JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CANADA’S TERRIBLE STATE OF RELATIONS WITH CHINA – THE RESULT OF JUSTIN TRUDEAU’S COSTLY BLUNDERS AT THE BEHEST OF TRUMP – A COLUMNIST SHILLS FOR TRUDEAU TRYING TO PORTRAY HIM AS TOUGH AND PRINCIPLED IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS – HE IS ANYTHING BUT – CANADIANS ASSUME TWO CANADIANS HELD IN CHINA ARE TIT-FOR-TAT FOR CANADA’S (AMERICAN-REQUESTED) ARREST OF A SENIOR HUAWEI COMPANY EXECUTIVE – CHINA SAYS THE CANADIANS ARE SPIES – TRUDEAU HAS THE ABILITY TO INTERVENE AND FREE THE CHINESE EXECUTIVE BUT HE REFUSES TO DO SO FOR SUPPOSEDLY HIGH PRINCIPLES – THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER – AMERICA’S RELENTLESS ASSAULT ON CHINA AND ALL THINGS CHINESE – JUSTIN TRUDEAU SHARPLY CONTRASTED WITH HIS BRAVE AND ABLE FATHER, PIERRE, IN FOREIGN POLICY AND DEFERENCE TO THE UNITED STATES

John Chuckman


EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY AARON WHERRY IN CBC NEWS


“Those arguing for Meng's release still have to acknowledge what it might cost”

“Letting Meng go might free Kovrig and Spavor — but it probably wouldn't end there”


This is a piece of journalistic shilling for Justin Trudeau, one trying to build him up as a tough and principled statesman, something he decidedly is not.

It also makes an unwarranted assumption about the arrest of two Canadians in China, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, assuming their arrest is a tit-for-tat for Canada’s arrest of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei and daughter of the company’s founder, an arrest made at America’s request. China says there is no relationship between the two cases.

There are no large issues in this matter, as the article asserts. That's a pretense.

There is, hiding behind the big-sounding principles, a Prime Minister who has done virtually nothing right with China.

There is the awkward fact that Justin Trudeau blundered terribly in arresting Meng Wanzhou. It was avoidable. Completely. But Trudeau chose not to avoid it.

And he continued blundering afterward, as when he fired an excellent Canadian ambassador, one who had offered a few wise words in public, and then didn’t appointment a new one for a long time.

And, as when Trudeau suddenly flew down to Washington, like a child running to Daddy about a sore finger, to plead for help from Trump, who has to be the most hated and uninfluential man in China. As well as a man quoted by more than one source as saying he just doesn’t like Trudeau, so Trudeau’s embarrassing (for Canadians) desperation was perhaps mixed with a little Masochism? He got no help, of course, beyond a quickie return visit from the always-unhelpful and belligerent Mike Pompeo. Morale-booster from a thug.

And somewhere along the way, Trudeau ordered a Canadian destroyer to pass through the Strait of Taiwan, an egregious insult to China's feelings, promoted by Trump, no doubt, as everything else Trudeau does in foreign affairs is, including selling armored cars to the mass-killers in Saudi Arabia who just happen to be good working associates of Trump and Pompeo.

Imagine, the son of Pierre Trudeau having Canada serve as Chair of a CIA-front organization like the Lima Group designed to help topple the twice-elected government of Venezuela? America hates President Maduro of Venezuela because he is independent and he is popular. (His predecessor, Hugo Chavez, also hated by America and the target of American dark operations, had been elected four times). After several outbreaks of independence under democratic principles, America wants all of Latin America returned to loyal plantation status under the creepy two-century old Monroe Doctrine. That’s what Justin agreed to, whereas Pierre openly opposed America’s dreadful policies against Cuba and built a good relationship with that country.

Justin Trudeau continues blundering, offering no leadership out of the hopeless mess he has made of Canada’s once-excellent relations with China. And they were truly excellent, as I learned firsthand from the many Chinese students I knew. They loved Canada.

Now, when it has been publicized that under the extradition treaty with America, Trudeau is entitled to intervene in Meng’s case, he declines to do so, citing non-existent or nebulous large principles.

In fact, he is just afraid to act, afraid of Trump. I think Trump makes him wet his pants, My God, he’s made of different stuff than his late father, Pierre, a fiercely independent and brilliant statesman.

I should also note that when Trump started his crusade against China and all things Chinese, Trudeau missed a wonderful opportunity to benefit Canada by increased trade and perhaps new agreements with China.

The arrest of two Canadians in China, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, for all we know, has nothing to do with Meng. Many in Canada assume that it does, but China’s government maintains that the detention of the two Canadians has no relationship to the arrest of Meng. China refers to her arrest as “a serious political incident.” The Canadians are charged with spying, and the claim is made that there is good evidence.

After all, Canadian-born Paul Whelan, when first arrested a while back in Russia was widely proclaimed in Canada to be innocent of spying for America. But he was in fact guilty, as a court there just convicted him, and convincingly, sentencing him to sixteen years.


ADDITIONAL NOTE REGARDING CANADA AND THE US AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS UNDER JUSTIN TRUDEAU

Unfortunately, for a lot of liberal-minded Canadians, it is enough that Trudeau is on the side of the angels in matters such as climate change and feminist principles. They pay no close attention to foreign affairs, or they would quickly be horrified by how tightly aligned with Trump Trudeau actually is. Trump himself is regarded in almost demonic terms by Canada’s “small-l” liberals (a much larger percentage of the population than in the United States), but it is clear that among a good many, Justin Trudeau is in a different category despite supporting Trump almost every step of the way in hurting and abusing hundreds of millions of people in the world.

Canada’s opposition Conservatives, traditionally quite deferential to the United States, offer voters no real election choice in matters of foreign affairs. The Liberals, before Justin Trudeau, were quite different, and a series of distinguished prime ministers from that party – Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien, and Paul Martin – established an enviable reputation for Canada in international affairs. Canada was admired, and with good reason. That has been lost with Justin Trudeau, as demonstrated publicly recently by his costly, time-consuming effort to be elected to a temporary UN Security Council seat. He was turned down handily by the UN membership. Canada is not viewed any longer, as Jean Chretien so liked to say with his charming Quebec accent, “as the best country in the world.” And Justin has nothing to offer but a soft echo of American policies.

No, with a few warm and friendly words to Canadian voters about favorite Millennialist topics, Trudeau is given a free ride to support what I regard as no less than a campaign of international terror – in Venezuela, in Bolivia, in Cuba (where his father’s enlightened policies are now being eroded by Trump), in Brazil, in Syria, in Iran, in Palestine, in Saudi Arabia, in China, and in still more places.

I have remarked many times in my writing about how distressing it is the way Americans, in large part, offer no opposition to the country’s brutal empire abroad with its endless bloody wars and coups and incursions killing millions, creating millions of refugees, and collapsing whole decent societies, so long as things are pretty good on the home front. That has in fact been the working policy outline for the Democratic Party for many decades: talk about social policies here and there and support the troops no matter what hellish business they are up to. The Democrats are a war party, no different than the Republicans, because that is part of the fundamental identity of America, war and empire. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year on destruction and killing.

Well, the experience under Justin Trudeau has revealed not entirely different tendencies now in Canada I much regret to say. But the great historian, Carlyle, said that history is biography, and I have never quarreled with the proposition. The quality of leadership is everything for a society advancing in the largest sense of the word, and Canada simply has none.


NOTE ON MENG’S CHARGE

" She is accused of lying to banks about Huawei's relationship with a company that prosecutors claim was violating U.S. economic sanctions against Iran"

That is not a crime in Canada, nor anywhere else. After all, US sanctions are American laws applied to people who are not American.

US sanctions are themselves illegal by international standards, but no one has the power to enforce that fact, the US recognizing no one's authority, including the UN’s.

The US enforces its laws on others through economic bullying and military threats.

So, for that lame American accusation against Meng, just one of its many false claims about China, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, his former foreign minister, destroyed relations with one of the most important governments on earth?

I just do not see how any Canadian views that as being anything but the worst incompetence. The relationship with China is no small matter.


NOTE

Readers may enjoy this earlier set of comments:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/07/14/john-chuckman-comment-what-every-canadian-should-know-about-canada-foreign-minister-chrystia-freeland-and-what-justin-trudeaus-sad-legacy-as-prime-minister-will-be/