Chinese reception ‘delights’ Governor General
Johnston urges Canadians to participate in change
SHANGHAI The Governor General of Canada was sounding very much like Margaret Thatcher when he said that the new leadership duo in Beijing is open to doing business with Canada.
The late British prime minister said much the same thing about Mikhail Gorbachev when the Soviet leader burst onto the world scene in the 1980s.
David Johnston is on the first state visit to China during his tenure, a trip that will last eight days and take him to five major cities, from the capital in Beijing to Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu and finally to Guangzhou. Immediately after, he will visit the capital of Mongolia, Ulan Bator, where he will be the first Canadian governor general or prime minister to visit the resource-rich country strategically located between China and Russia. He will also speak to the country’s parliament, called the Great Khural. These are the 26th and 27th countries he has visited.
The Governor General’s trip coincides with a full-court Canadian press in China this October. The National Arts Centre Orchestra has toured the country; Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has led a delegation to Beijing and Shanghai, the Canada-China Business Council has held a week of meetings in the Chinese capital, and federal ministers John Baird and Joe Oliver were in Beijing for meetings with their counterparts.
The broad goals of Johnston’s trip are to advance relations between the two countries on economic and technological fronts, as well as make people-to-people contacts in areas such as education, tourism and culture.
Johnston arrived in Beijing on Friday and was immediately whisked into a meeting with China’s Premier Li Keqiang. Later he was greeted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, inspected a guard of honour and attended a state dinner in the Great Hall of the People.
“We had excellent meetings with both Premier Li and President Xi. I cannot tell you how delighted we were with the warmth and cordiality. First of all, there is a very high degree of knowledge about Canada that impressed me. Some 24 of 25 members of the Chinese Politburo have visited Canada.
“In the case of Premier Li, he spoke with great detail of four cities he has visited in Canada including Prince George, B.C., which was twinned with one of the cities in the province in which he was governor.
“Secondly, I was impressed with the cordiality and warmth that they both expressed toward Canada and our collaborative opportunities.
“And thirdly, by the degree of animation and enthusiasm they had for the foundation we have and the very significant opportunities for the future.”
The Governor General said Canada has had a strong and favourable relationship with China for many decades, but in response to a question about the rocky relations of the early Harper years, he said: “In the last several years we have been rediscovering China, and it’s very encouraging to me. I think the current state of the relationship, particularly with this new regime, is very attractive and certainly a lot of enthusiasm on their part for doing things together in the energy field, green technology and dealing with this movement from rural to urban inside China.”
Johnston is a bit of a China hand. He has visited here 10 times since 1980, and he says he has been most impressed by the advances made in the Chinese education system. He notes there are 84,000 Chinese students in Canadian schools today and about 3,400 Canadians in Chinese schools. Four of his five children have been in school or have travelled in China.
In his discussions with the senior leadership, Johnston says he raised the question of human rights, rule of law and treatment of citizens within China. This has become a pro forma kind of discussion whenever a western leader meets a senior Chinese leader.
He says he had a frank, honest and respectful conversation with Li and Xi, and Xi replied with the statement that China has a different tradition in these matters. Johnston says he raised some specific cases with the Chinese president, but he would not go into detail.
“There is an enormous amount of energy and change. My first trip was in 1980, and my next trip was a few years later, and I was struck at that time about the amount of change that had taken place. I thought then that this can never be repeated, and guess what? Every three years I see the same dimension of change.
“The number of people that have been lifted out of poverty I found remarkable. The president of Beijing University, with whom I established a friendship in 1980, says he remembers as a boy his father taking him on the streets of Shanghai on a Sunday walk and they’d count the number of beggars who died on the streets overnight. They don’t see that anymore. That’s a great victory.”
The trick now for China is to keep growing, he said.
He also has a message for Canadians. “China is so important to Canada. We really owe it to ourselves not only to be aware of developments in this country, but also to participate in them.”
In Shanghai, the Governor General met with Han Zheng, the Communist Party city secretary and senior member of the state apparatus. Johnston will meet with top officials in each city he visits.
Along the way he has been witness to the signing of several agreements between Canadian institutions and businesses and their Chinese counterparts including a major $2.1-billion sale of up to 30 of the new series of jets made by Bombardier, and an agreement between the University of Ottawa’s medical school and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine that will establish joint programs in medical research, innovation and research in medical education. The schools will invest a total of $2 million over the next five years.