Burton: China-Canada tensions are no passing storm

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/burton-china-canada-tensions-are-no-passing-storm

"Canada’s days of virtue-signalling are long past the point of getting Kovrig and Spavor out of the hell they endure. China has a million or more Turkic Muslims in “re-education” cultural genocide camps in the PRC’s northwest, and plans to do the same to Tibetans. Moreover, there are huge numbers of China’s own political prisoners suffering at least as badly in conditions similar to the “black jail” incarceration of our two citizens. In this light, Canadian concerns are unlikely to be very high on the agenda of China’s Communist leadership.

In 2012, when Canada thought that free trade with China would be the key to sustainable diversified Canadian prosperity, then-Liberal MP Justin Trudeau put forth that “we deceive ourselves by thinking that trade with Asia can be squeezed into the 20th-century mould. China, for one, sets its own rules and will continue to do so because it can. China has a game plan. There is nothing inherently sinister about that.”

But the practice of most Western nations, to condemn politically while engaging economically, has enabled China to make divide-and-conquer an art form. While many of the nations listed above have issued statements supporting Canada’s outrage at China’s flaunting of international law, most countries remain silent, fearing Beijing’s retaliation. In the final analysis, China wields raw money power and the myth that a windfall is coming if Beijing gets what it wants."