Lookahead: Does Canada have a strategy for China?

Jordan Relations between China and Canada were not good. As you may recall, two Canadians were essentially being held as diplomatic hostages. It’s the kind of thing that can poison an international relationship. A year later, though, and so much has changed. The two Michaels are free and back in Canada, and actually, that’s about it. Canada has still not made a decision on Huawei. China’s aggressive ascension towards becoming the dominant global superpower continues, as does their stance on Taiwan, their alleged human rights abuses and all sorts of other things that can make the country seem unsavoury, let’s say, to the Democratic Western Alliance.

And now there is a deadline on the horizon. So no Canadian diplomats will attend the Games in Beijing. That’s how it starts, but how will it end? Will our athletes join the boycott? Will athletes from other nations join theirs? Should we be worried about sending some of our brightest young stars to a nation that has proven itself capable of, essentially, kidnapping them? As 2022 begins, what to do about China is still Canada’s biggest foreign policy question. The answers now are perhaps even more important than they were a year ago, and we still don’t have any good ones.

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, this is The Big Story. Stephanie Carvin is a former national security analyst, and associate professor of international affairs at Carleton University and the author of Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canada’s National Security , which I guess it’s pretty clear at this point includes China, Stephanie.

Stephanie Yeah, pretty much. There’s quite a few chapters, actually. So, yes, that’s correct.

Jordan We’re going to talk about, well, maybe not all those chapters, but we’re going to talk a lot about what the next year or so could look like in terms of Canada-China relations, but also just about a resurgent and ascendant China on the geopolitical scene. And maybe we can start with this, because the last time we talked to you was right around when the two Michaels were released, what did that do to our relations with China? Did they improve?

Stephanie I don’t think so. Put it this way: they didn’t get worse. So if there was bad relations between the two countries, hopefully in some ways, that was the nadir. But I think what it did, was it removed what was certainly the largest thorn in the relationship between the two countries. These two individuals. Although every time I mention the two Michaels, I also like to mention there’s probably 100 Canadians that are being held right now in Chinese prison, including a Uighur activist Huseyin Celil, who’s not supposed to get out of jail now until 2036 and has no consular access. So in some ways, that issue is resolved, at least, I think, in the mind of the public. But in reality, that issue does still continue to exist today.

Jordan How come we’re not talking about those people and we were talking about the two Michaels. How come I just found out about this now, as you casually drop it into a conversation?

Stephanie Right. I mean, it just doesn’t seem to get the same kind of publicity. There’s a couple of reasons. One is that some of these individuals have actually committed crimes. They’ve committed offences, drug smuggling, things like that. So they are serving jail sentences for actual crimes. But in other cases it’s also, to be blunt, I mean, these are Chinese Canadians. They are sometimes not seen as Canadians for that reason. They’re not white. Certain journalists like Joanna Chiu at the Toronto Star has made this point, that there’s dozens of Canadians being held, but because they’re Chinese, we don’t really see it as a Canadian problem.

Jordan That’s really interesting, because I did not know that. I’m pretty sure a lot of our listeners didn’t. And we’re speaking to you about a week after Canada joined a diplomatic, not athletic boycott of the upcoming Winter Games. What word would you use to describe, I guess the relationship between Canada and China right now? As it might not have worsened over the release of the Michaels, but we are still clearly ready to join our traditional allies in a boycott.

Stephanie So the way I would describe the relationship is it’s frozen, and not in the “Let It Go” kind of way. It really seems to be stuck. As I said earlier, maybe in some ways, the actual bleeding has stopped, but the wound is still there. And I don’t think there’s a lot of prospect for it getting better anytime soon. I think in a large way, the issue of the two Michaels, and if not the rest of the individuals in China, kind of, I think, opened the eyes of people in Canada as to the nature of the regime and the way that it is able to retaliate when it feels its interests have been aggrieved in some way.

So I think going forward, I don’t really see a lot of opportunity for warm relationships kind of restarting. I mean, if you think back to 2015, the Liberal government literally campaigned on an idea of having free trade with China. And here we are in 2021, and something we’ve seen throughout the course of the year is more and more restrictions being placed on Canada’s interactions with China, whether it’s in research at universities, whether it is in trade, in certain goods, whether it’s in foreign investment, and now this Olympic decision as well. It’s not to do with trade and investment, but this diplomatic boycott has come through.

So yeah, I do think that this relationship is frozen. We’ve seen this sliding throughout the year, but it’s going to be interesting to see how the government decides to move next, because it’s not at all clear what the path is going to be, except that I don’t think it’s going to be a warm embrace of China anytime soon.

Jordan We’ll talk about what we could see on those issues in 2022 in just a second. But just to explore the diplomatic boycott a little bit more, in terms of all of those issues you just described, on how many of them is the traditional Western Alliance, the Five Eyes, how many of them are they aligned on? Is this sort of the way everybody in this alliance sees China? Is there any split between countries and their diplomatic intentions?

Stephanie Well, I think the big difference in 2021 versus 2020 is Joe Biden right, the President of the United States. Although President Trump took a harsh stance against China, put it that way, Joe Biden actually seems to be much better at kind of rallying international support and trying to bring Democratic countries together. We saw last week, of course, it was the summit of the Democracies, to which China wasn’t invited and was very upset. But I think Joe Biden is going to show leadership in being able to bring countries together. So in terms of being United, I actually see that growing.

It is interesting to me that the decision to engage the boycott wasn’t kind of a joint announcement. It seemed like the United States kind of just decided, although apparently there had been talks with the Trudeau government before, that was followed then by Australia, Lithuania and the United Kingdom and now Canada. So there’s clearly a similar view on these kinds of things. We’re also seeing it in terms of thinking about cooperation on the development of technology, on restrictions on certain kinds of Chinese technology, particularly in the telecommunications sector, but also in sectors like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

And then as well, I think that there’s this idea that something has to be done with regards to the Asia Pacific or what’s now increasingly being called the IndoPacific region in terms of China’s perceived aggressiveness in that area.

Jordan Last question on the Olympics just because it’s been in the news lately, and it’ll be the first time these relations are tested in 2022 probably. Does China really give a crap about a diplomatic boycott? As long as these countries send their athletes and they can host the Games and have a big pomp and circumstance, why would they care if there’s no diplomats?

Stephanie Yeah, I saw some people joking that the biggest sufferers from this will be the canopés that will go uneaten by the diplomats that should have been attending. But I’m actually less cynical than that. I think China does value symbolism. I think it values that symbolism very highly. And so when you take this kind of symbolic action, yes, it does mean something. Now, is it fatally damaging to the Olympics? Absolutely not. Does it mean that China won’t be able to get its narrative across of it being kind of an ascendant power and trying to encourage other countries to see all of its achievements? No. It’s not going to do that at all. But was this kind of a symbolic gesture that is nevertheless irksome and does send a message? Yeah, I think it does.

So if you think back a few years ago, the Chinese government was tremendously upset at the Gap clothing chain because they had produced a T shirt that didn’t include Taiwan as a part of China. And they basically threatened the entire Gap clothing chain in China because of this one T shirt. They were threatening to prohibit Airlines from landing in China if they didn’t put Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China. I mean, this is very symbolic stuff, but they take it very seriously. So I don’t actually think we should underestimate the impact of a diplomatic boycott. And I do actually expect some kind of retaliation.

Jordan When you say some kind of retaliation, and I think of recent history and the way Chinese-Canadian relations have gone, I question why we’re sending dozens, if not hundreds, of our finest young athletes over there?

Stephanie I think Canadians should be concerned. I think the Canadian Olympic Committee should be concerned. I don’t expect our athletes to be targeted. I don’t expect them to be arrested. And if there’s maybe some good news, I don’t know if it’s really good news, but if there is some good news here, it’s not the first time we have sent athletes to an authoritarian country or at least a country with a less than stellar human rights record. So we do have some practice here.

But China has perfected its surveillance state, unlike any other country on Earth. If you travel to China, there’s going to be software installed on your phone unbeknownst to you. That is going to be tracking your communications, tracking your whereabouts and kind of following you around. They have facial recognition software. They have a very good Ministry of State Security that can follow you around and tail you. So there is some risk here to the people who are going there in the sense that they could be tracked. Who they speak with is going to be monitored. Certainly, they’re always going to be targeted for strategies and anything that might give the home team some kind of edge.

But in this particular case, having done a diplomatic slight, the idea that Canadian athletes might actually experience kind of further harassment is definitely not beyond the pale. And speaking to security authorities here in Ottawa, they’re not ruling out anything. It’s unlikely that athletes would be arrested. But given what’s happened over the past two, three years, with regards to the two Michaels, it’s entirely possible that it could happen again.

Jordan What does China want from Canada at this point?

Stephanie That’s a really interesting question. I think in the short term, it does want trade in some ways to resume as normal. It wants Canada to drop some of the trade restrictions that have been put on it, particularly in the areas of telecommunications. I mean, Huawei gets all the attention. But Canada recently stopped the investment of China Mobile, another telecommunications company, into Canada as well. They’re now suing the federal government.

They also want more deals. They want to be able to invest in our natural resources. They want to build telecommunications in the Arctic. Joint ventures between Chinese companies and Canadian companies, where the basis of the agreement is that the Canadian company shares its intellectual property for some kind of stake in the Chinese market. And that’s a way for Chinese companies to get access to some very valuable research, customers, products. But in some ways, the Canadian company suffers because it’s kind of handing over its most valuable assets in order to actually access the Chinese economy.

So I think this is the kind of short term thing that China really wants from Canada. It also really doesn’t want Canada joining into a Western kind of alliance. I think that China is rightfully sensing that other countries in the world are kind of looking at China and they’re concerned. And we saw earlier this year that there is now going to be a security alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States called, very awkwardly, AUKUS. Nuclear sub agreements. But it suggests that States are kind of beefing up their security posture in the region. And certainly China wouldn’t want Canada to be a part of that as well. So positioning of Canada in any kind of alliance is going to be kind of a long term goal.

We talk a lot about Canada not knowing how to engage in China. I also wonder, to a certain extent, if Chinese officials are now wondering how they are going to move on its relations with Canada, having just kind of thrown everything out the window after the detention of the two Michaels.

Jordan From a national security perspective, put your analyst hat on here. There’s a growing Western Alliance lining up against China that, as you mentioned, we’re not quite officially a part of yet, but obviously history would suggest that’s kind of where we line up. And China really wants to be seen as this ascendant nation, the global superpower, et cetera. Do we have, I guess, bargaining power in this situation? They don’t probably want the optics of all the traditional Western countries lining up against them. Is there a chance here for Canada to extract some concessions from China?

Stephanie Historically, Canada has not really participated in a military alliance in the Pacific since the Korean War. We certainly send ships there. And certainly recently we’ve been making a point of sending ships through the Taiwan Straits and things like this. But we don’t really have a vast military or diplomatic presence in the region at all. So I think as a result of this, what we are seeing is that our allies, the United States and Europe, have both been putting forward visions of how they see their engagement in the region as a whole. And Canada doesn’t actually have a strategy. We don’t have a foreign policy, let alone an Asia Pacific or IndoPacific strategy.

Jordan Right. We’ve talked about that.

Stephanie So what’s happening now is that there is a big review that’s happening. It’s interesting, they actually went outside the government and hired former diplomats to conduct this review on how Canada should engage in this region. And this brings us back to that question you just asked. Well, what should we do? Do we have any leverage here? And this is something we have to evaluate. Again, we don’t have a lot of assets in the region. We’re not really considered a major player despite having a very large, Pacific coast.

And then, in addition, there is I think, a kind of debate among people who look at China in Canada. There’s people who say Canada is actually really caught between China and the United States. That we have an opportunity here to kind of balance maybe some of the issues we have the United States, with improved relations with China, we can diversify our trade, and these would all be very good things. Now that the United States is potentially looking at potentially even a second Trump administration or some Democratic backsliding, maybe we do need to kind of hedge our bets a bit.

On the other hand, however, you have people who are saying no. I mean, Canada is still very much in the Western Alliance. The vast majority of our trade goes to Western countries. That we share values with the United States, even in its kind of imperfect state, and a long undefended border. It’s just not comparative. So I think this is the thing that the new strategy which we are expecting in 2022, will have to reconcile. Do we play this role as maybe kind of a third party between the west and China? Or do we actually kind of firmly situate ourselves within this Western Alliance in order to maybe counter some of the things that we don’t like seeing coming out of that part of the world and certain kinds of Chinese assertiveness and attempts to really kind of put pressure on different countries.

Jordan I don’t often use this expression, but this is more of a comment than a question. It seems insane to me to think that a country with little to no foreign policy at all could successfully walk the tightrope between the United States of America and China as both of them become more authoritarian. Why would we put ourselves in that position? It seems like really just tempting fate, I guess.

Stephanie I’m not sure I agree with that point of view, but I think the idea is, who are we? Are we an independent country, or are we a member of the full Western Alliance? And yeah, I think it’s going to be very hard for us to be a fully independent country, given the very nature of our security apparatus. Forget NATO. We also have NORAD. We basically can’t deploy our forces without the United States.

Jordan We have, like, six helicopters or something, right?

Stephanie Yeah. Well, they’re not flying that well right now, from what I understand from media reports, but, yeah, it’s hard for Canada to deploy without the United States. This idea that we can be this kind of fully neutral party between the two countries is unrealistic. But I think what people who make this point are trying to say is that, is it a good idea to put all of our eggs in the US basket right now? And I think that is a bit of a risk. But at the same time, you have to ask yourself, is the Chinese basket looking any more stable?

Jordan That’s fair. And I guess what I’m trying to get a sense of and why we invited you on this show to bring it to the end of this conversation, is how will we know that? What will you be watching for in the early months of 2022, including the Olympics, but also everything else, to get a sense of what’s going to happen next year in terms of the relationship between these two countries, but also in terms of China’s plans globally?

Stephanie Well, there’s a couple of things I’m going to be looking for. The first one is the strategy that I mentioned. The Canadian government is going to be coming out with an IndoPacific strategy that looks at Canada’s engagement in that region and finally sets out a vision of what it wants to achieve and how it intends to achieve it. Now we’ll see how good that is. If it’s just kind of lofty rhetoric or is their meat on the bones of this policy, that will be something that I look for. Because I think that’s going to determine the direction, at least of the Trudeau government for the next coming years.

The second thing I’m going to be looking for is Huawei. Instead of Waiting for Godot, we have waiting for Huawei. It is this long awaited decision about what we should do about this telecommunications company. And the government’s position is not that it’s making a decision about Huawei, it’s making a decision about the future of 5G, generally, in Canada. And I think this is part of the reason it’s taking its time, is that it’s actually trying to look at the landscape and figuring out, okay, well, what kind of technologies do we need? And who do we want to source those technologies from? And then do we actually have the power as a government to actually get rid of Huawei if we don’t want it in our systems? This may actually require new legislation. So that’s the second thing.

And then the third thing is actually the Olympics themselves. It’s going to be interesting to see how Canadian athletes are treated. It’s going to be interesting to see, do Canadians watch? There is a movement to actually boycott. I mean, Canadians themselves don’t have to watch if they don’t want to, if they are upset at what’s going on, either with the Uighurs or just human rights situation generally, you can make the decision not to watch, and that hurts the advertising, right? If you don’t want to see this happen.

Jordan I will tell you, though, as somebody who spent a long time in sports media, in terms of many of these issues and threatened boycotts, when the game start, people tune in. I’m just not optimistic that will ever happen.

Stephanie Oh, no. And I think that’s fair. I think it’s hard for Canada to resist watching a gold medal hockey game.

Jordan Unless the athletes decide not to go. I mean, that’s kind of the wild card.

Stephanie And that’s going to be interesting to see, if any athletes themselves make that decision. I think it would be a very heartbreaking decision to make, and I don’t envy any of them, but I could understand if they didn’t want to go either for human rights concerns or even their own personal safety. I think that’s a reasonable concern.

But I think the final thing that I’m going to be looking for is just a little bit more general. Putting together a foreign policy, as you said earlier, like can we as a little power with our six helicopters actually managed to come up with some kind of strategy in this region, and that’s just it. Dealing with China requires us to do big things and to think big thoughts and to have grand plans. And the Trudeau government has had a lot of very soaring rhetoric. But we’ve only really seen this rhetoric apply to a few areas like climate change. And to be fair, like trying to deal with the pandemic. But none of this rhetoric about foreign policy has ever really come true at all. So it’s going to be really interesting to see.

We saw in the speech from the throne earlier this year that the Trudeau government said it was going to take on authoritarian States. In the small section on foreign policy, it made a statement about dealing with authoritarian countries, of which no question China is one of them. So what does it actually do in order to strengthen democracy worldwide, to give the government itself the tools that it needs to actually have a foreign policy and then carry it out effectively? I think this is going to be very important and something that many of us who watch international affairs will be looking forward to, hopefully in 2022.

Jordan Stephanie, thank you for this. And waiting to see if this government will back up its words with action is the final word on many topics these days.

Stephanie Indeed.

Jordan Thanks again.

Stephanie Thank you.

Jordan Stephanie Carvin’s book is called Stand On Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canada’s National Security , you can find it at your favorite local bookstore.

That was The Big Story. For more from us, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. Talk to us anytime via email, thebigstorypodcast@rci.rogers.com [click here!]. This podcast is available in every single podcast player and of course, on your favourite smart speaker, just ask it to “play the Big Story Podcast.”

Thanks for listening, I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.

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