For all of the confusion about where the Ottawa-Washington meltdown will lead, one thing seems certain. The big winners of this diplomatic collapse will be China and other repressive dictatorships eager to become our new “strategic” partners and further undermine the world’s stabilizing democracy bloc.
Opinion piece by Charles Burton, former diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing, senior fellow at Sinopsis.cz, a China-focused think tank based in Prague, Czech Republic. He is and author of ‘The Beaver and the Dragon: How China Out-Manoeuvred Canada’s Diplomacy, Security and Sovereignty’.
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Beijing in particular wants to inherit Canada’s economic dependence. Establishing such a broader North American beachhead will only further President Xi Jinping’s resolute goal of displacing the U.S. as a global hegemon, and cementing a China-dominated world order whose very foundation is the rejection of democratic freedoms and human rights.
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If Canada ever reaches a point where attacks on our economy put families’ livelihoods at stake, then standing firm on our moral principles will give way to tolerating – or at least ignoring – human rights abuses in exchange for restoring Canadian prosperity through trade and investment with the likes of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and China. As someone who has been sanctioned by both Beijing and Moscow for standing up for Canadian democratic and civil values in global affairs, this prospect is deeply troubling.
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When Mr. Xi makes a landmark trip to North America next month, it is expected he will add a Canadian stop, the first time in 16 years a Chinese head of state has visited this country. And this at a time when there have been calls for Ottawa to scrap restrictions on importing Chinese-made EVs, to locate Chinese auto factories here, and to even encourage Canadians to buy “Great Wall wine” instead of Californian.
In contrast to the belligerent threats that Canadians have been conditioned to expect from Washington, the Chinese President will project dignity and a tone of respect and goodwill toward Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Canadian business associates, who will be offering a warm welcome to the Chinese delegation.
But like Howitt’s “Spider and the Fly,” in which a cunning spider uses seduction and manipulation to lure a fly into its web, Canada should be wary of those who wield flattery and charm to disguise other intentions. Rushing to embrace China’s expansionist and calculating totalitarian regime will never work out well for Canada’s overall interest.
In the current hostile landscape, Canada could find itself deeply regretting coming out of an American frying pan into a Chinese fire.
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If it has to be relevant, shorten that list to just this century. It’ll be a lot less impressive then. And still shorter than the list for non-democracies.
Seems like a pretty arbitrary cut-off. The US has been brazenly aggressive, colonial, and uninterested in protecting democracies for the whole time it’s been around, it was never different from this and it never changed from its colonizer history.
It won’t, actually. The vast majority of those are from this century. Is this your first time hearing about stuff like Operation Condor or something? You know, the whole project of subverting and assassinating left-wing politicians across all of South America and replacing them with far-right dictators?
Why would it need to be limited to non-democracies? The claim was not just that the US promotes democracy, but also stability. If the US destabilizes a region by overthrowing or assassinating the only person who was keeping things together, that’s a valid example too.
Again, in the vast majority of cases we are talking about democracies, because the thing about democracies is that when the people are in control, they tend to not like letting the country be colonized and exploited, and the thing about the US is that it wants to colonize and exploit every country it possibly can.
With dictators, on the other hand, that’s like one guy who you just have to bribe, and he’ll keep the oil or whatever flowing because he’s getting rich off it while the people suffer, and he knows they only reason they’re not chopping his head off is because of the foreign power backing him up. It’s no wonder the US loves destroying democracies and establishing dictatorships, because dictators understand that the spice must flow.
You know what, I have an idea. Since you have so many issues with my list, how about you make your own? List off all the countries the US has overthrown that 1) were not democratic, and 2) became democratic afterwards. That’ll be the shortest list of all.
It’s the 21st century right now… Like, that’s generous. Even the early 'oughts are questionably relevant, since nobody would start a war over 9/11 now.
You could talk about the knock-on effects of whatever war, as well, but then you’re right back to the Peloponnesian war mattering.
I’m probably just going to cut it off here, since you want to rage jerk, and my point has been made.
When I hear “this century” I assume you mean “the past 100 years.” I didn’t realize you meant the past 26 years, which is even more arbitrarily restrictive. There are still plenty of examples from that period, just as there would be if you arbitrarily limited the scope to a similar span of time anywhere in US history, because it’s a consistent pattern of behavior.
Lmao, what?? What is this talking point supposed to be? We’re literally still in the Middle East fighting “radical Islam.” Not to mention that so-called “emergency measures” like the Patriot Act are still in place and will be for the foreseeable future.
No? My point is that the US is and has always been a destabilizing, anti-democratic, colonizing power. It’s relavent to include historical examples that prove that it’s a consistent pattern of behavior. If I just pointed out recent wars, then you’d probably try to pretend that it’s just some recent trend, if I just pointed out less recent wars you’d say it’d changed since then. It’s nonsense to arbitrarily limit which examples are allowed just because you don’t like the facts.
Meanwhile this talking point of “list every war by a non-democracy” is a complete non-sequitor, a “whataboutism” that has nothing to do with anything.
If you say stupid bullshit expect to be called on it.
Lmao, what point would that be? That the US is less imperialistic than fucking ancient Rome? You haven’t made any point whatsoever, just attempted, very badly, to invent excuses for imperialism and authoritarianism.