Has Canada’s China policy reset failed to launch?: Charles Burton in the Toronto Star
A core statement in the Indo-Pacific Strategy is a mealy mouthed characterization of China as an “increasingly disruptive global power,” when what China really is to us is a “strategic competitor.” The new strategy’s supposition that Beijing will collaborate sincerely with Canada on climate change, global poverty initiatives, or putting the brakes on North Korea’s terrifyingly dangerous nuclear missiles program — if we appease China by turning a blind eye to the Uyghur genocide and human rights and security issues — is naive at best.Thursday, December 01, 2022
Friday, October 21, 2022
Monday, September 26, 2022
Burton: Why are Chinese police operating in Canada, while our own government and security services apparently look the other way?
Why are Chinese police operating in Canada, while our own government and security services apparently look the other way?
This is an outrage. Chinese police setting up offices in Canada, then “persuading” alleged criminals to return to the motherland to face “justice” – while our own government and security services apparently choose to look the other way – represents a gross violation of Canada’s national sovereignty, international law and the norms of diplomacy. China is extending the grip of its Orwellian police state into this country, with seemingly no worry about being confronted by our own national security agencies.
The RCMP and politicians of all stripes routinely condemn Chinese state harassment of people in Canada, but what action has been taken? There have been no arrests or any expulsion of any Chinese diplomats who might be co-ordinating this kind of thuggery.
In Canada, this has been a reality for years. In 2001, during refugee hearings in Vancouver for Lai Changxing – a businessman wanted by Beijing over accusations of corruption and smuggling – Chinese police admitted to entering Canada using fake documents, and even to spiriting in Mr. Lai’s brother in an attempt to convince him to return home. Canadian authorities effectively smiled benignly at this serious breach of criminal and immigration law; Mr. Lai was eventually deported back to China.
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Burton: Ottawa has continued its mysterious deference to China. What happened to the promised ‘reset’?
Burton: Ottawa has continued its mysterious deference to China. What happened to the promised ‘reset’?
"Ottawa’s refusal to confront this harassment of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Falun Gong and Chinese democracy activists in Canada is shameful. In 2020, then foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne promised to take action, but nothing happened. Last year Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, said Canada was “actively considering” a registry of foreign agents (similar to U.S. and Australian measures) to counter China’s malign activities in Canada. But this was evidently a hollow promise to appease Canadians’ resentment over China’s subversive operations here.
Canada seems incapable of doing anything about China, due to the incompatibility of the Ottawa doctrine that we must maintain close relations with Beijing regardless of public opinion. When China’s ambassador in Ottawa threatened Canada about crossing a “red line” on Taiwan, warning officials to draw lessons from the past (read: hostage diplomacy) if our MPs set foot in Taiwan, our prime minister didn’t even condemn the remarks, but simply urged MPs to reflect on the “consequences” of such a visit."
Friday, August 05, 2022
Burton: Pelosi’s Taiwan visit has brought the thorny ‘one China’ debate into sharp focus
Pelosi’s Taiwan visit has brought the thorny ‘one China’ debate into sharp focus
Beijing’s most emphatic criticism of Ms. Pelosi is that she is undercutting the commitment of the U.S. and other Western democracies, including Canada, to “the one-China principle.” The commitment to “one China” made sense in 1970 when Canada switched its formal China recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Back then, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek said his “Republic of China” government was just in temporary exile in Taiwan and would, with U.S. help, soon expel the illegitimate Beijing regime of the Chinese Communist “red bandits.” But Chiang died in 1975, and not long after any claim that his army would “gloriously retake the mainland” was quietly abandoned. So today, everybody agrees that the Beijing government is the government of “one China.” There is no longer any “two China” principle left to violate.
The pivotal issue is whether or not Taiwan is legitimately just a province of that “one China.” Beijing’s claims that the Taiwan government is a rogue regime may be of no direct concern to Canada or the U.S., but the fact remains that an elected, democratic government is in political control of Taiwan and the smaller islands under its authority.
As a sovereign nation, Canada should not be taking direction from China or be intimidated into shunning Taiwan’s democratic regime. Canada must retain its ability to negotiate bilateral trade and other matters of critical geostrategic interest, including global health, airspace, and climate change, with Taiwan directly.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Burton: Canada must boost its security apparatus against China and Russia
Burton: Canada must boost its security apparatus against China and Russia
Consider Cameron Ortis, former director general of the RCMP’s national intelligence unit, who was accused in 2019 of trying to share sensitive information with a foreign entity. What should we be learning from his arrest? Or the Winnipeg labs matter? Was there a failure to protect national security that should be addressed by Parliament? Then there’s Quentin Huang. Charged in 2013 with trying to sell Canadian military secrets to China, the Canadian engineer went eight years without a trial before a judge finally dismissed the case, citing lack of progress. Why is it that, unlike our allies, Canada is incapable of holding a proper trial of someone accused of transferring our military technologies to a foreign state?
If the RCMP, CSIS and CSE refuse to share intelligence assessments on where Canada is vulnerable to Russian and Chinese malign operations, the federal government must take the required steps to defend our security. Too often, Canadian police and security agencies see their role as simply curating information that they can trade with the counterpart agencies. This danger is much more pronounced in Canada than among our allies, whose security agencies have much more effective legislative oversight.
The suffering of Ukraine is not just bad weather in international relations; it’s the harbinger of geostrategic climate change led by China as well. Canada must cut the rhetoric and take action to face the new global realities.
Monday, March 14, 2022
Burton: China’s potential long game: First dominate Russia, then on to the Arctic
China’s potential long game: First dominate Russia, then on to the Arctic
Whatever the outcome of the suffering in Ukraine, Russia will remain shunned by the West, blocked from financial transactions and trade with lucrative European markets. This risks ushering Russia into the arms of Beijing, which will be only too happy to facilitate the dependence of its “strategic partner” on Chinese economic support, under the guise of helping it weather cataclysmic sanctions. It will come at a humiliating cost to Mr. Putin, but make no mistake: Beijing will exploit Russia’s weakness to bring it into subordination to China’s overall geopolitical agenda.
The West’s hesitant, conditional response to Russian aggression against an allied nation is being seen by Beijing as an affirmation that the Washington-dominated global order is in decline. The subtleties of NATO’s Article 5 are lost on the Standing Committee of China’s Politburo. What they see is Mr. Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons, the West backing away from Ukrainian pleas for meaningful military support beyond a token promise of a few outdated armaments, and no commitment to clear Ukrainian air space of the Russian bombers that devastate the nation below.
Wednesday, March 02, 2022
Burton: Time to wake up and take megalomaniacs seriously
Burton: Time to wake up and take megalomaniacs seriously
Xi is confident that, under his leadership, China’s civilizational norms, as he interprets them, will displace the liberal West in a new China-dominated global order. He foresees this “community of the common destiny of mankind” being in place by 2050. Under his Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative, the world’s economy will be restructured to place China definitively at the centre of power; all the belts and roads will lead to Beijing. It is a delusional overblown ambition, but if Xi sees this promised future slipping away, China could lash out at the world in the same dangerous ways as Putin is doing now.
Canada has until now given Xi’s ambitions short shrift. Serious China expertise in our foreign ministry, CSIS, the RCMP, CSE and DND is thin on the ground. There has been no political will to get more Canadians fluent in Mandarin and thus more attuned to what is really going on with the Chinese Communist Party, domestically, internationally, and here in Canada.
In fact we even enable Xi’s regime by submitting to Chinese embassy threats to punish Canada economically through trade sanctions if we respond in any substantive way to China’s robust industrial espionage operations in Canada, or coercion of ethnic Chinese people in Canada to serve the interests of the Communist Party regime, or China’s very sophisticated influence operations targeting Canadians with influence on Canada’s foreign policy formulation.
Friday, January 21, 2022
Burton: Opinion: Canada approaches a watershed moment about who we really are
Opinion: Canada approaches a watershed moment about who we really are
For Canadians, the pandemic’s demise should mean not a return to yesterday’s normal, but a time to demand leadership that reboots our country with a renewed identity and purpose shaped by the values that make Canada a just, democratic society.
A meaningful, modern definition of Canada will also end the smug domination of national priorities by a “Laurentian elite” comprised mainly of white people with roots in the pasts of Ontario and Quebec.
We must spend the money and do whatever is required politically to achieve just resolution of land claims; settle disputes over other treaty obligations; fulfil guarantees of such basic rights as clean water; provide legitimate social services, including health care and education; and support sustaining Indigenous languages. Achieving this and ending poverty and degradation within a conscionable time frame will require a resolve that circumvents exploitative lawyers and consultants who thrive on interminable legislative procedure.
An inescapable priority is funding the military to defend sovereignty in the Arctic, including its economically critical natural resources. Ottawa’s chronic dithering on this makes us easy prey in China’s march toward repressive superpower dominance, just as we fret but do little while China interferes in our electoral process, or menaces people in Canada who Beijing sees as threatening to its interests. It’s time to get our act together.
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