Why is Ottawa still bungling the China file?

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Why is Ottawa still bungling the China file?
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/598211

Bill Schiller Mar 07, 2009 04:30 AM


PAUL CHIASSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
Flag bearer Adam van Koeverden leads the Canadian contingent into Beijing's National Stadium Aug. 8, 2008. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been criticized for deciding not to attend the 2008 Olympics in China's capital.

As Canada dawdles on bridge-building with Beijing, countries like Australia are cleaning up, critics say

BEIJING – Former prime minister Joe Clark was among the first to criticize.

Then came a report from conservative think-tank the Fraser Institute, accompanied by critical comments from former Conservative foreign affairs minister David Emerson.

Then Bob Rae piled on. So did Liberal trade critic Scott Brison.

And finally, last week, Canadian political scientist Charles Burton weighed in.

Everyone has the same message: when will Ottawa cease bungling the China file and build Canada's relationship with the world's fastest growing economy, a rising power and Canada's second largest trade partner – a country Stephen Harper has yet to visit since becoming prime minister in February 2006?

Critics say while Canada has dawdled, other countries like Australia have been eating our lunch.

"It's a question of attitude," says Burton, a Brock University professor who has done two stints at Canada's embassy here in Beijing. "Australia places importance on the Asia-Pacific market and on China in particular," he says. "Canada has yet to assign that kind of importance to China."

Numbers tell the story.

Ottawa says Canada's exports to China rose to $10.4 billion last year, an increase of 10.5 per cent. But Australia's exports last year totalled $47 billion – a whopping increase of 44 per cent year over year.

Australia has no obvious structural advantages: the population is two-thirds that of Canada; it's economy is smaller – in GDP the World Bank ranks Canada 9th, the Aussies 15th; and flying times from Beijing to Vancouver and Beijing to Sydney are the same – in fact, the air time to Vancouver is a little shorter.

In Beijing, the Canadian and Australian embassies are even located on the same street, side by side.

The difference, Burton observes, is that Australia has made China a priority.

Canada has not.

Canada's approach to China has grown "stagnant," "out of date" and "less and less effective," he says.

Australia, by comparison, has leapt at the chance to engage the Middle Kingdom with enthusiasm and efficiency – assigning "higher ranks" of diplomats to its Beijing post, says Burton.

Of course, it helps to have a prime minister like Kevin Rudd, who majored in Chinese language and history in university, is proficient in Mandarin and was posted to Beijing as a diplomat before entering Australian politics.

And he knows something about the ever-sensitive topic of human rights in China too, having completed his thesis on Chinese democracy activist, Wei Jingsheng, now in Washington.

Rudd is equipped to engage the Chinese on all fronts.

Back in Ottawa, Rae, the Liberals' foreign affairs critic, lambasted Harper last week for what Rae called his "amateurish approach" to Canada-China relations.

He urged the Prime Minister to "reach out to China directly and ... repair the damage he and his government have done."

That damage, Rae said, included Harper's decision not to attend the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Conservative MP Rob Anders' comparing the Beijing Games to those hosted by the Nazis in 1936 and then-foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay's dismissive treatment of China's ambassador when that diplomat appealed for an initial meeting.

"Mr. Harper must change course," Rae said.

It isn't just the usual suspects who are criticizing.

Emerson, Harper's former foreign affairs minister, has called on the government to engage China too – acknowledging in an interview the party was riven by divisions over the China file.

In a forward to the Fraser Institute report on Canada-China trade last month, he too lamented that "many countries" were realizing "substantial benefits" at Canada's expense.

He called for "an intensification of Canada's economic relations with China."

But just this week, Trade Minister Stockwell Day assured the Star that such efforts are underway. The government is keen to pursue opportunities with China, he said.

"We're being very aggressive about it – in a positive way," Day stressed.

He'll be in China next month to open two of six new Canadian trade offices announced last year, in cities home to more than 50 million Chinese people.

Clark has been highly critical of Harper's treatment of foreign affairs for being too Washington-centric.

But Brock political scientist Burton emphasizes it's not just the Conservatives who are to blame. The trend that led to the current malaise of missed opportunity goes back 10 years or more, he says.

When other countries were fine-tuning their missions, getting ready to capitalize on the new opportunities of a rising China, Canada wasn't.

As a result, "our gains haven't kept pace with the overall expansion of the Chinese economy," he says. "We're losing market share to Australia, the U.S., Britain and Europe."

And we're ill equipped to claw it back.

"Nearly all Canadian diplomats posted in China lack any serious language skills," his report notes. "Most cannot read the local daily newspaper or understand the nightly news on television.

"These circumstances seriously inhibit trade promotion at the time when Canada continues to lose market share."

A fluent Mandarin speaker who studied at Shanghai's Fudan University, Burton stresses that Ottawa needs to rethink the way it drafts candidates for Beijing, seek out specialists who have the highest degree of language and cultural skills, and assign them to longer postings to make best use of their expertise.

Day defended the language competency of top embassy staff saying "nine of the 11 positions in the political, economic and public affairs sections are currently staffed with fluent Mandarin speakers."

Said Burton: "While there is a language training program for Canadian diplomats, it does not actually bring them up to speed to understand the TV news or read newspapers. I stand by what I've said."

And the contentious issue of human rights in China? The Harper government won't be backing away from its principles, Day said.

"Human rights are a foreign policy priority for Canada," he reiterated.

"But we think that effective, principled and sustained engagement with China is the most effective way to advance our priorities.

"Progress on trade and progress on human rights are not mutually exclusive."

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