The Canadian Mandate for Relations with Beijing

 

Dominic Barton,  (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

"[I was given a mandate that included an overall objective of restoring relations between Canada and China, one caveat and three key priorities]. First and foremost, secure the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor and get clemency for Robert Schellenberg. That is core. That's a priority. Second, promote and protect human rights."

"[The third priority is to deepen person-to-person relationships between Chinese and Canadian people at all levels, including government, the arts, business and universities, and caveat is that those efforts must be made in keeping with] international rules and principles that provide predictability and security."

"We're angry. We're very angry because of our people that had been taken. China is very angry as well, furious. We're both furious."  

"The first conversation I had there was probably one of the most unpleasant conversations I've ever had. I mean, the shaking and anger from there, and we were also … It wasn't a conversation." 

"We're never going to be singing from the same hymn book. We did not have any formal communications, it was a lot of informal, we now have very good formal relations. We have real discussions where we can argue and debate."

"We're saying you need to be careful on the Chinese side because we are a high quality, safe food supplier."

"From a financial point of view, I think it was [former Liberal deputy prime minister] John Manley who said, 'This is the stupidest economic decision I could ever make in my life'. [His history of business dealings with China and the suggestions by Democracy Watch and others that those dealings put him in a conflict of interest]. I did it for public service. I want to help. I feel I can help the country."

Canadian Ambassador to China, Dominic Barton  ...
House of Commons committee on Canada-China relations

 

"The military and diplomats were at odds over the People's Liberation Army training program [and diplomats were concerned the decision to cancel the exercise] might aggravate Beijing."

CBC report

 

"Unfortunately, Canada is no stranger to the complex influence game McKinsey plays with China."

"Before becoming Canada's ambassador to China, Dominic Barton went from serving on the advisory board of the China Development Bank to running McKinsey's global operations."

Senator Marco Rubio, chair, Senate intelligence committee, United States 

The Government of Justin Trudeau is as Liberal as it's possible to be. He, and his government are following in the footsteps of Canada's previous Liberal government headed by then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien who, while prime minister primed relations between himself personally and China's business establishment, using his public service office as a springboard to groom personal relations with influential Chinese government officials and business elite. Mr. Chretien led large trade missions to China influencing his future as a private citizen joining a prestigious law firm and using his contacts to enlarge business contacts with China. 

 

It was, after all, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Justin's father who as Liberal prime minister in the '70s opened relations with China to begin with. It was likely an influence on son Justin who has spoken admiringly of China's 'basic dictatorship' that can turn on a dime. Well yes, dictatorships specialize in such manner. When Dominic Barton was selected last year as Canadian ambassador to China, that choice had a clear agenda for the Liberals; to mend broken fences at any cost, for much depended on it. That 'much' would be enhanced trade opportunities and investment, not strengthening Canada's sovereignty by any means.

 

Hostages Spavor and Kovrig, Xi, Trudeau

This, of course, was in the wake of Canada having arrested Huawei Communications' CFO on an extradition warrant by the U.S. Which launched a dire situation of hostage diplomacy in direct reaction by Beijing, furious at the detention of Meng Wanzhou. And nor did the arbitrary arrests of Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig on espionage charges end Beijing's lash-back; three other Canadians were sentenced to death on charges of drug smuggling, and agricultural product shipments to China from Canada were halted.

 

Canada has paid dearly for spiking Beijing's regard for a docile, biddable country that raised no protest over Chinese-Canadian citizens being harassed in Canada and threatened over their support for Hong Kong democracy, nor the infiltration by Chinese espionage agents into every sphere of Canadian life from politics to academia, along with the stealth action of cybertheft and purloining Canadian industrial and scientific formulae. Yet despite all of this, Canada felt it appropriate to invite members of the People's Liberation Army to Canada to be trained in winter warfare. And the more recent revelation that Chinese pilots are training on Canadian aircraft at a closed air force base in Ontario.

It was the head of the Canadian military, General Jonathan Vance who decided to disinvite Chinese troops for cold-weather military training in Ontario. His concern revolved around national security. Much to the displeasure of the Canadian diplomatic corps whose memoranda back and forth to the prime minister's office revealed concerns related to offending Beijing. 

China has and continues to punish Canada for its 'abuse' of international law, as China claims, even while in fact, in detaining Meng the rule of law was upheld through an extradition treaty between Canada and the United States, and due judicial process is ongoing, with Ms.Meng permitted to live in her two Vancouver mansions on bail while awaiting extradition, whereas the Canadian prisoners in China languish in solitary confinement, under harsh duress and constant interrogation, without access to lawyers and limited interventions by Canadian consular staff.

In the House of Commons on November 18, the opposition Conservatives tabled a motion for the Trudeau government to decide finally whether to ban Huawei from Canada's 5G upgrade as other members of the Five Eyes intelligence group (United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Canada) have long since done. They also demanded that the government institute measures to halt China's agents from their intimidation of Canadians both in Canada and in Hong Kong.

Ambassador Barton's assertion that Beijing would be cognizant of the quality and abundance of food crops from Canada and be compelled to reverse its ruinous contract breaches costing Canadian farmers billions of dollars in lost revenues, is out-of-this-world ridiculous; those crops are fungible; Beijing can access them elsewhere in the world, in particular from another nation it is busily harassing, Australia. In the United States a warning was issued to western governments that business with McKinsey is fraught with danger because of its alignment with the Chinese Communist Party ruling elite.

The Liberals ignored Conservative queries regarding the need to have Barton disclose his Chinese client lists in 2019 on his appointment as ambassador to China. Citing McKinsey client confidentiality, the demand was evaded although Barton had to place his investments into a blind trust. That McKinsey conducts business with 22 of China's 100 largest state-owned enterprises was revealed by the New York Times. McKinsey has aided in raising the stature of the CCP regime. As a frontman for the Liberal government and the China-boosters in Canada, Barton was the perfect candidate.

And his supporters are people of huge influence, including former prime minister Jean Chretien, the Desmarais family, Power Corporation (into which Mr. Chretien's daughter married) and the Canada China Business Council chaired by Chretien grandson Olivier Demarais. The connections read like a Liberal-Quebec who's who of business elites because that's what it all is, hungry for business with China at any cost, that cost a sell-out of Canada in exchange for trade and business and investment with China.

Human rights abuses are of no concern to this crowd, their focus is entirely on business and profit. "The weight of the world is shifting and has shifted toward Asia, so we need to do more in China", Ambassador Barton recently stated in a speech he delivered at the China Institute at the University of Alberta, urging government emphasize more robust business with China.

 

Bad Faith China Syndrome

"It's likely that the shipment is being delayed as part of China's retaliation against Canada over the Meng [Wanzhou/Huawei Technology] arrest."

"But it could also be due to the kind of sudden, unexplained delay that routinely happens when you're dealing with China's opaque and often uncooperative customs authorities."

"Either way, it raises the question of why the National Research Council thought it was a good idea to work with a Chinese partner on such a sensitive project."

David Mulroney, Canadian ambassador to China, 2009--2012

"We are continuing to wait for the vaccine."

"All we know is that it's awaiting customs clearance by the Chinese government for export. We have not been able to obtain any projected time lines."

"Nothing much else I can say, other than we can start the trial as soon as we receive the vaccine."

Scott Halperin, head, planned Phase-1 trial, Canadian Center for Vaccinology, Dalhousie University

Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics’ sign is pictured on its building in Tianjin, China, Nov. 20, 2018. Stringer/Reuters/File

CanSino's Ad5-nCoV vaccine is the first of many vaccines to have published the results of its initial stage 1 tests. Which led to the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet publishing the first set of data about the efficacy of CanSino’s vaccine in humans. A coup for CanSino, and a hope that an efficacious and safe vaccine would shortly be available. If successful, however, it would be one among many. The initial findings indicated Ad5-nCoV induced binding antibodies in most people given the vaccine within 28 days.

Of the larger number of study subjects exposed to the vaccine, one-hundred-and-eight healthy volunteers responded to the vaccine in a way that was read as "safe and well-tolerated", though some of the subjects experienced troubling side-effects. Ad5-nCoV was also approved by China’s military for use by its soldiers for one year. The Chinese military’s medical research unit was also known to have played a role in the development of Ad5-nCoV.

Which leaves open to question why the National Research Council, Canada's premiere medical research group, would choose to make itself available in an agreement with a Chinese biomedical corporation with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military. CanSino's founder has a Canadian connection, having studied and worked in Canada on biomedical research. But Canada's experience with China, in particular the most recent events have been so fraught with enmity it becomes a puzzle that the government -- not the NRC -- agreed that this critical file would be attached to China's whims.

China has already demonstrated aptly its disregard for international norms when it arbitrarily took under arrest two Canadian businessmen on trumped-up charges of espionage to use them as leverage to force Canada to release Huawei's chief operating officer held on an extradition warrant issued by the United States. Further pressure was applied when a Canadian charged with drug smuggling was suddenly given a death penalty for his crimes. And previous trade agreements for the import of Canadian canola, pork and other comestibles were suddenly cancelled.

The very issue of China's miserable human rights record has never given pause to the Liberal government in its ambition to strike an advantageous trade agreement with Beijing. That ambition of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's was aborted when conditions were placed on any trade agreement that Canada would sign with any international trade group; insisting on inclusion of respect and equality for women and unions and minorities. China doesn't appreciate being lectured or dictated to.

China is known as a country whose government has never been averse to hijacking other countries' trade and military secrets through cybersecurity infractions. And its past performance infiltrating Canada's world-renowned Nortel Networks, purloining secret data which eventually helped lead to Nortel's downfall followed by former Chinese Nortel employees helping to found Huawei should have been an object lesson in the benefits to be had by maintaining a wide distance between Ottawa and Beijing. A lesson Prime Minister Trudeau flung aside.

According to the agreement signed between CanSino and the NRC in mid-May, the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University was to have begun a small Phase 1 safety trial with the vaccine, with the possibility of Phase 2 and 3 trials to follow. On regulator approval, the vaccine could be manufactured at a facility in Montreal owned by the NRC to ensure that Canada was "among the first in the world to have access to a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19", according to the National Research Council.

It is now known that CanSino conducted talks with Russia, Brazil, Chile and Saudi Arabia to conduct Phase 3 trials. And it just signed an agreement with Egypt to test and produce the vaccine once it could be determined that the vaccine does protect people against infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19.  "It might also be that China would prefer to ensure that any vaccine is developed in China first and not shared with a foreign country, especially Canada", suggested Guy Saint-Jacques another former Canadian ambassador to China.

Alternately, he said, the situation "could well be part of the Chinese arsenal" in the dispute over Meng's arrest. As for the CanSino vaccine candidate, it makes use of a harmless virus as a system of delivery where the "adenovirus" is modified to express part of the SARS-CoV-2 germ causing COVID, which should trigger the immune system to fight the coronavirus. Dampened immune response occurred in some people, theoretically attributed to the thought they were exposed previously to the adenovirus backbone in the vaccine and resulting antibodies repelled the vaccine.

A technician works at a manufacturing facility of Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics in Tianjin,China.    Reuters

Beijing's COVID Bulldozing of Global Populations and Economies in Total Innocence

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney  (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

"I think the Chinese government played a significant role in the devastating public health and economic damage that is being experienced by the entire world."
"And I do not think we should just forget this and walk past it. There must be some kind of a reckoning, there must be some accountability." Western countries, including Canada and the United States, must have a reset in their relationship with China — and part of that reset, in my judgment, must be a deliberate effort to onshore production, particularly on critical supplies."                                                                    Alberta Premier Jason Kenney

"[There is a] large body of facts and data [ to prove that Beijing did not obfuscate the damaging effects of the novel coronavirus]."
"If Mr. Premier did not deliberately turn his head away, these facts and evidence are presenting themselves crystal clearly before his eyes. If there is a comparison between what he has done during the outbreak with what Wuhan has, he will not look smarter."
"However, we disdain to bring the details up, because attacking Mr. Premier was never one of our goals."
"You are based in Edmonton not in Ottawa. [Many Americans -- friendly or not to Trump -- have] profitable and unshakable business with China."
Chinese consulate, Calgary

"[The United States should form a partnership to sue China for damages caused by the pandemic]."
"This will allow us to share information and resources and ensure that any remedy sought takes into consideration our legal capabilities and the devastating impact the virus has had on our States."
Letter to Washington from 14 Republican attorneys general

Handmade face masks / MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP via Getty Images

Premier Jason Kenney took the unusual and justified step of speaking before a virtual roundtable hosted by the Washington-based Canadian American Business Council, to voice his outrage over Beijing's failure to properly alert the world community of a viral outbreak in Wuhan. Where the Chinese Communist Party chose instead to silence, threaten and arrest, then force to recant Chinese physicians trying to warn their colleagues and the outside world of the worrying appearance of a strange pneumonia causing respiratory failure and death in a growing number of patients.

Beijing chose to give incorrect and alert-damaging information to the World Health Organization, whose purpose is to warn the international community of the emergence of any new health threats certain to cause pandemics. A failure to advise that resulted in the WHO giving credence to China on the global pandemic status of SARS-CoV-2 which emerged in Wuhan, overwhelming its health-care system, in a frightening emergency that went on to replicate a similar exploding disease and death-count worldwide.

Canada's federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has chosen to downplay Beijing's role in failing to warn the world community which resulted in close to five million infections globally and approximately one-third of a million deaths due to COVID-19. China's abysmal level of transparency is entirely responsible for the prolifterating number of cases besetting an unready world community. One that is adamant that China must be held accountable for its dire failing.

The state of Missouri has taken steps to sue China for compensation, filing a 47-page lawsuit with its attorney general Eric Schmitt stating China had clamped down on information regarding the virus, including the arrest of whistleblowers, playing down the contagiousness of the virus. COVID-19 has killed over 85,000 Americans. And there are many more seriously considering bringing lawsuits against China. Beijing sneered at Australia for its temerity in casting blame for the severity of the epidemic, by telling Australia it is nothing but the gum on China's shoe.

Cases overview

Canada

Confirmed 78,072 +1,232

Recovered 39,228

Deaths 5,842 +105

Worldwide

Confirmed 4.79M +100K

Recovered 1.78M

Deaths 318K +5,340

Australia, the U.S. and all 27 nations comprising the European Union are adamantly demanding an independent investigation as well, in the awareness of the complicity of the World Health Organization in aiding China's suppression of vital COVID information. Canada has pointedly failed to join its Western partners in their determination to see that an independent investigation takes place both of  China's actions and that of the WHO.

"Ottawa can't seem to shake the tendency to flatter ... The facts argue that China was delinquent, that it was not transparent enough. That is not a conspiracy theory", pointed out a former Canadian ambassador to China, David Mulroney. The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau seems determined to bow down to China. Canada's position vis-a-vis China's world bullying is that of a unctuous lickspittle. A situation that serves China well, and has earned Canada the compliment of being described as 'calm' in the greater disorder of a sea of complaints against China.

That Chinese diplomats worldwide are increasingly arrogant and insulting toward the countries they have been dispatched to, blatantly and insultingly representing China's interests is intolerable. An appointed diplomat deploying verbal contempt aimed at an elected Canadian politician at the executive-governing level is unheard of and disgraceful. Such lack of diplomatic restraint and vituperation should qualify these diplomats for a swift exit from their international posts.

A medical staffer writes a note to communicate with a patient he is tending to, in the ICU of the Bassini Hospital, in Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan, Italy, Tuesday, April 14, 2020. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)