In office this week, the new United States ambassador to Canada was quick to express his desire to see Justin Trudeau’s government toughen up its rhetoric towards China. “To Canada and the United States, as well as any other democratic country in the world, you could say that China is our greatest threat,” said David Cohen. It is important that while Canada formulates its policy towards China and the United States clarifies theirs, we align ourselves. “
Mr. Cohen’s words testify to a certain exasperation on the part of the government of President Joe Biden regarding the softness of the Trudeau government, which tirelessly tries to spare the goat and the cabbage so as not to incur the wrath of the Chinese communist regime. Perhaps such behavior was justifiable as the two Michael died in Chinese prisons.
But with their release and their return to the country last September, Ottawa no longer has any reason to spare Beijing. Especially since the patience of our allies is running out and the Biden government is trying to build a coalition of democracies to counter the aims of the
China in the Indo-Pacific region.
Chinese legal system
However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, made an astonishing statement Wednesday on the airwaves of CBC by affirming that Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are free on bail at the moment under the Chinese criminal law. While Canada had always qualified the detention of the two men as arbitrary, pointing out that the Chinese legal system was not one, now Mr.me Joly seems to grant it legitimacy. How else to interpret his words? The exit of Mme Joly, who has just been appointed to the top of Canadian diplomacy despite a career that did not predestine her for this post, once again demonstrates the reluctance of the Trudeau government in all matters relating to Sino-Canadian relations.
Certainly, Ottawa has given in to the obvious this week by joining the United States, Great Britain and Australia in announcing a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics which begin on February 4. . “We are deeply disturbed by the human rights violations of the government of China,” said Mr. Trudeau, announcing the decision of his government alongside Mr.me Joly and the new Minister of Sports, Pascale St-Onge. Let us recall that the members of the Council of Ministers abstained last February during the adoption of a motion recognizing the genocide perpetrated by China against the Uyghurs in the province of Xinjiang.
A diplomatic boycott of the Olympics
Admittedly, the decision of the United States to launch a diplomatic boycott of the Games was not unanimous within the international community. French President Emmanuel Macron has issued a warning. “We must not politicize the subject, especially when it is to take very small and symbolic measures. »But his reservations would not be foreign to his desire to avoid reprisals from China since Paris is preparing to host the Summer Olympics in 2024. As symbolic as it is, a diplomatic boycott has the merit of to draw the world’s attention to the plight of the Uyghurs.
Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Duceppe-Brunelle was right to condemn Ottawa’s slowness on this issue. For months, he has been asking the government to demand the postponement of the Games to allow an observation mission to investigate the situation in Xinjiang. China would probably never have accepted such interference in its internal affairs. But instead of acting, the government remained silent until its allies showed their cards.
“This is typical of the prime minister’s foreign policy, in that we act a day late, we wait and see what others are doing and we choose the least risky option,” said this week in Duty former Canadian Ambassador to China David Mulroney. Shortly before the announcement of Mr. Trudeau on the Games, the former representative of Quebec in China Jean-François Lépine had put his finger on this problem in these same pages: “The Canadian government suffers a lot from its indecision and its lack of precise orientation on the international scene. “
While the Trudeau government is still slow to announce whether it intends to ban the participation of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in Canadian 5G networks, the departure of Dominic Barton as head of the Canadian embassy in China should serve as an opportunity to formulate a more muscular policy towards this country. Mme Joly may be just starting out, but if she wants her stint at Foreign Affairs to be meaningful, she should break away from her predecessors’ approach, starting by correcting her unfortunate comments about the two Michael’s. .