It’s good that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is finally moving away from his government’s previous policy of appeasing China’s communist dictators.
But what took him so long?
Canada’s China Class was made rich at our expense through their treachery.
They are well connected and influential within our northern Banana Republic.
They don’t want the spigot turned off. That’s why.
A desire for business as normal with Beijing is coming up hard against the ugly reality of Xi’s swaggering authoritarianism
… Outraged by tweets from Lu Shaye, China’s “wolf warrior” ambassador in Paris, in which he described a respected French academic as a “crazed hyena” and “small-time hoodlum”, Clément Beaune, France’s Europe minister, summoned the wayward diplomat for a customary dressing-down.
Imagine his horror when Lu, ignoring protocol, said he was too busy to come. The French were aghast. “This is not how things are done,” Beaune spluttered. “Neither France nor Europe is a doormat.”
Yet this increasingly appears to be how Xi Jinping, China’s bullish president, and the Communist party view the EU. Or if not exactly a doormat, then a decidedly second-rate, fractious power bloc whose business and goodwill are dispensable.
If Meng were not held Justin would be lecturing us on the need to respect China.
Even now he refuses to say the word “genocide.”
Our political, corporate and academic classes have done well in the thrall of Beijing.
A return to business as usual with China’s tyrannical regime is the goal of the West’s China class.
China on Saturday announced sanctions on individuals and entities in Canada and the United States in response to sanctions imposed on Chinese citizens and groups over conditions in Xinjiang.
China sanctioned MP Michael Chong, who is also the Conservative Party’s foreign affairs critic. Sanctions were also placed on the House of Commons subcommittee on international human rights, which concluded in October that China’s treatment of its Uyghur population amounts to genocide.
“The individuals concerned are prohibited from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao of China, and Chinese citizens and institutions are prohibited from doing business with the relevant individuals and having exchanges with the relevant entity,” the ministry wrote.
The head of the Public Health Agency of Canada refused to explain to a House of Commons committee the specific reasons why a prominent Chinese Canadian scientist and her husband were fired by the country’s top laboratory after a police investigation.
PHAC president Iain Stewart was grilled by the Committee on Canada-China Relations on March 22 about the termination of the two biologists from their employment at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, Canada’s highest-security Level 4 laboratory, back in 2019.
PHAC president given until Friday to explain why two scientists let go
The president of the Public Health Agency of Canada has been given until the end of the week to explain why two Canadian government scientists were let go 18 months after being escorted from Canada’s only Level 4 laboratory.
Iain Stewart came under fire Monday from opposition MPs after he repeatedly refused to explain why PHAC terminated the employment of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, in January.
Stewart told the special committee on Canada-China relations that he could not provide details due to privacy issues and “security with respect to the investigation” still being conducted by the RCMP.
After Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request on Dec. 1, 2018, Beijing warned Canada of “serious consequences” if she wasn’t freed. It carried through with its threat a few days later, when it detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. After that, the regime blocked Canadian agricultural imports to China.
Ottawa has adopted stronger language of late over the arrest of the two Canadians, in contrast to its earlier, noticeably softer tone, which typically praised China for the economic benefit it presents before calling out the regime’s hostilities.
Canada’s China class is well looked after by PM Blackie McBlackface
I’d like to call myself an optimist, but maybe I’m actually a fool for believing that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government will ever change when it comes to dealing with China.
They’ve made some steps over the past week or so rallying international support to condemn the mock trials of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, but I still have lingering doubts that they’re truly going to change.
We were betrayed by Canada’s China class. It is my hope that they one day be regarded in the same light as those who collaborated with Hitler.
Closed-door hearing takes place days after trial of another Canadian, with diplomats barred from attending
The trial of a Canadian man detained for more than two years in China on espionage charges has taken place, with relations between Ottawa and Beijing in freefall.
The hearing in the case of Michael Kovrig came days after the closed-door trial of another Canadian man, with both detained in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou under a US extradition warrant.
Kovrig, a former diplomat, was detained in 2018 and formally charged last June with allegedly spying at the same time as his compatriot, the businessman Michael Spavor.
Our China class will write this off as an unfortunate incident. So long as the money flows from Beijing all is well.
Canada’s embassy in Beijing has been notified that court hearings for Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig have been scheduled for March 19 and 22 respectively, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau said in a statement on March 17.
Garneau said that Canadian officials are “seeking continued consular access” to the two Canadians and that no further information can be provided due to privacy concerns.
So far President 10% hasn’t been much help to his BFF Justin, our China class must be getting antsy.
Canadian group echoes China’s party line on Uyghurs after getting $160,000 in public funds
A Toronto-based community group that has received more than $160,000 in federal funding has again issued a statement echoing China’s official line on a contentious issue, this time condemning Parliament’s recent Uyghur-genocide motion.
A prominent Canadian advocate for the Uyghur people noted that his own group has sought for years to obtain Ottawa’s financial help, with no success.
Canada’s China class at work.
A poll by the Angus-Reid Institute of 5,004 Canadians from Feb. 26 to March 3 has found that opinions of China sit at record lows and that there can be no moving forward until two detained Canadians are released from prison.
Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were arrested by Chinese authorities on Dec. 10, 2018, shortly after the detention in Canada of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant. Here are the results from the poll.
And no one in the government knew:
Canadian officials are not aware of any new timeline for the trials of two Canadians detained in China, despite reports in China claiming Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig will soon be tried.
In an article published in the Global Times, an English-language paper that effectively functions as a mouthpiece for the Chinese government, a source “close to the matter” is cited saying that the two Canadians have “already been prosecuted.”
“Another source close to the matter told the Global Times previously that due to the COVID-19 epidemic situation, the hearings for both cases have yet to commence, and the court will push forward the trial soon,” the article reads.
But don’t take my word for it.
Blacklock’s Reporter, an Ottawa-based news site focused on government business, reports that Parks Canada will use Mandarin-language services at Bethune Memorial House in Gravenhurst, Ontario as part of a bid to “move visitors, volunteers and partners to act as proud ambassadors of Bethune’s values, achievements and humanitarian ideals” and “introduce Parks Canada to a broader audience, in particular of Chinese descent.” Noting that Bethune’s birthplace is one of Canada’s least-visited national historic sites, it hopes to have it recognized by 2027 as “a place of inspiration.” …
He remained relatively obscure in Canada until former prime minister Pierre Trudeau — who had a soft spot for strongmen like Mao and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro — visited China in 1973. The government bought the Bethune house the same year, turning it over to Parks Canada as a national historic site. Bethune has since become the sort of figure who — like James Naismith or the Mad Trapper of Rat River — gets immortalized in official Canadiana as evidence we do indeed have a fascinating past filled with interesting people.
(Sidebar: quelle surprise.)
The world is now wide awake to communist hostility — coordinated action must follow
Winston Churchill was rebuked as a warmonger when he tried to alert the United States to the immense danger of the Soviet Union with his “Iron Curtain” speech. In March 1946, the USSR was still America’s heroic ally; Stalin was the benign pipe-smoking Uncle Joe who had valiantly defeated the Germans, thereby sparing countless American boys an early death.
But this wilful ignorance was best captured in another call to arms that also celebrates its 75th anniversary this year: that of George F Kennan’s “Long Telegram” on the sources of Soviet conduct, which was received by the State Department in February 1946. Written by Kennan under the pseudonym ‘Mr X’, the Telegram was an attempt to bore through the layers of ignorance, foolish optimism and disinformation spread by local Communists and Soviet sympathisers. He hoped to mobilise his fellow foreign service officers in the State Department and their chiefs, and through them the press and then Congress, to “contain” the further spread of Stalin’s power across Europe. Kennan had to estrange the USSR in order to make his colleagues and the wider world see its threat.
Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt supposedly roasted President John F. Kennedy’s inaction on civil rights by wishing the author of the 1956 Pulitzer-prize-winning Profiles in Courage would show less profile and more courage. A crack that surely also applies to our prime minister, a fearless social justice warrior when there’s nothing to fear but a bit of a coward when the going gets tough. For instance on this Uyghur genocide business.
