In Defence of China
"Canadians are saying to Chinese friends that we don't want them to make the same mistakes. We do so not because we have a superior moral position, not because we have the answers to the problems they are trying to solve and not because we want to embarrass China. We do it because of the pain we feel over what happened in our own country and for what we can learn from each other in not making such mistakes again.""[Canadians wouldn't tolerate mass arrests, forcing people to attend schools, sterilizing women or relocating villages], except that we did all of those things, and we did them throughout our short history as a country, most appallingly to Indigenous peoples, but also to recent immigrants and minority groups who were deemed undesirable, untrustworthy or just un-Canadian.""On a different question about the degree of democracy, respondents in China expressed greater satisfaction with the status quo in their country than did respondents in Canada or the United States.""The management of relations with other countries, especially great powers, is exceedingly complex and does not lend itself to one-off pronouncements that are based on the desire to perform without the responsibility to manage.""The fact that China does not share our view of individual freedoms or, indeed, our interpretation of freedoms based on the Charter is not a basis on which to lecture the Chinese on how they should govern themselves."Senator Yuen Pau Woo, Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Independent B.C. Sen. Yuen Pau Woo has criticized Canada for condemning China's treatment of its Uyghur minority. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press) |
Beijing
is not shy about telling other countries not to interfere in China's
internal relations in seeking out harmony between its peoples. Tibetans,
Chinese Christians, the Falon Gong movement, Turkic minorities, the
Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province all face oppressive situations of
illegitimacy in the treatment meted out to them by the Chinese Communist
Party which wants all of its citizens to be uniformly loyal, speaking
the same language, thinking the same thoughts, venerating the CCP and
President Xi, never venturing into opposition territory.
All
of China's actions against its minority groups are fairly well known to
the international community, most of whom feel that whatever China does
is China's business, but for many Western democracies which decry
China's oppressive autocracy. Rumours of body organs taken from
prisoners for transplant in transplant tourism in China have not gained
it much admiration abroad. Similarly charges that a million Uyghurs have
been imprisoned, used as slave labour, brainwashed to deny their
culture, traditions, religion and language have brought universal
censure to China.
Beijing
has an immense propaganda machine, has invested vast sums in
establishing its Confucius centres in foreign academic institutions in
the interests of serving as a link to greater friendship between
countries through familiarity with Chinese history, culture and
traditions to support an aura of relaxed trust between the West and
China. It has also infiltrated other countries through its United Front
Work Department which calls upon its former citizens living abroad to
remind them that they have an obligation to their mother country to come
to its defence.
Chinese
expatriates the world over have entered governments and business and
academia at every level, gaining trust and respect for their
intelligence and skills and experience, while some among them at the
same time nudge their adopted countries toward closer ties with China.
China's influence and control has grown through its generous funding of
developing nations' infrastructure in its Belt and Road initiative,
through loans and technical assistance, in the process indebting
countries to a benefactor and placing them in financial difficulties to
repay the loans.
People wearing masks are seen during a rally in Hong Kong in 2019 showing support for Uyghurs and their fight for human rights. (Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press) |
The
Parliament of Canada, like many of its collegial-nation countries has
seen fit to charge Beijing with cultural genocide aimed at its Uyghur
and Tibetan population, which enrages President Xi Jinping. And
Canadian-Chinese Senator Woo has cleverly and persuasively taken up a
gentle verbal cudgel of admonishing Canada for its arrogance in charging
Beijing with cultural genocide when Canada itself has perpetrated a
very similar program dating from the 19th century targeting its
Indigenous First Nations population.
The
issue of the residential school system where it became law for Indian,
Metis and Inuit children to attend these residential schools operated on
behalf of the government of Canada by religious communities, and where
First Nations children were scooped into the residential schools away
from their families and tribes to be indoctrinated into the superior
culture of European settlers laid waste to the culture of First Nations.
Their children forbidden to speak their native languages, given new
names, unable to see their parents, fed inappropriate food, harshly
punished and given inadequate medical care.
Other
appointed senators in the Red Chamber of 'sober second thought' in
Parliament took umbrage at Senator Woo's first speech after being
appointed to the Senate by the current Prime Minister in 2016, as a
China apologist when he argued against a motion for the government of
Canada to urge China to reduce tension in the South China Sea, his first
message being to "deliver a message not on behalf of Canadians, but on behalf of Beijing". Senator Woo has also said that Canada "should give up on the idea that it is part of Canada's mission to change China".
As
for Senator Woo's contention that Chinese are more satisfied with their
government than are Canadians with theirs and Americans with their own,
he might be reminded that Beijing closely tracks each and every Chinese
citizen, knows the most intimate things about them; tunes in to their
behaviour and their expressed opinions. Chinese simply do not express
criticism of their government for legitimate fear of punishment in
retribution. Canadians and Americans have the guaranteed freedom to do
so if they wish.
In this 2018 file photo, a guard tower and barbed wire fence surround a detention facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region. (Ng Han Guan/AP Photo) |
It
is really difficult to be too harsh over Senator Woo's position. An
intelligent man, well spoken and making comparisons between the two
countries on a superficial level, bypassing the aggressive stance China
has taken toward its neighbours' claims to disputed border territories,
from India to the Philippines, Japan to Korea and Vietnam, the world's
trading colossus has revealed its agenda as a bully. One that does not
hesitate to use the most underhanded methods of spying on other
countries to snatch trade, military and government secrets for its own
use.
Its
transgressions are legion, from cyber espionage to infiltration of
other nations while warning the international community that China
itself will brook no interference in its internal affairs, much less its
external affairs, threatening other nations that spurn offers to link
their communication systems to China's, a country that seeks to dominate
every sphere of human endeavour, from amassing rare earth minerals to
investing in other countries' national enterprises, the better to rise
to the top.
Labels: People's Republic of China, Residential Schools, Senate of Canada, Tibetans, Uyghurs
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