Burton: Canada takes note as China gets tough with Australia

Canada takes note as China gets tough with Australia

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/11/12/canada-takes-note-as-china-gets-tough-with-australia.html

Those who have urged that we treat the panda kindly, lest he show his claws and draw blood with his fangs, will urge that Canada continue ignoring the strong recommendations of Commons committees to support endangered Hong Kong democracy activists or to sanction Chinese officials complicit in the Uighur genocide. That perspective implies it would be best that Canada simply risk our alliance with the U.S. by releasing Meng Wanzhou, approving Huawei 5G and continue to allow PRC acquisition of Canadian dual-use technologies.

While Australia has strongly supported Canada over Kovrig and Spavor, it is unlikely that Ottawa will dare to stand with Australia in the face of Chinese bullying, beyond our usual carefully worded “expression of concern.” But Australia’s relations with China today are almost certainly Canada’s tomorrow. As the RUSI report notes, citing the ex-Australian PM and China scholar Kevin Rudd, “the Chinese Communist Party despises and takes advantage of weakness, while it respects strength.”