Reading between the lines of that high-profile letter about China
National Post, 26 June 2020
The argument put forth was not the usual diplomatic prattle.
As an intervention from grandees go, it was as grand as it gets. Writing to Justin Trudeau advising, in effect, a prisoner swap to obtain the release of the “two Michaels” whom China is holding hostage and subjecting to torture, the letter from 19 eminences of Canada’s foreign-policy establishment included so many Order of Canada snowflakes that the prime minister could have used it to keep the beer cold at his St-Jean-Baptiste barbecue.
There was one former attorney general of Canada, two former ambassadors to the United States, three former foreign ministers, four former UN ambassadors, five former MPs, and a partridge — that would be, inexplicably, Don Newman of the CBC — in a pear tree.
All that was missing was the former prime ministers, but Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney had long ago made their views public about cutting a deal to spring Meng Wanzhou. As for Joe Clark, the special envoy appointed to obtain Canada’s UN Security Council seat, his latest failure may have gotten him a well-earned 14-day self-isolation.
A few weeks back I wrote of Canada’s supine Sino-diplomacy, entrenched for nearly a half century, where nothing China could do — even the Tiananmen massacre — would be permitted to disrupt business as usual. If I might, to be a bit grand myself, quote my own lines:
“It’s important to note that this bipartisan consensus — Mulroney and Chrétien — in favour of practical appeasement of China in all respects had near universal support in Canada’s corporate, media and diplomatic class. Nine of 10 premiers went along [on the 1994 Team Canada mission]. When Stephen Harper tried to modestly roll back Canadian enthusiasm for the Chinese communist regime, he earned the opprobrium of that class in spades.”
Who knew that a few weeks later they would assemble for a class photo? But, if I might suggest an alternate reading of the letter from the grandees, the text of capitulation may contain a more important subtext of change on the China file.
Continue reading at the National Post:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-reading-between-the-lines-of-that-high-profile-letter-about-china?video_autoplay=true