Ending Ottawa’s ambivalence

Mélanie Joly did not split hairs Wednesday, when she was asked about the reprisals planned by China in reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

This visit “cannot be used as justification for threatening actions”, she said. The Foreign Minister called on China to ease tensions rather than throwing oil on the fire.

His public outing was reassuring. Continuing to show firmness against Beijing, within democracies, is essential. All the foreign ministers of the G7 countries have made a similar speech.

The problem is that the Globe and Mail we learned, the same day, having obtained a draft of the Indo-Pacific strategy – on which the federal government is currently working – in which China is never explicitly mentioned.

We do not dare, for example, to address the danger that the country represents for liberal democracies like Canada. Or the threat it poses to the stability of the Indo-Pacific region. Or the precarious commercial relationship between our two countries and the growing uncertainty facing the business community here.

This is nonsense.

You can imagine if Ottawa prepared a strategy for the Americas and decided not to explicitly mention the United States!

According to the sources of Globe and MailMélanie Joly would be “determined to repair relations with Beijing”.

However, in Ottawa, on Wednesday, we said despite everything that we wanted to take China head-on in the Indo-Pacific strategy.

The document referred to is “a document drafted by Global Affairs Canada containing preliminary ideas from the Ministry sent to the Minister’s office”, a government source told us. It would have been deemed “unsatisfactory”.

“It is obvious that the future of Canada-China relations must be part of this strategy,” declared Adrien Blanchard, press officer for Minister Joly.

So much the better.

If a strategy that did not mention China explicitly had been published, Canada’s credibility rating for its attitude towards Beijing would have fallen even further.

Picking up the shards does not mean walking on eggshells so as not to frighten the Chinese regime.

We can try to maintain good relations with him while recognizing that China is an uninhibited power whose behavior is worrying.

To ignore it would be to harbor illusions about the true nature of the country.

It would also be proof of a nostalgic vision of China that borders on naivety. Our relationship with the country must be managed with determination and skill. Not with candor and idealism.

Our softness and our prevarications vis-a-vis China were flagrant these last years. As proof: our lack of confidence in the Huawei file and, precisely, the fact that we have not yet seen the color of the Indo-Pacific strategy.

The subject even found itself at the heart of the confirmation hearings of the current United States Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, in September 2021.

“We are all waiting for Canada to release its framework for its comprehensive policy on China,” he said, carefully adding that he wanted “Canada’s policies to reflect its words on the treatment of China.” “.

Meanwhile, Canada has been ignored on important Washington-led initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region.

Notably the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), a new partnership announced by Joe Biden in Tokyo a few weeks ago. And the security pact signed last year by Washington with Australia and the United Kingdom (AUKUS). The US president later said that the United States has “no closer or more reliable ally than Australia”.

Our ambivalence towards China has been known – and lamented – for too long. As a result, Canada is suffering the consequences of its inaction. It is high time to fix it.