Bald-Faced Cynical Hypocrisy : Canada's Unrequited Love Affair With China

"Our impression is that DND/CAF [Department of National Defense/Canadian Armed Forces] reluctance to engage with the PLA [People's Liberation Army of China] is not solely related to Ms. Meng's arrest and the consular cases -- that there are other reasons for their interest in disengaging."

"From our perspective it is also perhaps to be related to a desire to be fully aligned with the FEYs [Five Eyes Intelligence group: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada] particularly the U.S."

Documents released through Freedom of Information request by Rebel Media

 

"Given the heightened scrutiny, any decision by Canada to reduce/cut ties should be carefully considered to avoid sending any unhelpful or unintended messages."

"Should Canada make any significant reductions in its military engagement with China, China will likely read this as a retaliatory move related to the Meng Wanzhou case."

"While resolving the consular cases [arbitrarily arrested and espionage-charged Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig] is the Government of Canada's top priority a certain amount of continuity in other parts of the Canada-China relationship remains important."

Canada's Foreign Affairs memo-alert to Ian Shugart, deputy-minister for foreign affairs

 

"Over the past two years, two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been detained arbitrarily by China and Canada has done absolutely everything necessary to try and get them home safe."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Chinese soldiers take part in a winter training session in Heihe, northeast China's Heilongjiang province, on Jan. 28, 2015. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Rebel Media was handed a surprise when unredacted documents they had requested through an Access to Information request fell into their hands by an obliging individual at Canada's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That incriminating passages making it obvious that Canada was indeed doing nothing whatever to convey its deep diplomatic displeasure -- outrage -- at China's tit-for-tat arrest of two Canadians who happened to be vulnerably available in Beijing, when Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant, was a godsend to the rabble-rousing alternate, frequently embarrassing news source.

Which then proceeded to publish and circulate as widely as possible, evidence that the top movers-and-shakers at Foreign Affairs were fully invested in the Prime Minister's Office's go-easy-on-China policy. their depersonalization of the two Michaels -- who have languished for fully two years on trumped-up charges in a Chinese prison, access to consular aid, to legal assistance denied -- were casually referred to as 'consular cases'; mere irritants in the relationship between Canada and China, spoke volumes.

Official diplomacy on Canada's part is to tippy-toe around any issues that might cause Beijing heartburn, making it more than evident that official Canada has never been invested in securing the two Canadians' freedom, nor advocating for reasonable trials and sentences for three Canadian citizens placed on death row in China for drug smuggling, after Meng's arrest and bail arrangements enabling her to live in comfort in her two Vancouver mansions while awaiting extradition hearings to proceed.

 

Meng Wanzhou leaves the Supreme Court of British Columbia with her husband, Liu Xiaozong, during a break from a hearing in Vancouver on Thursday. Photo: AP

The issue that begat these top secret memoranda that fell into The Rebel's (and editor Ezra Levant's) hands was the decision by Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, to cancel a scheduled winter exercise with China's People's Liberation Army, planned for 2019 (after the two Michaels had been in a Chinese prison for months, after China had punished Canada by turning back on its imports of Canadian canola, soy and meat products, and threatening consequences if the decision was made to disallow Huawei to take part in Canada's 5G upgrades).

 

General Vance cancelled the exercises scheduled to take place at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ontario. The winter warfare training exercise was meant to expose a small elite military delegation of PLA officials to Canadian expertise in cold weatheer combat. It was obviously inconsequential to those Canadian authorities involved in arranging this friendly teaching environment that this would be useful for China in its aggression against India in the Himalaya over disputed borders, or to quash any possible rebellion in the Tibetan highlands.

 

Secret documents have revealed that Prime Minister Trudeau invited the PLA to take part in joint military exercises, but General Vance nixed it over pressure from the Pentagon. Credit: Canadian Forces.

 

Nor, given Beijing's interests in the Arctic, as far from its shores as can possibly be imagined, but a potential source of expedited shipping to further its Belt and Road initiative as well as the imagined promise of a source of underwater natural resources from gas and oil to minerals, that this type of cold weather military expertise could one day aid the Chinese People's Liberation Army in a military skirmish against the Canadian military.

This type of "knowledge transfer" is precisely the type of activity that the Five Eyes Intelligence group is alarmed by, that one among them ostensibly dedicated to upholding Western democracy and the international rule of law against the military, industrial ascendance of the Chinese colossus that has been aggressively threatening its neighbours, is concerned with. Canada remains the sole member of the Five Eyes that has failed to rule Huawei, known for its espionage activities on behalf of Beijing, out of its 5G plans. A vast, international, interrelated communications system that will not tolerate a subverted link.

At a conference of the Five Eyes Intelligence gathering countries, concerns over the winter exercises to take place in Canada with Chinese military invitees were raised as a troubling issue. Which led General Vance to the conclusion that relations between Canada and its intelligence-sharing partners were far more vital to Canada's interests than exposing Canada to military surveillance by skilled Chinese military spies, leading to the cancellation. A decision viewed by Foreign Affairs, which advises the PMO, as a diplomatic insult to China, Canada's great good friend.

 

A member of the Arctic Response Company Group stands guard near Crystal City during Exercise GUERRIER NORDIQUE in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Credit: Canadian Forces photo.

"What was Canada doing sending 171 Canadian soldiers to China to participate in a military sports competition last week?"

"It was nearly one year ago that Beijing kidnapped two Canadian citizens. It still holds them hostage as leverage in its dispute with Ottawa over the detention of a Huawei executive who awaits a hearing to decide if she should be extradited to the U.S. to face criminal charges there."

"Was the trip to China a colossal error of judgment by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces? Or were DND and the CAF acting on orders from Global Affairs Canada and/or the prime minister’s inner circle?"

"Although the Government of Canada website warns Canadians travelling to China to “exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” it has said almost nothing about why it ignored its own advice and chose to send an airplane full of Canadians to such a risky place. It only acknowledged that the trip, which it apparently wanted to keep secret, had actually taken place after it was revealed by the Globe and Mail’s ace reporting team of Steve Chase and Bob Fife."

Matthew Fisher, Global News, November 3, 2019

Michael Kovrig (left) and Michael Spavor (right) are seen in this composite image.