(Published in the National Post (Canada), June 18, 2020)
As someone who has studied the influence of China in Canada, it is clear to me that this country needs to put in place defences against the covert, coercive and corrupt influence of the CPC, which has been systematically eroding resistance to it from within
Under the iron rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the nation from which the coronavirus originated has been using the pandemic to exploit new opportunities to advance its power and influence. Distracted by the crisis at hand, we are letting it happen.
Chinese and Indian troops are engaged in a face-off along their disputed border, which has resulted in violent clashes. China has further boosted its naval presence in the South China Sea, where in recent years it has built military facilities on islands and coral outcrops contrary to international law.
It has driven Filipino fishermen off traditional fishing grounds and stopped Vietnam from exploring for oil, while making incursions into waters close to Japan. All the while, the ever-nervous Taiwan waits and wonders if its giant neighbour will try to take back control of the island by force.
In a less dramatic but no less significant fashion, the Chinese government has been causing problems on another front.
Last month, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne proposed an independent global inquiry into the origin of the coronavirus outbreak. An inquiry into a catastrophe of this scale seems like an entirely reasonable demand, but Beijing angrily rebuked Australia for its impertinence, accusing it of being a “U.S. lackey.” China’s ambassador in Canberra upped the ante by threatening a Chinese boycott of Australian exports.
That aggression prompted a show of unity from other Western countries, despite their own dependency on trade with, and investment from, China for economic growth. And it worked — for a time. When the 194 members of the World Health Assembly unanimously agreed to hold an independent international inquiry into the pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping backed down, and China voted for the resolution.
But Beijing wasn’t finished with Australia, announcing an 80 per cent tariff on barley imports and a ban on a large slice of beef sales, while also threatening coal imports.
This should matter to Canadians because China, the world’s second-biggest economy and likely to be the biggest within a decade or two, is a master practitioner of the dark art of “economic statecraft” — extracting political acquiescence by threatening economic pain.
Last month, the Communist party’s hyper-nationalist English-language newspaper, Global Times, wrote: “Australia is always there, making trouble. It is a bit like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes. Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off.”
Make no mistake: all of this is coming Canada’s way. Across Europe, China’s diplomats have been let off the leash and are practising Xi’s aggressive new “wolf warrior diplomacy.”
In November, during a dispute over Gui Minhai, a kidnapped Chinese-born Swedish bookseller and critic of Beijing, China’s ambassador in Stockholm told Swedish public radio that, “We treat our friends with fine wine, but for our enemies we have shotguns.”
For China, it is always might over right. When criticized a few years ago at a meeting of Southeast Asian states, China’s foreign minister retorted: “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.”
Nevertheless, after years of being groomed by Beijing, Canada’s business and political elites, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, still believe that the best policy is to allow China’s Communist regime to walk all over them.
As someone who has studied the influence of China in Canada, it is clear to me that this country needs to put in place defences against the covert, coercive and corrupt influence of the CPC, which has been systematically eroding resistance to it from within.
Since the pandemic began, attitudes against the Chinese government have been hardening in Canada, and some politicians have begun to speak out. It is clearly time for a China reset. Canada must seek to build new alliances with democracies such as Japan and South Korea, and reinforce its relationships with India, Australia and the United Kingdom now, before it is too late.