Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee this morning.
The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada was created by an act of Parliament in 1984. It's funded by the federal and provincial governments and the private sectors, and it is an independent think tank on Canada-Asia relations. It aims to broaden public understanding of Asia and to be a resource for Canadians in making policy choices about how to respond to and influence the enormous changes that are happening across the Pacific.
Mr. Marchi and I come today at the end of a long number of witnesses who have been before the subcommittee over the last four months. You have heard a great deal about human rights conditions in China, individual consular cases, and the approach and instruments that Canada is using to protect Canadian citizens and promote human rights and democratic governments inside China.
My remarks will focus on the broader political and economic context in which the bilateral human rights agenda is playing out. I have two main points to make today. The first is that however important the state of human rights in China is to Canadians, this is just one of several big issues in our bilateral agenda with China. The second is that it is essential to establish a positive political relationship at the most senior levels before we turn to any of these issues, whether they be human rights, commerce and trade, human exchanges, or management of a host of global problems.
Recent events suggest that the political relationship between Canada and China is on unusually shaky ground. The public response indicates that Canadians are not of a single mind about how to manage the relationship with China. Here, we are not alone. China poses huge challenges for every country in Asia and around the world.
Our current debate in Canada is almost unique, because it does not centre on global economic shift, trade irritants, job losses, international hot spots, or the strategic risks of China's rise. Rather, in Canada the debate has been about political conditions inside China and in the current context a particular consular case.
Human rights are important to Canadians. A survey we conducted last year in association with The Globe and Mail found that 63% of Canadians believe the human rights situation in China is better today than it was ten years ago. At the same time, 72% agree that promoting democracy and human rights in Asia should be a priority for the Government of Canada.
Few doubt that China has become a global economic and political force. It is now the second-largest trading partner of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It now exports more to the United States than does Canada. By our studies, it is likely to become America's principal trading partner within five years.
China is not just the shop floor of the world; it is at the centre of regional and global supply chains that are transforming the world economy. Chinese multinationals are shopping the world for assets, and not just in the resource sector. China is no longer out there, it is here, the sharp edge of globalization and a daily economic presence for most Canadians. It affects what we produce and consume, the nature of our jobs, and our role in the world.
The road to solving the world's big problems, from global climate change to UN reform to human security in Darfur to the weaponization of space to global counter-insurgency, still run through Washington, but they now run through Beijing as well.
The Government of Canada now appears to be on a somewhat different track from its Liberal and Conservative predecessors in responding to the rise of global China. Its principled foreign policy emphasizes freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The government has not issued a major statement on China policy, but it is signalling something that some have characterized as “cool politics, warm economics”, a phrase first used to describe the Sino-Japanese relationship under former Prime Minister Koizumi.
Our Prime Minister's public remarks have focused on human rights and consular issues, and he has already said that he will not sacrifice human rights for the almighty dollar. A variety of cabinet ministers are tending to the functional parts of our relationship with China.
This approach is not an easy sell in Beijing. China's assistant foreign minister commented in early February that the economic relationship goes hand in hand with the political relationship.
Some fear that with cool politics and warm economics, Canada risks playing a game of chicken against a bulldozer. They argue that it will be impossible to make progress on complicated consular cases and the broader human rights file without a working political relationship at the most senior levels. They observe that the new government set a positive tone with Washington before moving matters like the Arar case to prominence in the bilateral agenda, and they have noted that the new Prime Minister of Japan, despite abiding differences with China, has made a strong effort to warm up the political side of Japanese relations with China to a temperature equivalent to that of the economic.
Many are worried that a cool relationship with top Chinese leaders will have economic consequences. Here we need to be very careful in assessing the claim. Most commercial transactions with China are commercial in nature and largely untouched by high-level politics, but there are genuine concerns that some high-value commercial transactions do depend upon high-level government involvement, for example, in big infrastructure projects that depend on government procurement, and in the area of aviation and financial services, which are subject to government regulation.
The longer-term economic risk is that the efforts to form new partnerships, the big thinking around the Pacific gateway, and opportunities for joint research and development projects may be held back. The immediate diplomatic risk is that without a comprehensive relationship, we will lose traction with Beijing on a range of global policy issues ranging from Kyoto to Darfur.
It is unwise to overestimate Canadian access to top Chinese decision-makers on any of these issues, but it is equally unwise to think that cool political relations will increase our access or impact. The sobering human risk is that we are dealing with a long list of consular and related matters in which there are already many irritants on both sides and a growing flow of transnational migrants to complicate the picture. By the estimates of my foundation, we think there are more than 300,000 Canadian passport holders in the area of greater China.
For the first time since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1970, we are back to a national debate about the fundamentals of the relationship. It is not clear that the strategic partnership announced during the visit of President Hu Jintao to Canada in September 2005 is still in place, and it is not clear whether we are starting a new chapter or a new book in the relationship with China.
Over the past three decades, the Canadian government and civil society actors have developed a range of instruments for monitoring and promoting human rights in China. This subcommittee has heard proposals for several new initiatives.
Let me conclude by adding one more proposal for the committee's consideration. It concerns corporate social responsibility beyond China's borders. In addition to China's undertaking activities at home, it plays a role as a major investor and developer in projects around the world, which is becoming big news, especially in Africa and Latin America. Codes and practices in the conduct of business, labour relations, and provisions for transparency and accountability of Chinese companies all have a big impact on tens of millions of people outside of China, and they have a big impact on China's international reputation and influence. This is a frontier issue, part of dealing with a global China, and a problem of mutual concern for Canada and China, in which the Canadian government, our NGOs, and our business sector can work together in providing leadership and new connections with counterparts in a global China.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.