Two innocents in China

Re: China is our enemy. When will Trudeau see that? Diane Francis, Feb. 23

Eight years before he assumed Canada’s highest office, Pierre Trudeau visited China with Jacques Hébert, and they wrote of their travels in Two Innocents in Red China. Of course, in French, “innocent” also conveys a sense of being naively foolish, as a lot of postwar idealists in the West were about the communist regimes of the day. Most woke up, sooner or later, to the realities of totalitarianism. Yet, early on in his prime ministership, Justin Trudeau was still waxing elegiac about how quickly government gets things done in authoritarian regimes like China.

I somehow doubt that “quickly” free-associates with “government” in the minds of the two Michaels as they languish in the cells of a Chinese prison for over two years now. Were the prime minister to devote as much effort to freeing our citizens detained abroad as he does detaining our citizens coming from abroad, perhaps our Michaels would already be rowing their boat ashore. But, in Justin Trudeau’s “postnational” Canada, it seems ever-so-convenient to hide behind the rule of law to overlook the plight of our imprisoned nationals.

Still, our parliamentarians who do show up for work manage to put on a good show. You have to admire how Opposition Leader Erin O’toole exploits the tragedy of the Uyghurs for political gain. Perhaps he could tell us how a resolution labelling China a genocidal regime helps secure the release of the two Michaels, already compromised by our role in the Meng Manzhou affair.

And that, until further notice, is the story of our two innocents in Red China. Howard Greenfield, Montreal