Trudeau-Biden meeting must focus on China By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Tuesday, Mar. 21, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/03/2023 (954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Xi Jinping, the political master of China, arrived in Moscow yesterday to cosy up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the world’s leading warmonger. The visit will encourage Mr. Putin to continue his cruel and outrageous year-old war against neighbouring Ukraine.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden should squarely face the implications of China’s warming relations with Russia during Mr. Biden’s visit in Ottawa on Thursday and Friday. This growing Russia-China friendship makes nonsense of the shared Canada-U.S. plan, conceived two years ago, to treat Xi’s China as a partner to be handled with care.

Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Biden announced in February 2021 their Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership. Roadmaps were fashionable in diplomatic jargon at the time.

The newly inaugurated Mr. Biden was eager to differentiate himself from his predecessor, Donald Trump. The roadmap focused on ending the COVID-19 pandemic and using the post-pandemic reconstruction period to advance women’s rights and minority rights and to combat climate change.

Canada and the U.S., according to the 2021 roadmap, were going to deal with China’s coercive and unfair economic practices, its national security challenges and its human rights abuses “while co-operating with China on areas where it is in our interest, such as climate change.”

In the intervening two years, China’s coercive economic practices, national security challenges and human rights abuses have intensified. The hope of co-operating with China on climate change has led nowhere.

Mr. Xi’s empty talk of mediating an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine and now his friendly gestures toward Vladimir Putin have shown he is not interested in preserving or advancing world peace. His blood-curdling threats against Taiwan and his military exercises around that island nation have shown he wants to follow Mr. Putin’s aggressive example, not stand in his way.

In these conditions, the 2021 roadmap reads today as a naive misreading of Mr. Xi’s intentions. The Chinese leader clearly cares nothing for European and North American views on the rules-based system of international trade. He admires Mr. Putin’s attempt to drag Ukraine back under Moscow’s control and aims to do something similar with Taiwan.

Mr. Trudeau has been looking for a way to tiptoe around the brutal realities of the new China. He has asked former governor general David Johnston to look into reports that China’s government used its power over some Chinese Canadians in order to tilt recent federal elections toward producing a Liberal minority government relatively friendly to China. Mr. Johnston is supposed to tell the government what, if anything, to do about China’s new aggressiveness.

Both men have an optimistic frame of mind, but they should not let optimism blind them to Vladimir Putin’s aggression and Xi Jinping’s admiration for his aggressive neighbour.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau have much to discuss during their two days together this week, including the usual list of trade irritants and the need to upgrade the joint air defence of North America.

Their most useful step, however, would be to re-read their 2021 roadmap and to recognize jointly their shared naiveté about China.

Both men have an optimistic frame of mind, but they should not let optimism blind them to Vladimir Putin’s aggression and Xi Jinping’s admiration for his aggressive neighbour. China’s leader is bent on stamping out the western world’s ideals of limited government, human rights and respect for agreed rules of international conduct — and he doesn’t care what the Justin Trudeaus and Joe Bidens of the world think of his conduct.