Call for Canada to rethink approach
Canada should pursue an independent foreign policy based on coexistence rather than be caught in competition between China and the United States, participants of an internet panel discussion hosted by the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in October said.
“This is ultimately about great-power competition between China and the US,” said one of the panelists, Yuen Pau Woo, a member of the Canadian Senate and a former president and chief executive of the Asia Pacific Foundation.
“Whatever the merits of the Chinese or American actions, we were caught in between. We will pursue a policy on China yet to be determined, but which is based on coexistence rather than elimination of the threat.”
Following the release of the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in September there have been calls for a clearer articulation of Canada’s policy toward China, Woo said. However, he is not enthusiastic about doing so now, he said, because “the fever” in relations between Ottawa and Beijing for the past three or four years has yet to break.
Another panelist, Henri-Paul Normandin, former Canadian ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said Canada cannot fall in entirely behind the US if it wishes to preserve an independent foreign policy.
“American foreign policy is not always in our best interest. Obviously, the US is a close partner, and is a good partner, but sometimes they make choices which are not in our best interests.”
Woo stressed that the most important thing Canadians need to do on China policy is “to change the narrative on China in the media”.
Canada can express its disagreement with China, “but if we continue down the path where our national security agencies, universities and private sector companies essentially stay away from China because if somehow every Chinese entity, individual or immigrant is suspected as being connected to the state, we no longer can have a China policy of any sort”.
Western countries believe they were “unwitting dupes” of China, captives of Chinese inexpensive goods and services, Woo said.
“That’s a gross misrepresentation of the story. We were willing partners in all of this and not only that, but we also prospered on the backs of cheap Chinese labor.”