A rchive Date
[ 16-10-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Gleeson_John/2005/10/13/1259859.html
A Canadian tale of two Chinas
By JOHN GLEESON
Thu, October 13, 2005
The People's Republic of China is a country where you can be imprisoned indefinitely, brainwashed, raped and maybe tortured to death, essentially for doing the wrong kind of yoga.
It's also Canada's No. 2 trading partner - and coming on strong.
China provides us with a fine example of what utter hypocrites we, Canadians, are when it comes to not practising what we preach in world affairs. And how the word "rights" when uttered by one of our national leaders, might as well be "wrongs" for all the difference it makes.
But I don't have to tell you this. Our federal government makes the case quite eloquently on its own.
Two days ago in Ottawa, lawyers for Citizenship and Immigration Canada argued that a Chinese defector should not be granted asylum in Canada because, as a senior official in China's prison system, he was a willing accomplice in "crimes against humanity."
Guangsheng Han defected during a visit to Toronto in September 2001, applied for refugee status the following year and was denied this April when he went up before the Immigration and Refugee Board. He now faces deportation and expects he will be executed as a traitor if he's returned to China.
Han, 52, was appealing the decision this week in federal court, arguing he was never even asked during the refugee board hearing about specific crimes in which he was supposed to have been involved.
The feds countered that he was guilty by virtue of his 20-year involvement in a system linked to "widespread and systematic human-rights abuses."
That, then, is our government's position on Communist China. China's penal system routinely engages in acts - beating, torture, starvation and the like - which not only violate Canada's code of human rights but actually qualify as crimes against humanity.
Canada therefore was not condemning Han per se, who actually compares himself to Oskar Schindler and says he tried to lessen the mistreatment of Falun Gong followers held in his camps, but the state system Han worked under.
The dictator responsible for that system is President Hu Jintao. Communist Chinese leaders are always claiming great leaps forward on human rights, and Hu is no different, but the facts contradict him. Since becoming president two years ago, Hu has renewed the crackdown on political dissent and free speech and heightened international tensions over the status of Taiwan. His attitude toward Tibet, which China occupies and colonizes with a less valid claim than Iraq had over Kuwait, is characteristically thuggish.
Hu was given the red-carpet treatment during his first state visit to Canada last month, complete with a lavish dinners hosted by Martin and outgoing Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson.
When reporters started peppering Hu with questions about human rights and Tibet during a press conference, Martin looked positively peeved, rolling his eyes before closing them and sighing. It was about as solid a performance as we've seen from Martin since he became prime minister.
Martin, like his predecessors (Pierre Trudeau normalized relations with the Communist giant 35 years ago today), has paid lip service to human rights reform in China, but his focus is clearly, strictly and emphatically on trade.
In 2000, trade volume between China and Canada jumped from the previous year by almost 45% to nearly $7 billion US. By last year, two-way trade had grown to $15.5 billion, and that number is expected to double before 2010.
Former prime minister Jean Chretien was certainly proud of the huge gains in business with China during his terms of office, bragging in 2003 that "relations between China and Canada are very good."
When Martin addressed the Canada-China Business Council in Beijing last January, his tone was even more ingratiating; he ended his speech quoting from a poem written by a Communist official about Chinese-Canadian relations. It was called We Are Essentially One.
And, of course, this week, while federal lawyers were making their highly principled stand against China's "crimes against humanity," Natural Resources Minister John McCallum was boarding a government Challenger to fly to Beijing for high-level talks about increasing Canada's energy exports to China. In doing so, he was making good on Martin's veiled threats last week in New York that U.S. access to Canada's energy could be jeopardized by the American position on softwood lumber.
"Now is a good time to go to China," McCallum crowed.
That's our government. I don't know about you but I think now is a terrible time to go to China. Or even, for that matter, to wear clothes or eat off dishes produced under a system that, according to our own government, is guilty of "widespread and systematic human rights abuses."
Unless our words mean nothing at all.
Unless we, like our leaders, mean nothing at all.
John Gleeson is the editor of the Winnipeg Sun. He can be reached by e-mail at: jgleeson@wpgsun.com
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@wpgsun.com.
Copyright © 2005, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved
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