What does it take to sell out your country to China, Liberals?:
In a threat environment where Chinese-language media ecosystems have been tied to intimidation, narrative control, and election
interference — and where Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai has been
imprisoned for challenging Party rule — I argue this is the wrong lesson
at the worst time: Ottawa is treating propaganda infrastructure like
normal journalism. I point to intelligence reporting that, as The Bureau
has reported, describes clandestine operations on Canadian soil,
including Chinese police paying Chinese-language journalists to track
dissidents and coercing targets not to cooperate with Canadian law
enforcement.
And that’s why I frame the judgment as
reckless: Carney widened access for a Party-state media apparatus — and
expanded information-sharing with Chinese police and the RCMP — without
publicly detailing safeguards, enforcement, or even acknowledging the
documented threat, effectively expanding the very channels through which
intimidation, manipulation, and Chinese clandestine police operations
already manifest in Canada.
This China:
The draconian 20 year imprisonment of Hong Kong dissident
and newspaper-owner Jimmy Lai, effectively a death sentence, is a reminder that
if we are going to get into bed with China we should be aware that we are
soiled by association.
That is not to say that Canada will overnight become an
authoritarian regime bent on jailing its dissidents (Freedom Convoy organizers
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber would rightly give a valid, potent and alternative
argument on this point.)
(Sidebar: oh, don't offer to hold their beer for them on this.)
But if we are going to trade with China, and Prime Minister
Mark Carney seems most insistent that we do, then we had better be conscious of
the danger of having to disregard some of our more onerous scruples — fighting
on behalf of brave rebels who are willing to speak out against the corrupt
despots of the world, for instance.
Clearly, Carney is in no hurry to start lecturing the
Chinese on their appalling human rights abuses, not with business at stake.
When he returned from his trade mission to Beijing last
month, Carney was insistent on telling Canadians that Canada “can thrive in a
new system” and that if we were ambitious we could secure enormous investment
from new partners.
“And we must be pragmatic,” he said, code for there will be
times when we need to hold our noses from the noisome behaviour of our new
partners.
Canada’s approach to China had to be “recalibrated,” he
said, it had to be narrow, specific and within guardrails as well as rooted in
“value-based realism.” Human rights had to be part of broader discussions,
preferably with coalition partners, he added.
Whatever all this meant, Carney summed it up perfectly when
he said, “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”
Four days later, Carney was preaching a different story at
Davos. In a speech widely interpreted as aimed at U.S. President Donald Trump,
the prime minister was demanding the creation of a new world order “that
encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights.”
Carney’s approach to China is thus a laissez faire, hands
off, “no megaphone” policy. However, to the U.S., once considered an
indispensable ally, Carney’s response is to shout very loudly at a world forum
for middle powers to band together against the American oppressor.
The danger in such a foreign policy should be obvious. We
have decided to implicitly trust a dangerous power that until a few months ago
was considered the greatest threat to our democracy and way of life, while
abandoning an ally because the current president cannot control his mouth or
his temper. …
China’s treatment of Jimmy Lai is a testament to its cruelty
and its treatment of human rights.
Three judges, handpicked by Beijing, sentenced Lai, a
pro-democracy advocate who has been outspoken against Chinese oppression, to 20
years in prison on Monday.
The court in Hong Kong, once a thriving colony under British
rule but now living under the repressive regime of China, found him guilty
under a controversial “national security law” aimed at curbing protests.
Lai, 78, founded the Apple Daily newspaper which was a
constant thorn in Beijing’s side with its repeated calls for free speech and
the rule of law to be respected in Hong Kong.
The government of Canada also notes that “human rights
violations committed in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are well-documented and continue to raise
significant concerns” citing action against Uyghurs,
Muslims, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners.
(Sidebar: Canada no longer has any moral or political standing in the world and, outside of its borders, no one cares what we think. Thanks, Liberals and their voters.)
And it was less than a year ago that Carney, when asked for
the biggest threat facing Canada, replied with one word: China.
So how does Canada respond to something like the jailing of
Jimmy Lai now that we have a new pragmatic relationship with China?
On X, Anita Anand, the foreign affairs minister, said she
was “disappointed” with the sentencing and called for his release.
Disappointed? It’s disappointing when your elderly mother
can’t meet you for lunch, but it’s an absolute tragedy when an elderly man is
imprisoned for believing in democracy.
Consider that in December, a month before Carney’s love-in
with China, Anand wrote about Lai’s trial saying, “Canada condemns the
politically motivated prosecution of Jimmy Lai under the National Security Law
in Hong Kong and calls for his immediate release. We continue to express our
concerns about deteriorating rights, freedoms and autonomy which are enshrined
in Hong Kong’s Basic Law.”
If we must trade with China, we should be under no illusions
that there will be a cost — not just abandoning the megaphone but abandoning
people such as Jimmy Lai.
In less than two months we have gone from strongly
condemning his trial to merely being disappointed at his two decade sentence.
At Davos, Carney said Canada was not “powerless” — “The
power of the less powerful starts with honesty.”
Fine, let’s start with honesty: What values is the prime
minister willing to sacrifice as part of his devil’s bargain with China?
