Opinion | The freefall of China-Canada relations
By Tom Fowdy
China's relations with Canada are in freefall, although that itself is hardly anything new. Following interference in the country's politics by US military-industrial complex funded think tank, CSIS, a Chinese diplomat has been "accused" (without due evidence) of intimidating Canadian Conservative MP Michael Chong, for previously having sponsored a motion concerning the Xinjiang region. Following a media firestorm, Canada's foreign ministry then announced on Monday night that they had expelled Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei from the country.
In addition to this, Canada has also alleged repeatedly that China is "interfering" in its elections. The explosion of McCarthyist paranoia in Ottawa has brought diplomatic relations to a standstill in a way unparalleled with the rest of the "five eyes" or Anglosphere (bar the US). In November, Xi Jinping also had a publicized confrontation with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the G20 summit, where he appeared to chastise him. This only amounts to further turbulence following the saga with Meng Wangzhou and the "two Michaels", following the arrest of the Huawei CFO in Vancouver at the behest of the United States.
The collapse of China-Canada relations has been aggravated by multiple factors. It didn't used to be this way. On the surface, it may have seemed Canada would be theoretically the most culturally amicable country to China out of all the "five eyes", this is because as a percentage of the population, it has the largest Chinese community, which constitutes 4.6%. But those who assume such do not know a lot about Canada. Although it frames itself as a benevolent and progressive country, gaining admirers around the world, the reality is that Canada is for all intents and purposes, built upon the legacy of being an extremely racist and elitist country, once which of course remains in lingering controversies over what it did to its indigenous population.
Although modern Canada has become more liberal and multicultural, this elitism remains beneath the surface and exists subtlety, as opposed to explicitly. Not only that, but the sheer realities of geography and scale in terms of power, also make Canada wholly subservient to the United States. It was in the year of 2018, when Canada-China relations were going fairly well beforehand, that the US ultimately decided to do a demolition job on its relationship with Beijing. By demanding Ottawa arrest Meng Wangzhou, they locked Canada into a diplomatic crisis with China which led to the retaliatory arrest of the two Michaels, provoking an outpouring of negative sentiment against Beijing. The stunt was orchestrated by John Bolton, and was aptly designed not only as part of the US campaign against Huawei that was emerging at that time, but of course creating geopolitical tensions which "forced" countries to take sides.
Even though that issue has long since been resolved, Canada-China ties have arguably never recovered from it, and the latest wave of negative sentiment is stemming from US-based think tanks making allegations of political interference, whipping up a climate of Sinophobia and paranoia against the country's Chinese population by claiming it seeks to influence the country against making Anti-China decisions, while ignoring, of course, the ironic elephant in the room that this is coming from Washington. The United States can effortlessly shape Canada's environment, control public discourse and therefore by extension, influence policy. There seems to be no qualms about this, because it doesn't truly fit the mantra of a "yellow peril".
It remains unclear how exactly China-Canada relations can escape from this downward trajectory, especially given the reality that the Liberal Justin Trudeau government is still likely to be less hawkish on China that the even more ardently pro-US Conservative Party of Canada ever will be, with any successor likely to be akin to a "Scott Morrisson" government in Australia who will take a much harder line. Similarly, Beijing is likely to respond to the recent events by retaliating further against Canada, and perhaps even wielding economic measures. But none of this is helpful, and only creates a more tenuous situation. Ottawa after all is a gatekeeper to CPTPP, which China is applying to join, and its reasons to approve it are minimum as it is given the existence of Washington's "poison pill" clause in the NAFTA which allows it to terminate the bloc should Canada enter into a deal with a "non-market economy" (i.e China). Thus, there is a desperate need for "cool heads" to prevail, but given the past few years, and given Canada's own position, there is little optimism at this time to assume that will happen.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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