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I
have been scribbling for a living ever since 1945 --- 74 years ago --- and I
can never remember ever having written a laudatory article about a
multinational corporation, or in fact, about any corporation. So I think I can
absolve myself from any suspicion that sympathy with Huawei caused me, soon after
Ms. Meng’s arrest, to throw doubt on the wisdom of the arrest. I remember one
of the endless former diplomats who are always being quoted, offering the
opinion that, since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knew about the arrest before it
was undertaken, there was absolutely no need for Canada to go through with it. In other words,
it could and should have been avoided, if Trudeau had had the experience to
navigate around it.
This
weekend an article in the Globe and Mail
by Yves Tiberghien, professor of
political science at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of
British Columbia, suggested it is time for Canada to de-escalate the quarrel
with China by, first, sending a high level political team
to China to offer “a
complete and honest recognition of how exceptional the Meng extradition request
was, as well as a clear willingness to listen to China’s grievances,” and
secondly, to wrap up the Meng affair either through U.S.-China negotiations, or
through Canadian legal or ministerial processes.
This article drew a huge number
of responses from Globe and Mail
readers, both for and against the author’s arguments. The anti-Chinese group,
citing that nation’s failure to apply the rule of law, in some cases suggested
Canada should cease to trade with China; whereas another group made what sounded
to me like cogent arguments in favour of taking our courage in both hands and
bowing the knee as a diplomatic way out of the dilemma that has been causing
such pain to our farmers, as well as to those Canadians being kept in harsh
conditions in Chinese prisons, obviously being held as hostages against the
release of Ms Meng.
Though I have no brief for
Huawei, I do sympathize with Ms. Meng, arrested while in transit through
Vancouver, and held in what amounts of house arrest until the extradition
proceedings are over, which many commentators surmise could take years.
The anti group of readers kept
mentioning Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler in 1938 as a parallel
for what the other side calls a sensible de-escalation. That seems to me a
far-fetched analogy. Hitler was threatening to plunge the world into chaos; China
is making no such threats, nor does it seem to have any serious negative
expansionist intentions, even though it is extending its influence everywhere.
Professor Tiberghien argues:
“A brawl
is not a path to victory for Canada. This is a chess game with a sophisticated
opponent. The current Chinese system is the result of the country’s traumatic
pathway to modernity that involved colonization, 50 years of war and invasion,
and gradual reform after the death of its mercurial postwar leader. The general
trajectory since 1980 has been one of great progress, even if there’s still a
long way to go toward a regime that fully respects human rights and the rule of
law.”
That
comes close to the argument I made two days ago, that China deserves respect
for the tremendous effort it has been making to lift the poorest nation on
earth, living on some of the most degraded agricultural land anywhere, out of
the grinding poverty which has been their lot for so many decades and
generations. One would think from these
China-bashers that we deal only with nations that are impeccably pure in their
politics and their respect for individual rights. Like, for example, Saudi Arabia,
where real freedom appears to be unknown; Egypt, or any of the Middle East
satrapies whose friendship is the basis for United States policy (with Canada
following loyally behind) in that region.
One
of my arguments when this case was first raised was that the Canadian
government position, that this is a question of “rule of law” with which
politicians cannot interfere, is not in accordance with the facts, since only the
Minister of Justice/Attorney-general can extradite a person from Canada to
another country. If the decision is his,
or hers, whoever may occupy that office --- the decision to make the arrest
must have gone through Jody Wilson Raybould, later the central figure in the
SNC Lavalin affair --- then clearly in
the last analysis it is all subject to political decision, not legal. Prof. Tiberghien writes that the Meng case “marks the
first time the United States has sought the arrest of a high-level foreign
executive through extradition from a third country for violations of its own
national sanctions on a fourth country – in this case, Iran.”
Clearly with this case we are
launched into a Donald Trump nightmare, epitomized by his recent insistence that
every country currently buying oil from Iran must stop immediately or suffer the
consequences of frozen funds, sanctions, impoverishment, ruination of their
local economy, and God knows what further
unreasonable impositions. As responsible observers in the United States have
begun to point out, Trump is not only trying to impose decisions on third party
countries in which United States has no
business interfering, but in the process he is trying to undermine the very
basis of the American political system in which the judiciary, legislature and executive
branches each exercise its functions as
a form of checks and balances. All of
Trump’s recent measures appeared to thumb his nose at that framework, including
this escalation of our unnecessary
quarrel with a country, China, with which we have had cordial relationships at
least since the 1970 decision to
recognize Communist China taken by Justin Trudeau’s father.
The more conservative
elements in Canadian politics --- epitomized by former Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney --- who sang when Irish Eyes Are
Smiling with Ronald Reagan in a cringeworthy stage performance –-- have argued
that whatever happens our leaders must, absolutely must, maintain good
relations with the United States. But
one often has the feeling that they really mean our leaders should do what the
United States tells them to do. Mulroney was recently heard professing this as the
number one job for Justin Trudeau. But a
more realistic assessment might be that the occasional whiff of independent thought from Canada
would not go amiss, and might even have the result of pulling American leaders
who are going too far in their demands on other nationalities back into some
more reasonable line.
I think the time has come for
some such demonstration of Canadian sovereignity.
It may offer some dangers,
but as I often say, Wot the hell, wot the hell!
Toujours gai, toujours gai!
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