Thread by @TerryGlavin

1/24 The thread that follows contains some things I've been wanting to get off my chest about the China beat, and "journalism," and certain people journalists and grad school panels rely on for insight.
Prompted by this:

https://twitter.com/nationalpost/status/1382475778596687872

2/24 The column linked above is an apologia for the discreditable ideas of the (won’t say disgraced; too mean) former Asia Pacific Foundation president (unmentioned) Senator Yuen Pau Woo, in which the author, an Asia Pacific Foundation research fellow (also left unmentioned)...

3/24 traffics in all the familiar and amusingly obsolete Disco Generation banalities that have landed us all in this mess with Beijing in the first place. On the bit about how Canada would “best serve its national interest,” this is a casual elision...

4/24 that is commonplace in avocational foreign-affairs eggheadery. It sheds light on nothing here because you can make the term “national interest” mean any old thing you like, to fit any old argument you want. Not helpful.

5/24 Anyway, nobody is “setting up the communist regime as an enemy” except Xi Jinping and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Is Xi’s CCP an enemy? No? Why not? The Liberal government says that Xi regime doesn’t even rise to the status of “adversary.” Why not?

6/24 Anyhow, it's all just straw men and sophistry. Unhelpful.
Subramanya accurately describes Woo’s standpoint as “accepting the legitimacy” of the People’s Republic and “working to maximize commercial and other advantages to Canada of engaging with the People’s Republic.”

7/24 But everybody knows this. Woo’s ardent enthusiasm for this policy is the only reason Trudeau put Woo in the Senate to begin with. Woo proposes to carry on as if nothing has happened since the Disco era, not even the kidnapping and imprisonment of the Mikes. Not helpful.

8/24 “What angered the China critics (an odd way of describing Woo’s critics, but never mind) was Woo’s suggestion that Canada ought to recognize the Chinese judicial system as legitimate. . .”

9/24 I look forward to a description of the elaborate device that would make possible what is morally, intellectually, politically and diplomatically impossible. Perhaps it’s hydrogen-powered.

10/24 "Missing in the furore. . . is that neither the government nor its critics have sketched a strategic understanding of Canada’s engagement with China. . .” Hold on, I thought Woo’s critics had done just that, with the “enemy” bit.

11/24 Anyway, lots of people are busy sketching these things. macdonaldlaurier.ca/category/issue… Sketching away all the time (subscribe to @ForeignPolicy magazine). Even “the government” occasionally pretends to. Remember the "new framework" that never happened? ottawacitizen.com/opinion/glavin…

12/24 I think what's really meant by “missing in the furore” is any support for Woo’s sordid idea, which is outside the overwhelming consensus of Canadian public opinion, the considered conclusions of international human rights organizations, & the majority view

13/24 of the House of Commons, with the exception of a red-faced and dwindling minority of Liberal MPs. “The reality is that no amount of Canadian sabre rattling is going to make an iota of difference in encouraging the Chinese to release the two Michaels.”

14/24 What is this “sabre-rattling” I keep hearing about? Who is rattling sabres? Is there anyone who thinks “sabre-rattling” will encourage the Chinese (government) to release the Mikes? No. There isn’t.

15/24 “Senator Woo suggests that China is likely to release the two Michaels only if it is seen that Canada is playing an active role in working for the release of Meng.” Yes, we know this. It has always been Senator Woo’s function to let us know what the Xi regime wants.

16/24 And so now the senator, who has always popped up in the news media because (trade secret!) it's useful to know what Beijing wants, is reduced to relaying Xi's ransom demands. Lousy job, you could say, but somebody's got to do it. I guess.

17/24 But this: “If such a political understanding is reached, this would undercut the premise that the Canadian legal system is sacrosanct while that of China is inherently flawed.”

18/24 No it certainly would not. That the Chinese system is “inherently flawed” is self-evident, and that premise will not be “undercut” by any jackass move Attorney-General David Lametti might be persuaded to make, along lines Woo wants. . .

19/24 . . . once the B.C. Supreme Court finally runs out of patience with Meng’s bogus and serially-unsuccessful delaying tactics in her extradition case.

20/24 Never mind the strange spin on Australia and India. Let's skip to the bit about Canada’s economic vulnerability to Xi Jinping’s temperament. It boils down to 'nice little economy you've got here, shame should anything happen to it'. . .

21/24 . . . and a recapitulation of the commonplace and wildly wrong premise that the China trade occupies some huge space in Canada’s foreign trade accounts. It's just not true. Something like four per cent of our exports go to China. Big woo (sorry, that was a kind of pun).

22/24 Anyway, it ends with what purports to be counsel for realism: The People’s Republic is what it is, get used to it, and Canada shouldn’t “surrender the relationship to ideologues who have never accepted the legitimacy of communist China to begin with.”

23/24 The so-called "relationship" has been in the hands of ideologues for a half a century. You don't have to be any kind of ideologue to want that "relationship" to end, or to look forward to the day when the Chinese Communist Party is in history’s dust bin.

24/24 You don’t even need to be Taiwanese, or a Uyghur, or a Hongkonger, or a Tibetan, or a Falun Gong practitioner, or a persecuted Christian, or a Chinese human rights lawyer. All you need to be is an ordinary, decent human being.
That should not be too much to ask.