When he came to power, and even before, Justin was very fond of China.
He wanted to visit the Middle Kingdom and walk in the footsteps of his father who, like many young people of his generation, had a certain fascination for the country of Mao. Having become a politician, while Westerners unanimously recognized Taiwan, where their defeated foal, Chiang Kai-Shek, had taken refuge, Pierre Elliott Trudeau had taken a bold action by recognizing the government of Communist China of Mao in 1970. It would seem that this gesture unprecedented has remained etched in gold letters in the heart of the Chinese Communist Party.
Like the father, the son Trudeau also admired China before he was prime minister. Already in 2013, when he was in front of a group of women in Toronto to raise funds, Justin, the new leader of the Liberal Party, had committed himself awkwardly on the subject. To a person who wanted to know which country he admired outside of Canada, he had confessed to having a weakness for China and the decision-making efficiency of its dictatorial regime.
Some will say that he was ironic, but there was a small part of truth in his answer, because as soon as he was elected, Justin wanted to do like his dad and approach the Great Wall. Also, in September 2016, he announced that he was starting talks to negotiate a free trade agreement with China. After this communication, many specialists wrote in the pages of the newspapers and took the floor to tell him that it was unwise to let himself be licked by a dragon in this way.
Between the Chinese giant with its unorthodox methods and tiny Canada, equitable free trade is as improbable as a close friendship between oil and water, my grandmother would say. If water boasts of being intimate friends with oil, time will prove it wrong. The oil always ends up taking over and looking down on the water.
Similarly, the Middle Kingdom now wants to be above. Light as oil, it advances silently on its aqueous partners who falsely think they are engaging in a homogeneous mixture.
While Justin’s Chinese ambitions were ultimately crushed by the arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the tribulations surrounding Huawei’s 5G antennas, those rapprochements with the Beijing regime have come back to haunt him with those stories of election interference making headlines. For some time, Justin has been scrambling to avoid an independent commission of inquiry. How long will he hold out in front of this ordeal of the media gout? We’ll see. One thing is certain, at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, we saw in Xi Jinping’s gaze and non-verbal expression the lack of consideration he now had for Justin. What exactly was he saying to her during this chance encounter? Let me be ironic about these few minutes of discussion.
Xi Jinping sees Justin Trudeau, walks towards him with a determined step and he apostrophizes him in these terms:
Xi: Oh bin! Can you tell me what are you doing here?
Justin: Ni hao, my friend!
Xi: There is no “Ni hao”, nor “my friend”. It was your father who was our friend, not you! If I were you, I’d be embarrassed to be such an unabashed genius.
Justin: Come on, Xi, how did you get the same?
Xi: You opened your hatch when we had an agreement!
Justin: Look, I had no choice but to talk a bit about your interference in our elections… sooner or later, it was going to catch up with me.
Xi: You shake my hand and, with the other, you give me the arm of honor, Trudeau.
Justin: Tell yourself, my Xi, that the Canadian arm hurts much less than the brass knuckles!
Xi: That, I know! The Americans, you offer them a balloon as a sign of friendship and they pull out a needle. But sorry to blow your balloune, I have to leave you, Justin.
Justin: As fast ?
Xi: Yes ! Imagine that I have 18 most important heads of state to meet at this G20 summit. If I had known you were passing through here, I would have taken another path.
Justin: Oh no, don’t talk to me about the way…
Xi: Since you like it, do me a favor. So dress up…
Justin: Oh yes !
Xi: In a draft.
End of the meeting.
Now, grappling with overwhelming evidence of Chinese interference, Justin, who still remembers that conversation, is walking on eggshells and trying to spare Canadian democracy and the fire-breathing dragon. In order not to point a frontal accusing finger at Xi, he always talks about Chinese and Iranian interference. And, when asked to crack down on the Beijing regime, he took refuge in the indisputable need to protect Canadians of Chinese origin. A noble mission that hides an unacknowledged project. That of positioning the Conservatives as intolerant and insensitive to the terrible repercussions of this soap opera on Chinese Canadians. This posture allows Justin to solidify his grip on the vote of this large community by keeping an eye on the next electoral meeting, the triggering of which could be his way out.
To be continued.