We Don't Have to Trade With China

No morally defensible reason to:

The whereabouts of two scientists at the centre of a parliamentary showdown over alleged national-security breaches at a high-security laboratory remain unknown, as Ottawa’s explanation for their firing has shifted.

Xiangguo Qiu, a former head of a key program at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, and her husband, Keding Cheng, have not publicly commented on why they were fired. Nor have they responded to questions from The Globe and Mail about whether their dismissal was related to the transfer of highly infectious viruses to China’s Wuhan Virology Institute.

The Globe has found that the scientists are no longer living in Winnipeg, and it is unclear if they are still in Canada. The RCMP would not say if they know where the couple are located.

Well done, national police force!

You deserve your pensions!

But it wouldn't be fair to put all the blame on the RCMP. The government helped, too.

This government:

“Many of us have been subject to anti-Asian racism and for the prime minister to accuse us of driving anti-Asian racism is very upsetting.”

Chong wasn’t asking the questions that saw Trudeau invoke the phrase “anti-Asian racism” three times on Wednesday but he was taking part in question period that day. He has also asked the very same kind of questions that led to the accusation.

Those questions include how and why the government allowed Chinese scientists with strong links to the People’s Liberation Army of China full access to Canada’s National Microbiology Lab, a facility most Canadian researchers cannot access. The Conservatives have been asking about this for some time, and Trudeau’s response is to accuse the Conservatives of racism.

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Speaking with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Justin Trudeau twice referred to Japan as ‘China.’

First he talked about celebrating “Canada-China” relations.

Then, at the beginning of another press conference with Abe, Trudeau again brought up “the tremendous friendship that we celebrate today and everyday between Canada and China.”

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Are there shoes for this?:

The medical histories of the dead children of the Shanghai Children’s Welfare Institute, China’s showcase orphanage, read like macabre experiments in human starvation:

Ke Yue, a girl, was admitted to the orphanage in November 1989, the month of her birth. Two and a half years later, on 9 June 1992, orphanage doctors recorded that she had developed “third-degree malnutrition,” was “breathing in shallow gasps.” On 10 June, she was admitted to the Medical Ward, where she died later the same day. Two separate causes of death were diagnosed by her physician, Wu Junfeng: “severe malnutrition” and “congenital maldevelopment of brain.”

Huo Qiu, a girl born in approximately February 1988, arrived at the orphanage on 3 January 1991, at the age of three. One and a half years later, on 16 June 1992, she was diagnosed as suffering from “severe malnutrition” and “cerebral palsy.” A week later, she was dead, According to her medical records, she died of the two illnesses just mentioned, together with, for good measure, “mental deficiency.”

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With some of the world's most important trade routes running through it, the Indian Ocean's value is hard to understate, which China has already recognized.

"Given its importance for China, it's pretty obvious the Chinese are elevating in priority the security needs for the maritime silk road," Heath said. "That means India has to be ready for possible situations involving China."

But Indian dominance in its home waters is far from assured. While India's navy has some advanced capabilities, China's People's Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, is substantially larger and more sophisticated.

With the rivalry entering a new phase, India is trying to catch up.

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Almost all the workers had been deceptively recruited with promises of certain wages and legal work visas. Instead, their passports were confiscated right after they disembarked the plane, leaving them unable to leave unless they paid a heavy fine to the Chinese employer.... They were locked up in poor living and working conditions on the work premises, which were guarded by security guards.... They suffered excessive work hours of up to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week with no holiday allowance... Many workers were injured during work with no access to medical treatment.... After a worker from a Chinese mining company in Indonesia was diagnosed positive for Covid-19 in November 2020, he was put in isolation in an empty dormitory room for more than 20 days without any medical treatment. Later other workers found his dead body.