Getting tough on China

The Globe and Mail has another editorial on view today castigating PM Fluffy for not "getting tough" on China.

The China-bashing in the pages of the Globe has ramped up significantly since the arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the behest of Washington. China retaliated with the detention of two Canadians, an act of "political hostage-taking," and cancelling contracts for some Canadian agricultural products. The editorial provides a dubious compare-and-contrast between the US and China.

China, we learn, is "an amoral authoritarian prison state that is entirely detached from the rule of law," whereas the US, in spite of Trump, "...largely follows the rules, and it has independent courts where complaints can be heard."

Like I said, dubious. But it gets better; "China... has no compunction about hurting smaller countries that displease it."

Huh? You mean countries like Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? Libya? Venezuela?... Oh wait; it wasn't China hurting those countries, was it?

If we were operating in the realm of reality, the Globe and Mail would be forced to concede that the list of smaller countries hurt, if not outright destroyed, by the US, is exponentially longer than the list of counties hurt by China.

Alas, we are not in the realm of reality, we're in propaganda land.

Meng Wanzhou's original sin was that her employer allegedly broke sanctions the US unilaterally imposed on Iran. Rule-of-law America is under the impression that it alone has the right to dictate to other countries who they can and cannot trade with. This is flat out bullying and a breach of international law, but the US gets away with it because everyone can see what happens to smaller countries that displease it, and therefore very few countries dare to defy American dictats.

The argument that Canada had no choice but to arrest Wanzhou is nonsense, and every diplomat and former diplomat and every reasonably well-read Canadian fully gets this. The Trudeau government had any number of options to avoid getting stuck in the middle of a US-China spat. The choice they made had nothing to do with the rule of law, and everything to do with toadying to Trump. That was a poor decision made by an inept government.

Justin's PR team has been very busy clearing the decks of unpleasant facts before the upcoming election. They're still hoping the SNC thing goes away. The Norman prosecution has disappeared. A number of controversial files have been deferred till after the election. Yes, it would be very lovely for the Liberals if the two Michaels could be home by the time we cast our ballots...


Both the Globe and Mail and Andrew Scheer think our best bet to resolve this stand-off is to align ourselves yet more closely with the US.

That will prove an enormously short-sighted and self-defeating strategy in the long term.

John Baird's legacy; lack of diplomatic ties hampers search for Toronto pastor missing in N. Korea

Baird be gone, but the stench of his five year war on diplomacy lingers.

Baird be gone, but the stench lingers in Russia and Iran and North Korea. In theory, diplomats are the guys charged with building bridges to regimes we don't like... that's the very definition of "diplomacy."

John Baird was by every account the anti-diplomat.

Mr. Baird was about burning bridges, not building them.

Baird is now nothing more than a pungent foot-note in the history of Canada's foreign service.

Pastor Lim is just one of many Canadians paying the price.

Canada FM Baird "declares solidarity" with Iranian political prisoners

This is a classic example of Canada's "talk big, do little" approach to international affairs under the Harper regime.

Baird is declaring solidarity with hundreds of prisoners in Iran, who are victims of that government's "determination to use the courts and prisons as tools of repression".

Had the bumbling blow-hard kept Canada's embassy in Tehran open, he would be able to do more than declare solidarity!

Luckily, our embassy in Israel remains open, so I presume that Baird is working feverishly behind the scenes for the release of the thousands of Palestinians in Israel's jails, also a country known for its determination to use the courts and prisons as tools of repression.