Trading with China didn't democratise it, it did not add a valuable player to the free market, it did not empower the working classes and it did not restore the sovereignty of annexed nations.
It did allow China to become the octopus it is now:
Huawei Canada’s vice-president of government relations repeatedly would not condemn the arbitrary detention by China of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, despite specifically and repeatedly insisting the company’s CFO Meng Wanzhou has “done nothing wrong.”
In an interview with The West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson, Huawei Canada’s Morgan Elliott made unclear and at times contradictory statements about the company’s activities, and dodged several requests for him to state clearly whether the company condemns the detention of the two Michaels.
He also did not offer any clarification when told his responses suggest the company views as morally equivalent the arbitrary detentions of the two Canadians, who have been held in Chinese prisons for more than two years, and the arrest of Meng under a longstanding extradition treaty with the U.S.
Note the complete indifference of China's North American lackeys (and there are plenty of them) to the plight of his countrymen.
Money, it seems, can buy that kind of apathy.
By the way, Mr. Elliott is a director of the Canada China Business Council, as are many prominent and wealthy Canadians who support the Liberal Party.
Two Canadian nationals are a pittance when using China to become wealthy.
Also - enough with the pantomime:
Canada has not led a major diplomatic initiative on the international stage since the landmine ban treaty in the late 1990s.
But on Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau is scheduled to host the unveiling of the Declaration of Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations, an agreement endorsed by 58 states and the European Union aimed at ending what Garneau called the “unacceptable practice” of nations detaining foreign nationals for diplomatic gain. The virtual announcement will include statements by British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
So nothing can officially be done.
They were allowed to get away with it:
“Two Canadian government scientists escorted from the National Microbiology Laboratory amidst an RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] investigation and internal review have been let go from the Public Health Agency of Canada,” Karen Pauls of the CBC reported on February 6. Canada’s health agency gave no explanation for the dismissal of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, a virologist from Tianjin, China, and her husband, Keding Cheng.
As Pauls explains, in 2017-18 Qiu made at least five trips to China, including one to train scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, “which does research with the most deadly pathogens.” According to Canadian government officials, Qiu was acting in response to the WIV’s request for virus samples.
In July, 2019, Cheng, Qiu and her students from China were removed from the National Microbiology Lab (NML), Canada’s only Level 4 lab, over a possible “policy breach” and administrative matter.
As Pauls reported that month, the ouster of Cheng and Qiu came “several months after IT specialists for the NML entered Qiu’s office after-hours and replaced her computer.” Qiu also started to deny her regular trips to China. The “policy breach” remained unexplained and officials said it posed no danger to the public. That month, Brian Owens of Science magazine cited speculation that “the case involves concerns about the improper transfer of intellectual property to China.”
According to Pauls, the viruses Qiu exported to Wuhan included: Ebola Makona (three different varieties), Mayinga, Kikwit, Ivory Coast, Bundibugyo, Sudan Boniface, Sudan Gulu, MA-Ebov, GP-Ebov, GP-Sudan, Hendra, Nipah Malaysia, and Nipah Bangladesh.
(Sidebar: the Nipah virus has a fifty to seventy-five percent risk of death. No pressure.)
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