Appeasing China

"Is it because if you do it, [find some 'guts' and stand up to China] you will make less money? You will make enemies? So your country, your companies, will get less rich."
"They [Beijing] know your game very well."
"I hope that the prime minister [Justin Trudeau] would have some guts and a sense of dignity and courage."
"The Chinese are very afraid that it [the possibility of sanctions and trade penalties] may become an infectious disease and spread around the world, and I hope it does."
"They [Chinese authorities] think you're fools."
Emily Lau, chair, foreign affairs committee, Hong Kong Democratic Party

Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Emily Lau talks to a girl during a election campaign in Hong Kong. (Vincent Yu/The Associated Press)

As a guest and featured speaker at the Halifax Security Forum held this past this weekend, Emily Lau was blunt in her assessment of Canada's failure to address a number of critical foreign relations issues. Canada's timidity in criticizing China drew her cynical tongue to lash out at a failure in foreign policy on the part of a government and its leader who espouse human rights and the democratic ideal, but have failed abysmally in a critical test of living up to its 'progressive' values.

She and other Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to emulate American lawmakers in Congress in holding Beijing to account for its human rights abuses and its actions relating to ongoing protests in the semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong. In the audience where she spoke, an assemblage of conference attendees representing defence, security and diplomatic officials along with academics were present, some strongly in favour of her scornful take of a lapse in Canadian diplomatic action, others somewhat less so.

Canadian Minister of Defence Harjit Singh Sajjan was present at the event, and it was his contention that China was not an adversary of Canada. Canada remained prepared to move toward a new trade deal with China. Expecting in the process that China would follow 'the rules'. Knowing full well that China makes the rules, with no intention of following either universal rules or those that other nations wishing to trade with China might propose. And China, given the current situation, would consider moving forward on a free trade agreement with Canada only if Canada moves toward propitiating China's bruised feelings.

That could be done to China's satisfaction with a profuse apology and the immediate release from pending extradition on a signed treaty with the United States, of Huawei Technology's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. China might then relent and release from brutal incarceration two Canadians, a businessman and a former diplomat charged with espionage, and release from death row another two Canadians held to be drug smugglers. And only then, with a compliant, apologetic Canada, might China deign to move forward on trade.

Thousands of Hong Kong demonstrators have been injured, some in serious medical condition, as a result of police deploying increasingly aggressive adversarial techniques with the intention to destroy the mass demonstrations and release Hong Kong from its paralysis. The weekend Hong Kong election that gave pro-democracy candidates in Hong Kong a majority lift is barely acknowledged by Beijing. Thousands of Hong Kong protesters have been detained, amid credible reports of beatings and torture by security officials.

Police in riot gear move through a cloud of smoke as they detain a protester at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong on Monday, Nov. 18. (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)

Ms.Lau and her colleague Figo Chan were present at the conference, representing the people of Hong Kong upon whom the John McCain Prize for Leadership in Public Service was to be presented. Figo Chan explained of Hong Kongers and their insistence on their autonomous status to be enhanced, not diminished, as is evidently the plan of the Chinese Communist Party. "It is a sleeping tiger. And it's woken up", he stated with the conviction of someone who has gone through the gruelling process of protest, been detained and beaten for his troubles.

Ms. Lau had been on the Hong Kong Legislative Council for two decades, serving as chair of the Democratic Party. Before the forum on the weekend, the U.S.Congress passed the Hong Kong Democracy and Human Rights Act close to unanimously with bi-partisan support. China would be penalized under the bill, should it undertake to limit the independent economic status of Hong Kong. Chinese officials found to be responsible for human rights violations would be sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act that both the U.S. and Canada have adopted.

Canada issued a meek diplomatic recognition wen the democratic camp scored high in the local Hong Kong elections. No congratulations; that would be too bold a step, infuriating Beijing. Rather, an anodyne declaration was issued: "Canada is pleased that the District Council elections in Hong Kong proceeded peacefully." Canada faces yet another dilemma with China; whether it should allow Huawei to build a portion of its 5G telecommunications infrastructure, with the certain knowledge that to do so would leave Canada out of the Five Eyes group of New Zealand, Britain, Australia, the U.S. -- and Canada for shared Intelligence purposes.

Beijing has warned Ottawa on more than one occasion, the latest being through its newly-accredited Chinese Ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, that China would not look kindly on Huawei not being invited to work on Canada's telecommunications upgrade in fear that the telecommunications giant, closely aligned with the Chinese government, would have the opportunity to indulge in cyber-espionage.