Beijing’s Suppression of Dissidents a Sign of How It Would Treat Countries It Influences: Kovrig

.

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig says the way China treats political prisoners and dissidents within its borders is a good sign of how it would treat countries it gains influence over.

“The way the party state treats political prisoners, Canadian citizens who are detained in China, for example, ethnic minorities, citizens of Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and others, the way that it engages in exceedingly repressive tactics and in many cases, human rights violating policies against them, is a preview of how that regime will treat any other country or population over which it acquires influence,” Kovrig told MPs.

He noted that this can be seen through the Chinese regime’s “efforts to coerce and put fear and intimidation” into Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, including people who have immigrated from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Kovrig’s comments come after Prime Minister Mark Carney visited China in January and signed several agreements with Beijing, including on energy, public safety, lumber, and electric vehicles. During the visit, Carney said relations between Canada and China had entered a “new era” and that the two countries were in a “strategic partnership.”

“I think the prime minister and the current government are correct that quite often the most can be accomplished not through public statements, but through quiet diplomatic channels,” Kovrig told MPs.

“So I would not underrate the role of quiet diplomacy, but the problem becomes when the government trades silence for concessions and benefits from China, because that is what the Chinese Communist Party continually will try to do.”

He said the law in the eyes of the CCP is “simply another political tool, an instrument of power” and international treaties and consular agreements “are just paper that are only adhered to if it is seen as being within the political interests of the Communist Party to adhere to them.”

“It is not a system that fundamentally respects contracts,” he added.

China wants to “subvert and influence Canadian politics and society so that Canada doesn’t do anything that is displeasing to [Beijing],” he noted, adding that he advises that the Canadian government moves “cautiously and transparently” in making agreements with Beijing.

Kovrig said the actions that China takes are “directly antithetical” to Canadian interests, and “many of those have been catalogued in the media and in government reports over the last several years.”

The CSIS said this includes, but is not limited to, “acts such as extrajudicial killing, physical assault, unlawful abduction, physical and online surveillance, and obstruction,” and could also include “pressuring or leveraging a targeted individual’s relatives in a foreign state as a means to influence/coerce them.”

Moreover, Kovrig told MPs that China has a long-term strategy to weaken the West and become the preeminent global power.

Ahmadi also said it’s important that Canada diversifies its trade with countries like China, due to the tensions it is facing with the United States, its biggest trading partner.

“That is exactly what he needs to be doing—increasing trade and investment opportunities with other countries in the region to balance the level of commitment that there is in China,” Kovrig told MPs.

“I don’t think it’s at a level of forbidding investment in China or putting up barriers to it, but I don’t think there’s a strategic benefit to Canada to actively encouraging or incentivizing more investment in China.”

.