Canada-China Relations Committee on Aug. 6th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I'll ask the clerk to proceed with a recorded vote on Mr. Oliphant's motion.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

Thank you very much.

I think it's time for me to thank our witness, Dr. Sangay. I know that all members have appreciated having you here. We're very honoured to have you, and especially to have you at what is now well after midnight. It's been very gracious of you to be with us at such a late hour and to give us so much of your time.

Thank you so much.

[Dr. Lobsang Sangay]

Thank you very much to the chair and the committee members for this opportunity. It's a great honour to be on your committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

We will now have to suspend for a few minutes as we prepare for the next witness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I'll now call the meeting back to order. Welcome back.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the new witness. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Interpretation in this video conference will work very much as it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. As you are speaking, if you plan to alternate from one language to the other, you will need to also switch the interpretation channel so it aligns with the language you are speaking. You may want to allow for a short pause when switching languages.

When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. The use of headsets is strongly encouraged.

It is now my pleasure to welcome our witness, as an individual, Mr. David Mulroney, former ambassador of Canada to the People's Republic of China.

Mr. Mulroney, you have seven to 10 minutes to make an opening statement. Please proceed.

[David Mulroney, Former Ambassador of Canada to the People's Republic of China, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, and thank you for this second opportunity to meet with you.

I'd like to begin by summarizing the points I had intended to make in my original appearance, updating them where necessary, and offering some ideas about first steps in getting to a smarter engagement of China.

It will soon be two years since our current China crisis began with the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, followed by China's retaliatory seizure of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Since then, we've also seen death sentences imposed on Canadians Robert Schellenberg and Fan Wei in circumstances suggesting yet more retaliation. Today brings news that yet another Canadian, Mr. Xu Weihong, is facing the death penalty in China.

Beijing has also resorted to economic blackmail against some of our exports.

As these events have unfolded, we've also witnessed China's growing repression in many places. Dr. Lobsang Sangay has just described the grim situation in Tibet. In Hong Kong, since your last meeting, Beijing has now completed its demolition of the one country, two systems commitment it made to the people of the territory. China's steady assault on the faith, freedom and dignity of the Uighur people has transformed western Xinjiang into a prison camp, a place where China perfects and advertises the technology of the 21st century surveillance state.

Since your last meeting, we've learned that China is enforcing coercive birth control, including abortion, on Uighur women. Impatient with cultural genocide in Xinjiang, China now appears to be experimenting with the real thing.

China's repression resonates personally among Canadians from Hong Kong and among those of Tibetan and Uighur origins. They fear and feel the long arm of the Chinese state, which activates harassment and intimidation here in Canada via various proxy groups.

It was my hope that our government would use this period of crisis to rethink our relationship with China, to consider more clearly what China actually is, where it's going and how this is likely to affect us. However, old approaches die hard. It's not clear that the government has completely given up the fiction that China is our friend, nor has it consistently summoned the courage to speak and act with integrity. Powerfully placed Canadians continue to argue that if we appease China just one more time, all will be well. While it's reassuring that Global Affairs now acknowledges China's “long-term strategic challenge” to Canadian interests and values, which is surely the central lesson of this crisis, the same department somehow originally selected a Chinese company to provide the security technology that screens visitors to our embassies.

Canada suffered more than most from China's deadly lack of transparency at the outset of the SARS epidemic in 2003, and I remember that well from my work in the Asia branch of foreign affairs. It was, therefore, troubling to hear our health minister praise China's response to the current pandemic, even as reasonable concerns about this were emerging.

This isn't just an Ottawa problem. Dangerous myopia about China can also be found at the provincial and municipal levels. Last year, concerned citizens asked the City of Markham, Ontario, not to raise China's flag on its national day, citing, among other things, China's cruel treatment of our detained Canadians. However, the city ignored the protests and China's flag rose over Markham on October 1, just as it did over the prison camps of Xinjiang and Tibet, and over the three jails that hold the two Michaels and their long-incarcerated fellow citizen Huseyin Celil.

Something's wrong here, and it has to change. People need to remember that the ultimate objective of foreign policy is not to flatter, not to obscure inconvenient truths, but to advance and protect Canadian interests and values. I am not suggesting that we insult or provoke China. Rather, I'm proposing that we begin to defend our interests reasonably and realistically by doing two important things.

First, we need to take action, and quickly, against Chinese interference in Canada, starting with the implementation of something like Australia's foreign influence transparency scheme.

Second, we need to identify a few achievable objectives to reduce our vulnerability and dependence. These could include working with allies to establish new supply chains in vulnerable sectors, launching trade diversification efforts for exports targeted by China, and working with allies on measures to frustrate China’s efforts, successful so far, to take on countries one by one, to isolate and dominate.

It goes without saying that this long-overdue course correction must be shared with Canadians, who would be enormously reassured. It would also provide a needed sense of direction to the public service and send an encouraging message to our allies.

These are reasonable first steps, but only first steps. Getting to a relationship with China that protects our interests and values will not be cost-free or easy, but it’s a task we must face up to, because it’s ultimately about making our way as a truly independent country in a changing world.

Thank you. I'd be happy to take questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Mulroney. You've assisted us by keeping your comments quite brief.

We'll go to the first round now.

Ms. Alleslev, you have six minutes.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much for an incredibly powerful and important conversation.

I'm wondering if we could touch on your first comment around “powerfully placed” persons who are influencing us, in terms of policy to appease China. In your other remarks that you provided us, you identified that we have high-placed senior people who, through their connections, may have complicated the relationship with China. Essentially, we do have influence here in Canada.

What can we do to be able to mitigate that influence or bring that influence into the light and protect Canadian interests, so that Canadians can have a clear-eyed perspective on the actual truth, as you said, about our relationship with China and the compromises and threats to our national security?

[David Mulroney]

I think two things are happening. One, some of the people who have spoken out—for example, some of those who signed that recent letter seeking to have Ms. Meng returned to China—I think simply display a kind of fatigue. The effort to remain autonomous and independent in the face of an increasingly aggressive China is great. It worries me when I see people who are thought leaders lacking that sense of energy that it takes to defend our national interests.

But there is something else as well—in fact, Dr. Lobsang Sangay spoke about it—and that is what's referred to as “elite capture”. For a variety of reasons, many of them having to do with money, China has been able to capture the loyalty and attention of elites in many countries, and indeed encourage people to repeat its own talking points.

Australia passed its Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act because it was feeling the effects of this in Australia. Again, Dr. Sangay pointed to some of the transitions where people go from being ministers to being representatives of Chinese corporations. What this would do is simply request transparency. If you choose to go to work for China or for another country, you can do that, but you have to be transparent about it. But if you're a leader—if you're a member of Parliament, a former ambassador or a cabinet minister—you have an extra burden. That is, anything you do to share with a foreign power, directly or through a state-controlled company, the skills, contacts and experience you gained while you had the privilege of serving the Canadian people must be transparently reported to the Canadian people—or the Australian people, in that case.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Could you also speak to almost the inverse, where we actually have Canadian citizens, whether or not of Chinese background, who are being intimidated by the People's Republic of China right here on Canadian territory? What types of things could we do to protect them and also to put them in a position to provide the truth about our relationship with China?

[David Mulroney]

You know, I've spoken to Canadians of Uighur origin. I can recall hearing from a woman who is no longer able to communicate with her children in China. I know other people who have had to say goodbye to their parents because any communication will incriminate the parents, will cause them to be incarcerated or maybe make their conditions even worse than they are.

There are a number of things we can and should be doing. I talked about intimidation by proxy groups, whereby the Government of China activates groups in the diaspora; it activates student groups. We've seen troubling incidents both at McMaster University in Hamilton and at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus. It activates them to attempt to intimidate people from those communities. In one case it was to suppress a Uighur speaker in Hamilton. In another it was to intimidate a woman of Tibetan origin who had become the president of the student council at Scarborough.

That would come under the transparency scheme. If you're acting on behalf of a foreign actor, that must be disclosed. The government would have investigative powers, and there would be criminal sanctions for organizations or people who violated that, who failed to be transparent. It would give us a handle on this kind of intimidation by proxy.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

You make an excellent point about your concern around what you talk about as the courage of our policy-makers, both elected and senior public servants, to protect the national interest. What can we as a committee, as a society, do to encourage, inspire, and almost demand that our institutions have the courage to protect the national security interests when, perhaps, we haven't been able to do that up to this point as effectively as we need to?

[David Mulroney]

You know, my particular concern is the public service. I'm worried that, since this crisis began, although we've done things like raising the travel advisory, the government is continuing to promote visits and exchanges with China. The public service, which does that almost automatically, is quite happy to oblige. You have to lead from the top. People learn from actions.

You also have to avoid normalizing what's happened. By not speaking about what's happening in Xinjiang often enough, we're normalizing something that is the worst human rights crisis we've seen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Alleslev.

Mr. Fragiskatos, you have six minutes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mulroney, for being here and for your work as a public servant, your contributions to the country.

I do want to ask you about the view that many have taken within some media circles, and certainly some opposition members, this idea that a hawkish approach towards China is what is needed. I don't count you in that category, Mr. Mulroney. I think yours is a view that is much more nuanced.

I do want to point your attention to something that you wrote—not recently, actually. It was when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. This is a piece you put forward in Policy Options in May 2015. You were talking about the challenges of being a middle power and a way forward in terms of Canadian foreign policy.

You wrote the following:

[W]e came to take pride in being among the first to close embassies, cut off dialogue and impose sanctions in the face of clearly unacceptable international behaviour. And while our new-found toughness made us the first to pack up and leave, our relatively small size made us among the last to be welcomed back.

What that says to me is that there are second- and third-order consequences to any decision. If the advice that some have given the federal government—as I said, in media circles and I do hear it from the Conservative opposition—is that a much more hawk-like approach is required vis-à-vis China, how do we prepare for possible consequences? I'm thinking not only of the Canadian economy, but of other consequences too. Do you have any advice on that?

I think of the western provinces, for example. We heard from the Canada West Foundation. You can't see it, but I'm looking at data it has amassed. Trade with the western provinces—it's looking at Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and indeed British Columbia most especially—has dramatically increased over the past 10 years. Economic consequences would certainly follow, I think, from a hawk-like approach, but we do have responsibilities to advocate for Canadian values and Canadian interests.

Do you have any thoughts on the matters I've just raised?

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Mulroney.

[David Mulroney]

Thank you.

What I was talking about in Policy Options five years ago was the notion that we have to be smart in our diplomacy. We have to work with allies and we have to take measures that we can achieve—we need to be realistic. The notion that somehow speaking honestly about China is hawk-like, I think, is one of the reasons we never get to a realistic China policy, because people say, “I know China is doing all these things, but there's nothing we can do.” There are a lot of things that we can and should be doing.

One of the things that China seeks to do is to get into your head. They get into your head and get you thinking so much about how catastrophic China's reaction will be that you actually do even less than China was concerned about. You put the red lines out further than China was concerned about, and Canada has been doing that repeatedly.

The reality is that Canada has what China needs. The north of China is a virtual desert. China's agricultural land has been tainted by its industrial pollution. China needs the products that Canada, Australia and the United States produce. They need this over the long term, and we have to remember this.

The other thing I'd say is that China is currently posing a threat to our autonomy as a country. Telling us that we can no longer enforce our extradition treaties is forcing us to change our policy. We have currently shut down our economy because we're concerned about coronavirus. A lot of environmentalists have said—I don't agree with them—that we need to shut down our energy industry to deal with climate change. What price do we put on autonomy? I don't think we have valued it enough.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I only have a couple of minutes left, but I do want to ask you about paths forward.

You talked about working with allies in your introduction. How can we effectively work with like-minded allies in a traditional, middle-power sense? I think there are opportunities, certainly, to do that, but I do worry about, again, the second- and third-order consequences that flow.

If Canada was to decide, on its own, to close embassies, stop dialogue, impose sanctions as some have said—and I think those ideas are worth considering, certainly—there's blowback, potentially, for Canada. Does it make sense for Canada to protect itself by aligning with other middle powers to prevent any of that blowback, as much as possible, from hitting us?

[David Mulroney]

Thank you. You'll recall that what I was advocating was, first, taking steps to push back against Chinese interference in Canada, which is growing; second, protecting our vulnerable supply lines, our exports; and the third thing was, indeed, working with other countries.

One of the things you will all have found working on China is how dynamic it is. The things you were talking about before you went into recess have now changed considerably. One of the things that have changed is the number of countries that now have concerns with China, and there was a great question for Dr. Lobsang Sangay about the China-India crisis in the high Himalayas. Uncharacteristically for China, which is usually quite savvy about these things, it's picking fights with a broad range of countries.

I'm going to have to stop there. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Mulroney, for recognizing the signal I was giving there.

We'll now continue with Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Bergeron, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to address the issue of multilateralism, since the Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke highly of it on July 3. If the COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated one thing, it's the limits of multilateralism. As soon as the national interests of states were implicated, each state simply tried to safeguard its own interests at the expense of the interests of its allies. We've even seen allies going in to get medical supplies to prevent another ally from obtaining the supplies first. Given what the coronavirus crisis has shown us, what are our chances of actually creating some type of common front against China that will stand firm once the national interests of each state become implicated when China implements retaliatory measures?

[David Mulroney]

Thank you.

It's very interesting to watch various interpretations of multilateralism through the pandemic period. I was interested that Australia, for example, which has much greater exposure to China economically than we do—China is its number one partner—began, as a middle power, to convene other middle powers to say, “Let's find out what happened. Let's have an inquiry into how this virus originated. What was the role of the World Health Organization?” China didn't like it much, but Australia began to get take-up from countries that are increasingly going through some of the things we're going through. There's an appetite for that here. What we were doing at the time was our campaign for the non-permanent seat on the Security Council, which to my mind is the multilateralism of the seventies and eighties.

New Zealand offered an even more interesting example. They listened, of course, to the World Health Organization, but they had some of their epidemiologists talk to epidemiologists in Hong Kong and in China. They went through informal networks to get their own sense of what was happening on the ground in China. It's a very creative multilateralism and a modern multilateralism that I think we need to embrace.

I think we would get a good hearing in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, but also with the U.K., with France, and with Australia and New Zealand. There are more and more countries that are feeling as we feel.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I understand what you're saying. However, when you give the example of New Zealand, this doesn't seem to be an argument in favour of multilateralism. As you said, New Zealand had direct contact with Chinese epidemiologists. We saw that state interests were very selfish during the coronavirus crisis. How can we expect states, which are selfishly defending their national interests, to not break a common front against China as soon as China implements retaliatory measures?

[David Mulroney]

This, of course, has been a worry. The old canard was that you shouldn't gang up on China. The result is that China, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, isolates and dominates countries one by one, with the sole exception of the United States. It has done this to Sweden. It's done it to Norway. It's done it to Japan. Australia and New Zealand have felt this. I think there is a growing appetite to talk about this.

The other thing is, just to return to that virtue of optimism that Dr. Sangay mentioned, this is a strong suit for Canada. We're very good at convening people and motivating them and getting them to share our ideas. This should be the objective of our new multilateralism as Canada.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

What are the chances of creating a common front consisting of middle and, presumably, small powers, given China's efforts to establish its new silk road? On the contrary, will some countries be very reluctant to join a common front to discipline China for its retaliatory measures against individual countries?

[David Mulroney]

I think the example of the belt and road is an example of how not to do things. Similarly with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Europeans broke rank in the most undignified way to rush to be the first, and certainly not the last, to curry favour with Beijing, but I think there's a recognition that this is not a smart way to approach it.

What I would do is sit down with half a dozen countries—Australia and New Zealand certainly, but also Sweden—countries that have felt the same kind of people-to-people reprisals we have felt, to say, “How can we come up with common consular language when it comes to the risk you face visiting China? How can we support one another when we have one of our nationals detained?” I never believe in trying to invent a really complicated set of objectives. Why don't we start simply on common measures to protect our citizens? If we had a common travel advisory, that would get China's interest and attention very quickly.