Don’t undercut tough message

Canada is calling for the “immediate release” of two Canadians arbitrarily held in China. And Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is trying to get our allies to put pressure on China about the “worrying precedent” it has set by imprisoning Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in retaliation for the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in Vancouver.

So what on earth is a delegation of Canadian parliamentarians doing jetting off to China prepared to deliver a softly-softly message about how relations between the two countries are really just fine?

Two senators and four members of Parliament, including both Conservatives and Liberals, are off to Shanghai this weekend and their leader says the plight of the imprisoned Canadians is “not on the agenda.”

However, Liberal Senator Joseph Day adds helpfully, “it may well come up.”

That’s nice. But let’s be clear: if Canada is trying to speak with a strong voice on this issue, as it should, it is decidedly unhelpful (to use diplomatic language) for a group of parliamentarians to go off on an official trip with a message that by all indications will undercut the urgency that our own Global Affairs department wants to get across.

A better, and more consistent, message would be conveyed by simply cancelling or “postponing” the trip. Why should senators and MPs be conducting a routine trip to promote “mutual understanding and mutual benefit,” in Day’s words, at a time when Canada is attempting to make clear how seriously it takes the arbitrary detention of its citizens?

Michael Cooper, the lone Conservative MP on the trip, said the group got the go-ahead from Global Affairs to make the trip. But CBC News reports that an official in Freeland’s office says it was up to the senators and MPs themselves whether to go.

Regardless, going on a business-as-usual junket at this point is the wrong decision.

There may be nothing the government can do to stop the two senators, Day and Conservative Victor Oh, and Cooper from doing what they want.

But it should have made it clear to the three Liberal MPs on the trip — Geng Tan, Majid Jowhari and Chandra Arya — that this is a bad idea. Long-term relations with China are important, but no one can pretend this is the time for routine exchanges.

This is especially true at a moment when Canada is conspicuously isolated, caught between China and the United States, which requested the extradition of telecom executive Meng Wanzhou.

It would help if our friends and allies spoke up forcefully to demand the release of the detained Canadians. But so far those who have spoken out, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia, have followed the diplomacy 101 dictum: “speak softly.”

As a result, they have restricted themselves, in public at least, to expressing “concern.”

It’s time for them to stop pussyfooting around and use stronger diplomatic language that says: We mean business. That means demanding the immediate release of the Canadians

So far, only the U.S. has gone that far in a statement from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. But his demand was undermined by President Donald Trump, who suggested Meng’s fate might be tied to a better trade deal with China, rather than the rule of law under which Canada arrested her.

Trump’s clumsy intervention only supported China’s contention that Canada had “kidnapped” Meng for political purposes, though that is patently not the case.

It’s understandable that other countries are reluctant to poke an economic giant like China in the eye. But it’s in everyone’s interests to stand up to it.

All western countries have many citizens living and working in China. Canada may be singled out this time, but next time it could well be your citizens who find themselves in China’s so-called “black jails,” without access to lawyers or diplomatic support.

Countries that believe in the rule of law should present a strong united front on this point. And the last thing Canada’s own parliamentarians should be doing is watering down that message.

Why is a group of Canadian parliamentarians jetting off to China to deliver a softly-softly message about how relations between our two countries are really just fine?