Juno News - January 22, 2020The Liberals don't want to talk about China
Episode Stats
Summary
Special committee on the Canada-China relationship is already getting underway in the House of Commons, and it's important to hear from our new ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, to give us a window into what's happening in China and how the Liberal government views it.
Transcript
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it's really great to see that the special committee on the Canada-China relationship
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is already getting underway in the House of Commons now you'll remember that this
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committee when it was first voted upon well the Liberals tried to shut it down
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kind of like back during lab scam when they wanted to shut down ethics and
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justice committee hearings they did not like this proposal first put forward by
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conservative MP Aaron O'Toole to have a committee of all the parties to sit down
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in the House of Commons and really examine the Canada-China relationship
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yes the particulars of certain issues but the whole thing to take a step back and
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maybe get one of those resets that a whole bunch of experts and analysts have been
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urging well the Liberals they failed to shut it down because oops that's what
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happens when you no longer have a majority and you're now minority government
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territory and the opposition including the Bloc and the NDP they liked Aaron O'Toole's
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idea they approved this committee so they had their first meeting on Monday and
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as usually goes with committee meetings the first time around the first one was
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relegated to talking about process and who's gonna do what and who we're gonna
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invite and so forth but they did agree that they would invite our new ambassador
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to China Dominic Barton bring him in and give us the lay of the land really
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important to hear from him his take on what's happening that will give us a
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window into perhaps what's happening in China but more likely perhaps a window
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into how the Liberal government views all of this and how it can be that they
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are so seemingly not approaching this in any sort of rigorous way with a formal
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framework you know I urged a committee just like this to happen a number of
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months ago I wrote some columns and did some commentary saying we need to do
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things like they're doing in the US they have something called the committee on
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the present danger that Donald Trump has only just convened to take a whole look
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at China and the rising global superpower that really threatens American
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dominance of the world in a number of spheres what is China doing what does China
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want what is Xi Jinping saying where does he want to head his country in the
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coming decades what does all of that mean for the United States what does it mean
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for Canada go back and ask these rudimentary questions now back in the
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1940s there was something called the Kennan telegram a American diplomat
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stationed over in the Soviet realm he wrote George Kennan was his name he wrote
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something now famously known as the long telegram where he said we've got to do
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something like this we've got to talk about the Soviets who they are what they
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want what their views are we can't just base it on our own expectations we can't
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project our own values onto them we need to have a robust discussion and they did
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in the Kennan telegram that played a role in informing how Washington actually got
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their game together to deal with the Soviets and to think strategically about it
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that's the problem here Canada's tactics are all flawed dealing with China
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because our strategy is well it's actually non-existent Canadians want to have a
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national conversation about this they want to open all this up and and have it so we
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can all be a part of this it seems like the liberals just want to keep it all shut
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some prominent former liberals they just want it to be so shut that we just
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quickly do a prisoner exchange between Meng Wang Zhu and Michael Kovrig and Michael
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Spavor and then be done with it and go back to those nice business deals that
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were feathering some people's nests I can name one person who's made that exact
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argument Eddie Goldenberg former chief of staff to Jean Chrétien he made that
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argument over this past weekend in a Globe and Mail guest column unbelievable it is
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unbelievable that there's serious people out there people connected to Jean
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Chrétien and by the way Chrétien himself has winked at such a prisoner exchange who
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would make this suggestion these are guys who seemingly don't want to acknowledge
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that China is different now under Xi Jinping it is not becoming more liberal and
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democratic and capitalist and all those things that people in the 1990s
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projected they would be no president Xi Jinping he is really the most hardline
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leader since chairman Mao that's how everybody in the know describes the guy so
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there's no caving to them there's no nicey-nice try and wash all of this over
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and pretend it didn't happen no we need to do with this committee and broadly in
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public opinion and hopefully around the table with the liberal cabinet open up the
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issue there's no putting the genie back in the bottle now and really have a full
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discussion about the Canada and China relationship because our entire future