Beijing’s sanctions opened up new doors for Conservative MP Michael Chong

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This article was published 03/06/2021 (1779 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — You might assume being targeted with sanctions by a world superpower would be an isolating experience.

But for Conservative MP Michael Chong, being sanctioned by the Chinese government has opened up a whole new network of politicians from across the world to help strategize on countering the communist government’s “threats.”

The MP for Wellington-Halton Hills recently joined the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China, a group of 15 politicians who have been targeted by Beijing for criticizing the communist regime.

The group is aimed at building up a network of like-minded legislators to discuss how to counter China’s increasingly heavy-handed diplomacy. In a sense, the group’s existence is evidence the Chinese government’s aggressive approach to foreign relations can backfire.

“The sanctions against us as elected parliamentarians have brought us together,” Chong told the Star this week, saying they’ve held meetings in recent months on “countering China’s threats.”

“The sanctions are a clumsy attempt to silence us, and they have not worked,” he said. “In fact, they’ve backfired, and they’ve brought us together to work in collaboration in a way we haven’t before.”

As an opposition politician, Chong is not representing the Canadian government’s position. He said members of the committee — which includes politicians from the U.K., Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, among others — are not members of the executive branches of their respective countries’ governments.

But that doesn’t mean the delegation is just about chin wagging. China’s sanctioning of members of the European Parliament, for instance, is credited for derailing free trade talks between the EU and China earlier this year.

In March, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs barred Chong from entering China and prohibited Chinese citizens from doing business with him. The move, which also targeted the House of Commons subcommittee on international human rights, was seen as punishment for criticizing the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau denounced the Chinese sanctions against Chong, with Trudeau calling them an “attack on transparency and freedom of expression.”

The opposition Conservatives have held an aggressive stance on Canada-China relations going back years, and relations between the two countries deteriorated at a rapid pace after the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in late 2018.

Meng was detained by Canadian authorities at the request of the United States, where she is wanted on fraud charges. She continues to fight extradition to the U.S.

In what was widely seen as retaliation, Chinese authorities detained and charged Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor on national security charges. The two men have been jailed in China since December 2018.

Alex Boutilier is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @alexboutilier