult lawyers. In mid-2019, Canadian diplomats were finally allowed to see the pair once a month, but since February that access has been denied, ostensibly because of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, faces only a nighttime curfew. She owns two mansions in Vancouver. She has been free to leave her house during the day, although her eight passports were confiscated.

Canada’s priority must be to secure the release of the two Michaels. Efforts by Canadian diplomats and others with good relationships with PRC officials have failed and this will be even more difficult after Wednesday’s court ruling.

Canada cannot and shouldn’t sever relations with Beijing, but Ottawa must focus on expanding its relationships with the Asian countries with which Canada does share values and interests. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia are top of the list. Most of these and several other countries are members with Canada of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-pacific Partnership. It is this trade alliance that Ottawa should make the cornerstone of its post-huawei relationship with the Pacific Rim.

Jonathan Manthorpe is a journalist and author specializing in international affairs. His book Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada was published in 2019, and his forthcoming book, Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence, will be available in July.