On December 23, 2018
© By John Arkelian
In December 2018, Canadian law enforcement officers arrested a prominent
Copyright © 2022 by Michael de Adder
Chinese business executive, Ms. Meng Wanzhou, pursuant to a lawful request from the U.S. Department of Justice, which is seeking her extradition from Canada on fraud-related charges (involving, we believe, the fraudulent evasion of sanctions against Iran). Meng is a senior executive with the Chinese telecom giant Huawei. The legal process unfolding in Vancouver (Meng was granted bail pending her extradition hearing and is living in one her family’s multi-million dollar houses in Vancouver) is just that – a legal process in a country governed by the rule of law. Canada did not arrest Meng, nor did the United States request that we do so, at the behest of our respective political leaders. Indeed, the matter lies wholly outside the purview or influence of the Canadian or American governments, notwithstanding the perversely unhelpful, improper, and erroneous assertion by Donald Trump that he could use the charges against Meng as a bargaining chip in America’s current trade conflict with China.
Trouble is: The autocratic regime in China cannot (or chooses not to) understand the fundamental differences between the one-party dictatorship (and police state) over which they preside, and a free and democratic nation in which everyone, regardless of rank, wealth, office, or political connections, is equal before the law. In free nations, the justice system is completely independent of the political administration of the day. Clearly, those core principles are alien to the undemocratic regime in China, a regime that holds the rule of law, let alone inalienable human rights, in open contempt. There are no inalienable human rights in China; there is no democracy, no freedom, and no separation between the state and either its courts or its corporations. That begs the question: why are we in the West so hell-bent on increased trade with (and investment by) China’s tyrannical regime?
In the days after Meng Wanzhou’s arrest, we had the spectacle of Chinese media representatives close to that government insulting Canada, denigrating us as “a dog” that does its U.S. master’s bidding and threatening severe retaliation. Our ‘punishment’ started almost immediately with the “arrest” in China of first one, then another, and then a third Canadian. At least two of the three are clearly unlawful acts of hostage-taking by a lawless regime. The first such hostage, Michael Kovrig, is an experienced Canadian diplomat, currently seconded to a human rights NGO’s branch in China. The second hostage, Michael Spavor, is a Canadian businessman. The third detainee is Sarah McIvor, a teacher working in China. Initially, these unlawful detainees simply vanished. There was no information from the Chinese government as to their whereabouts or status and initially no consular access, contrary to binding international law. Then came word of inhumane treatment, like protracted interrogation and sleep deprivation. But those things are de rigueur in tyrannies.
Days past before the Canadian government started publicly demanding the immediate release of China’s unlawful hostages. It took just as long for our close allies to speak out on our behalf. Why? Our collective response was too little, too late. At least two of the three hostages were unlawfully abducted at the behest of the Chinese regime in wrongful retaliation for the fair and transparent legal proceeding taking place here. Their lawless actions demand a strong response:
(1) Canada should immediately issue an urgent travel advisory (and urge its allies to do the same) urging its citizens not to travel to China for any reason – on the grounds that Westerners traveling there may be subject to arbitrary, unlawful detention and to the flagrant denial of their human rights. (Once unlawfully detained, there’s precious little we can do for our citizens – it’s far better that they avoid the reckless risk.)
(2) Canada should reduce the size of its diplomatic and consular staff in China and require China to do the same.
(3) Canada should indefinitely suspend issuing visitors’ visas to Chinese citizens (except dissidents who are demonstrably opposed to its one-party regime).
(4) Canada should revoke existing visitors’ visas for Chinese citizens (except dissidents), including Meng Wanzhou. In the event that the courts rule against extraditing her to the United States, she should be obliged to depart from Canada forthwith and not return.
(5) Canada should terminate its efforts to enter into a free trade arrangement with China until such time, if any, that China manages to throw off its tyrannical system of government and fully embraces democratic norms and verifiable respect for human rights.
(6) Pending the release of the abducted Canadians, no federal or provincial officials should travel to China for any reason, save securing the release of the hostages. All other modalities of cooperation – be they economic, trade-related, scientific, educational, or cultural – should be suspended.
And there are broader, long overdue measures which Canada and its allies ought to take, quite apart from the current conflict over hostage-taking by China.
(7) Canada, acting jointly with the provinces, should enact laws to bar all foreign nationals who are not permanent residents in Canada from owning real property here.
(8) Canada should join its allies by prohibiting the involvement of Huawei in building new telecom infrastructure here. That firm is closely tied to a regime that is hostile to our core values and which poses a clear and present danger to our national security.
(9) For precisely the same reason, Canada should prohibit all Chinese firms, be they officially state-owned or not, from investing (or otherwise operating) in strategically critical sectors of our economy, like resources, telecommunications, agriculture, high technology, and what’s left of our manufacturing sector.
(10) Canada and its allies have been far too quiescent about heavy-handed mass detentions (reportedly involving millions of people) in the restive western parts of China, areas in which China’s control depends on armed force – areas predominantly inhabited by other ethnic, linguistic, and/or religious groups, that is, people other than ethnic Chinese. The West should be tirelessly decrying the mass detentions and egregious attacks on human rights.
(11) Canada should vigorously work with its allies to counter military and industrial espionage by China as well as its programs of cyber-aggression.
China has made no secret of its ambition to achieve military, economic, and political dominance in the world. Among other things: they persist in the proposition that the nation of Taiwan rightfully belongs to them; they aid and abet the dangerous rogue regime in North Korea; they’ve got an undemocratic ‘president for life;’ and they are unlawfully constructing artificial islands in the western Pacific to bolster their bogus claims to waters that are either international waters or the rightful territorial waters of other nations in east Asia. The goal of becoming the world’s dominant power, financed by the industries the West perversely transferred there in the quest for lower labor costs, coupled with the regime’s open hostility to the basic precepts of liberty, democracy, government accountability, rule of law, and inalienable human rights, makes China our enemy. We should stop deluding ourselves that they are either benign or our friend. The autocrats in Beijing are fond of complaining that the West wants to “keep China down” and to thwart its “rise,” yet they daily provide us with ample reasons to do just that.
John Arkelian is a lawyer and journalist; he represented Canada abroad as a diplomat.
Copyright © 2018 by John Arkelian.
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