A Delicate Dance With China, but it’s Canadian Voters Who Will Decide

From The Sunday Guardian, July 28 2024

OTTAWA: So, there you have it in one sentence. Canada’s government gets you, China but it’s the people of Canada that hold such negative views about your country.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly headed to Beijing this past week on an unannounced visit to mend relations with Canada’s second biggest trading partner. Canadians first heard about this trip after she had arrived. Perhaps the government, plagued with scandal after scandal and amid a Foreign Interference Inquiry with a clear focus on China’s role in upending democracy in our country, thought the stealth approach was in their best interest.

The Liberal minority government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have also wished to avoid yet more negative coverage of how it has engaged the PRC for the past nine years. Much has changed in the world as it relates to China’s assertive approach to geopolitics. Canada has not only been a target for high level infiltration but according to independent journalist and author Sam Cooper, a partner in aiding Beijing in its global hegemonic ambitions.

In March of this year, a Foreign Interference inquiry led by Chief Justice Marie Hogue, while limited in its scope has delivered new revelations as to the government’s clear embrace of the CCP inside Canada as partner. According to the explosive National Security Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, NSICOP Report there are 11 MPs and Senators who may have committed acts of treason or have been aiding a foreign government.

So when Minister Joly uttered the following in an exclusive Globe and Mail interview, she was sending a clear message to Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs: “There are many things that we need to do before a formal reset. There are too many aspects core to our relationship that need to be addressed, including foreign interference, including trade issues.” “It’s not the government. It’s more Canadian perceptions towards China, which are negative right now. And it’s important for China to understand that.”

So, there you have it in one sentence. Canada’s government gets you, China but it’s the people of Canada that hold such negative views about your country. Indeed, she is right and in recent nationwide polls, 85% of Canadians hold a negative view towards the government of China and with good reason all too well known to the people in all democratic nations, as citizens were much quicker to see through the veneer of the CCP’s charm offensive, its Belt and Road Initiative and the buying up of government officials the world over.

But as Sam Cooper reported in his Substack, there is a lot of power behind Joly’s bow to China. Cooper has exposed the Canadian government’s tight and seemingly nefarious dealings with Beijing’s proxies and those in the United Front Works Department. There was further criticism of the attempted approach to reset, as National Post columnist Terry Glavin aptly put it: “In Beijing on Friday, (Chinese Foreign Minister) Wang Yi left little to the imagination in what China will expect of Canada in the back-to-the-future relationship Joly is hoping to restore. We should shut up about Beijing’s evisceration of Hong Kong’s democracy and its trampling of civil liberties there. We should shut up about the brutal oppression of the Muslim-minority Uyghur people of Xinjiang, and we should mind our business about Beijing’s menacing manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.”

In the words of former Canadian ambassador to China, David Mulroney, “Minister Joly talked about encouraging ‘personnel and cultural exchanges,’ … at a time when China is ramping up arrests of foreign businesspeople, and as in-bound tourism to China is understandably collapsing … Joly’s visit to Beijing last week was built around an understanding of China that’s at least a decade out of date.”

So it baffles the mind how the Minister could be so misreading the tea leaves on our approach to China. To her credit, it appears from the readout that she indeed pressed issues of human rights, illegal trade practices and foreign interference, but you can’t send mixed signals, as the Chinese will only read into the conversation what they see as weak posturing by Canada.

For Canada, improving diplomatic relations with China should be an imperative as there are many issues we can find common ground on, but given our history with the current regime it can no longer be on their terms and our politicians need to read the room because voters are much smarter than the Liberal elites give them credit for. Diplomatic engagement must be balanced against the imperative to address serious concerns about human rights abuses, national security threats, and foreign interference by the CCP. For China, Canada could help counteract growing international isolation and criticism, particularly from Western nations if it demonstrated a new willingness to be a partner rather than a predator. But that means China needs to change its approach and hell might freeze over before that happens.

As the world faces increasingly complex and intersecting global issues, the Canada-China relationship serves as a critical case study in the delicate art of diplomacy. Minister Joly’s visit underscores the multifaceted nature of this relationship, highlighting the need for sustained effort, transparency, and mutual respect to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.

While Joly’s visit to Beijing marks a significant step towards repairing a deeply fractured relationship, the road ahead remains fraught with challenges. On the surface this trip did little on that front, but outcomes of any diplomatic engagement require time for each side to evaluate what interests are aligned and what are not.

But as Joly assesses her trip, she should also be aware that Canadian voters have high expectations of our engagement with the CCP, given all that has been exposed about this regime and that every four years they decide the success or failure of a government at the polls.