Daphne Bramham: Why Canada and B.C. are reluctant to poke the Chinese dragon
Credit to Author: Daphne Bramham| Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2019 00:45:05 +0000
Money, money, money. That about sums up our relationship with China these days, despite trade sanctions, unlawful detentions of Canadians, Hong Kong’s streets teeming with protesters fighting for the autonomy China promised them as well as the continued persecution of China’s own Uyghur minority.
After months without an ambassador in Beijing, our new one is Dominic Barton. He has deep ties to China’s ruling elites. He’s taught at Chinese universities and sat on the board of the China Development Bank.
He was global managing partner of the international consulting giant, McKinsey & Co. And, up until his appointment Wednesday, he was chair of Vancouver-based Teck Resources, in which state-owned China Investment Corp. has a 10.5 per cent share.
What he lacks is diplomatic experience and any apparent mandate to reset Canada’s relationship. Despite Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s comments that Barton has been well-briefed on the importance of human rights and gender equality, his resume suggests that it’s economics and engagement that Barton will be promoting in the faint hope that if we’re nice to them, China’s rulers will change their ways.
Dominic Barton fills a role that has been vacant since January amid a diplomatic feud between Canada and China.
China’s response to Barton’s appointment? According to Associated Press, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he hoped Barton would play an active role in improving the bilateral relationship.
But he urged Canada to “reflect on its mistakes” and immediately release Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who is being held under house arrest pending a hearing to determine whether she should be extradited to the United States to face fraud charges.
Barton replaces the ham-handed John McCallum, a former bank economist and Liberal cabinet minister. He was fired after telling Chinese media and business leaders that Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou would likely win her extradition case.
When Wanzhou was confined to house arrest pending trial, it triggered China’s retaliatory sanctions on beef, pork, canola, peas and soybeans as well as the arrests of two Canadians — former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor.
Despite being fired, McCallum didn’t shut up. His comments in July that if Beijing continued to escalate trade sanctions before the October election, it would help the Conservatives who “are much less friendly to China than the Liberals.”
John McCallum, former ambassador to China, arrives for a cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que., Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019.
The Conservatives shot back that it was an invitation to China to interfere or attempt to influence the vote — a fear already voiced by Canada’s security services.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has called for a “total reset” in the Canada-China relationship even from what the previous Conservative did in 2014 when Stephen Harper signed the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA).
In a May speech, Scheer said Canada’s values and interests “are in many respects wholly incompatible with those of China’s government.”
While he set the usual goal to diversify markets, Scheer promised to ban “Chinese state-owned enterprises, solely focused on the political interests of Beijing, unfettered access to the Canadian market.”
Scheer’s promise may be a chimera. Chinese investment already dropped 47 per cent last year, largely due to capital controls imposed by China and the poor performance of Canadian energy investments.
Still, any ban would hit the Conservatives’ Alberta stronghold hardest. State-owned companies account for the overwhelming majority of investments in Alberta and virtually all of that money had gone into the now-beleaguered oil industry, according to the China Institute’s China-Canada Investment Tracker.
But it would also be tough on British Columbia where most of China’s investments have been made by state-owned companies in mining, oil and natural gas and, to a lesser degree, housing. By contrast, Ontario’s investors have mostly been private companies putting money into housing and consumer goods.
Here’s another potential hitch. If the Tories win, they’ll have to deal with the Trans Mountain pipeline. That means finding the money for the $7.4-billion pipeline extension and, potentially, a buyer for the existing one that the Liberals bought for $4.5-billion.
Meantime, many provincial and even municipal politicians are tightrope-walking when it comes to China.
In May, B.C. Premier John Horgan cancelled his planned trip to China. Last week, the Twitter-verse lit up after it was reported that neither the premier nor Lieutenant-governor Janet Austin will be attending either of the Chinese government’s most important events this year — receptions in Vancouver and Victoria later this month to mark the 70th anniversary of Mao Zedong declaring the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Scheduling conflicts are the reasons given by both, which is not to say British Columbia will be unrepresented. Trade and Technology Minister Bruce Ralston and George Chow, the junior minister of trade, will be there.
But even if Horgan’s snub were intentional, it’s window dressing.
The B.C. New Democrats have staked the province’s economic future on liquefied natural gas and even risked their governing alliance with the Green Party with its approvals of the $40-billion liquefied natural gas project at Kitimat and the $1.6-billion plant at Woodfibre near Squamish, which is supposed to be confirmed within the next few weeks.
China is not only an LNG investor, it will be the largest consumer and a major supplier of fabricated structural steel after federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau waived the tariffs on Chinese imports last months.
Ethics, shmethics. Apparently, a lot of people think we can no longer afford them.
Twitter: @bramham_daphne