Holding China to Account

Pierre Trudeau in his book, Two Innocents In China, declared that communism in China was a force for good and that its fleshy face in Mao Tse Tung was "genius". This was during one of the worst famines in China history that would claim forty million lives. Trudeau went to his grave praising Mao - and other dictators - and passed that torch of appeasement to his son.

In 2013, Justin said to a crowd of unthinking admirers: "You know, there’s a level of of admiration I actually have for China …" ... "You know, there’s a level of of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say ‘we need to go green fastest . . . we need to start investing in solar.’ I mean there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he can do everything he wanted that I find quite interesting."

(Sidebar: ... says the trust-funded snowboard instructor who bribed the press, stopped an active investigation into his office and tried to give himself unlimited powers to spend. But I digress ...)

Since first assuming office, Justin has tried to replace the US with China as Canada's main trading partner, has let Chinese money into the coffers of the foundation his father founded and most recently, defended China against very credible claims that it the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan and even offered China financial aid while the rest of Canada remains crippled. Two Canadian nationals, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, still remain in Chinese prisons (the aid Canada gave, it seems, was not for the condition of their release).


I have no doubt that whenever the national lockdown ends, Justin will still fawn over his favourite country and Canadians will continue purchasing cheap goods and even medicines and medical equipment from China as though that country never shut down an entire planet. Cheap stuff is cheap stuff and Canadians don't care where they get it. If it truly bothered them that China is a human right abusing country that under-cuts North American workers and arrests Canadian nationals, we would have bartered with nations other than China for protective equipment. That's why "re-thinking" Canada's relationship is a wasted if noble exercise. Principles involve hard work, sacrifice and integrity. Who wants that?


But what will the rest of the world do?


Britain has already rejected Huawei's attempts to install a 5G network in the United Kingdom. Japan has paid companies to relocate from China. The United States, the powerhouse that can actually make a dent in China's economy, has yet to apply any serious economic or political action against China.


China has not proven itself to be an honest broker in any of its dealings since it was opened to the West in the Seventies. It has taken the coronavirus to make most people realise that dependence on China has damaged the job market, reduced countries' abilities to respond to emergencies and it certainly hasn't democratised the nation, a promise often bleated out as justification of trading with a communist dictatorship.


If the world resumes normal relations with China when the coronavirus crisis subsides, what will it do when this happens again? How can nations afford to be gluttons for punishment?