The Start-Up Nation

"Seventy-Five years ago, on the fifth day of Iyar on the Hebrew lunar calendar, which falls on April 26 this year, on the eve of Great Britain pulling out of Palestine, the region's Jewish community declared 'the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel'."

"The Zionist movement was formed to re-establish the ancient Jewish homeland in Judaea, as a refuge for a people who faced centuries of persecution. At the end of the 19th century, the World Zionist Organization began building the institutions that would form the basis of an eventual state."

"Following the Holocaust, Zionism came to be seen not just as a dream, but as an existential imperative for a people who had barely escaped total annihilation."

From ubiquitous carbonated water to drip irrigation for growing crops in the desert, the USB key and anti-missile systems, Israel has a talent for creating things the world wants.

 

Modern-day Israel has distinguished itself as a innovative hub of human creativity, a vast beehive of technological advances as well as an agricultural focus on the art of the possible. In an arid landscape where water is always in short supply, its lack through normal means and natural resources has been rectified by coercing nature to cooperate with enterprising methods in resupply to huge advantage not only to Israel but in sharing its remedies to the rest of the water-scarce world.

 

Ranking highest in the world for per-capita startups, Israel's rate of tech investment has registered as much as 28 times greater than the United States. In the 1980s, the USB stick was invented in Israel. Israeli agricultural scientists popularized the cherry tomato. Smartphones with Waze operate with Israeli code. The brilliant inventive power of Israeli scientists has led to all manner of inventions uniquely Israeli which become technologies with global spread.

 

Translation machines represent a particular Israeli tech inspiration possibly reflective of the many langues aside from the country's national Hebrew, being spoken. Babylon, one of the first software programs offering instantaneous translation of documents and web pages was the work of an Israeli company in 1997. In the 1990s Wizcom Technologies debuted pens able to scan words and translate them to an LCD screen. OrCam Read, a hand-held device, can scan printed pages and read them aloud. 

One of the country's first major technical challenges to face Israeli scientists was how to maximize scarce water resources. Israeli geography is largely desert; almost all sources of surface water arrive through neighbouring territories hostile to Israel. Israel now produces 20 percent more water than required internally, with three major initiatives.

 

Huge desalination plants to repurpose sea water into potable water; a centralized water management system repurposing wastewater, replenishes aquifers and moves awater through a complex system of canals, pipes and reservoirs. Irrigation, the third, a method of agriculture developed in the 1950s where water crops use targeted drips instead of sprinklers. 

 

The Pillcam ESO is used to photograph a patient’s esophagus.

 

Rewalk, a robotic exoskeleton enabling paraplegics to walk, grabbed world attention to gawk at Israeli medical technology. Israeli researchers invented tiny cameras and sensors to be introduced into the human body; disposable 'cameras'-in-a-pill, the PillCam that can be swallowed to allow doctors to view the state of a body's internal organs. An off shoot of Israel's security tech sector. Surveillance cameras, drones and spy cameras, part of Israeli defence technology.

ENvizion Medical based in Tel Aviv created a "smart" feeding tube to help chart its path down the esophagus, meant to prevent health-care providers from accidentally sending the tube into the lungs. Another, a flexible and high-resolution Aer-O-Scope colonoscope sends a tube to scope around the human colon. 

Israel's never-ending concern over hostile neighbours scheming to destroy it by incremental attacks and lethal violence required technology capable of destroying incoming missiles. The country's military poses an advanced catalogue of technologies designed to shoot down missiles; Iron Dome the most famous among them. About 90 percent of incoming rockets and artillery shells are blocked from landing through the latticework of sensors and interceptor missiles along Israel's border.

 

Israel has an advanced catalogue of technologies designed to shoot down missiles from hostile neighbours.

 

A qick reaction missile -- Arrow 3 -- "designed to intercept and destroy the newest, longer-range threats, especially those carrying weapons of mass destruction" has been developed. A tiny anti-missile system to be attached to tanks and armoured vehicles is the Trophy countermeasure system, designed to detect an incoming anti-tank missile and disarm it at the last second with a burst of small projectiles.

Rob Regent of SGW Designworks breaks down a 9 mm smart gun, which works only for the designated user, during a presentation Friday in Boise, Idaho.    Brian Losness / Reuters

"In times of stress, somebody who is authorized is going to pick up the firearm but they have to do that [extra] step."

"Maybe it makes them pause and go 'Hey, do I really want to be doing this right now'?"

"[User authentication steps are a physical buffer against accidents, suicides and crimes—and a psychological barrier.]"

Ginger Chandler, co-founder, smart gun maker LodeStar Works

 

"The whole smart gun argument ignores the most common way guns are used to kill in the US—suicide by the person who bought the gun."

Daniel Webster, director, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research 

"I don't have a crystal ball to know whether it's going to be good on balance, bad on balance or ultimately like other smart guns in the past—kind of a dud."

Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and policy director, gun control advocacy group Giffords

Colorado-based Biofire is also developing a smart gun with a fingerprint reader, which was designed by 19-year-old Kai Kloepfer. Kloepfer spent four years designing a handgun with a fingerprint reader built into the grip and won the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation in 2014 for the innovation

 

Hope and skepticism, but it's on its way into the American firearms market, and likely before long the innovative technology will be established elsewhere around the globe. Not, however, taking the place of arms illegally used or valued by drug cartel and smuggling gangs, not to mention militias in areas of the world where shooting is designed for and meant to kill.

 

There is certainly a promise, an allure of a personalized smart guns designed to be fired exclusively by verified users and their circulation in the United States follows two decades of uncertainty about reliability amidst concerns a new wave of government regulation will be ushered in to meet a new challenge. Safety and security is the key selling point in a nation where gun ownership and gun deaths are legendary.

 

A 9mm smart handgun was unveiled for shareholders and investors by LodeStar Works in Boise, Idaho this month. Law enforcement agents, according to Kansas-based SmartGunz LLC, are beta testing its own product, smaller and simpler in design. Both companies aspire to have a finished product commercially available to consumers this year.

 

The inspiration for LodeStar was hearing about too many stories of children shot while playing with an unsecured firearm, according to the company's co-founder, Gareth Glaser. Such tragedies could be stopped through the use of technology that must authenticate a user's identity to enable use of the gun; otherwise it is disabled when an unauthorized user attempts to shoot.

 

Test-firing of the LodeStar gun is new. A third-generation prototype was fired by a range officer without issue. The cost of such a weapon would be US$895 retail. Large-scale manufacturing would come with its own challenges, but following years of trial and error the technology is considered sufficiently advanced, the microelectronics well-protected in the gun interior.

 

"We finally feel like we're at the point where ... let's go public. We're there", said Glaser. Either fingerprint unlocking or radio frequency identification technology enabling the gun to fire only when a chip in the gun communicates with another chip worn by the user in a ring or bracelet, exemplified most early smart gun prototypes.

 

Both a fingerprint reader and a near-field communication chip activated by a phone app, plus a PIN pad has been integrated by LodeStar in its new product. More than one user can be authorized for the gun's use, where the fingerprint reader unlocks the gun in microseconds. It may not, however work, when wet or in other adverse conditions, so the PIN pad is there as a backup to enable the gun as swiftly as users open the app on their phones.

 

SmartGunz' weapons are secured by radio frequency identification in a model developed to sell at US$1,785 for law enforcement, and US$2,195 for civilian use according to Kansas Democratic State Senator Tom Holland who co-founded the company in 2020. Biofire based in Colorado is developing a smart gun with a fingerprint reader. 

 

"If I had a nickel for every time in my career I heard somebody say they're about to bring us a so-called smart gun on the market, I'd probably be retired now", Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association said. 

 

"The other side tipped their hand because they used smart guns to ban everything that's not a smart gun", executive director Scott Bach of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs said. "It woke gun owners up." In reference to a 2019 New Jersey law that all gun shops in the state offer smart guns once they become available, replacing a 2002 law that would ban the sale of any handgun other than smart guns.

 

In 1999 Smith & Wesson pledged to promote smart gun development in an agreement with the U.S. government, leading the National Rifle Association to sponsor  a boycott leading to a drop in revenue, in response.

 

German company Armatix in 2014 put a smart .22 calibre pistol on the market but when hackers found a way to remotely jam the gun's radio signals and with the use of magnets, fire the gun when it should have been locked, it was pulled from stores.

Ginger Chandler, LodeStar Works SVP and Chief Technical Officer, makes presentation on the breakdown of their smart gun, which works only for the designated user.  Brian Losness / Reuters

 

Finally, Locking The Barn Door ...

"The agencies will form a view, and for the partnerships that are deemed high risk, they will not be funded."

"The bottom line is that [research projects] that are found to be high-risk will not be funded and those which come with a low-to-medium risk assessment will be required to have risk-mitigation measures put in place."

Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne

 

"Money is no object in Chinese R&D, and the Chinese partner in most cases would be happy to step in to fund what would otherwise have been the NSERC [Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council] portion."

"This would still have Canadian researchers contributing to projects that hold a national security risk for Canada."

"The guidelines seem to be limited to areas where there is federal funding. National security threats are hardly limited to areas receiving federal funding and these guidelines should cover all university research in a way that reflects federal responsibility for all aspect of national security."

Richard Fadden, former CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) director

A view by drone of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg on Wednesday, June 9, 2021. (Trevor Lyons/Radio-Canada)

 

The Liberal government was recently on the embarrassing political hot seat with opposition parties insisting on assessing information in Parliament relating to the situation that took place at Canada's high-security microbiology laboratory when two Chinese scientific investigators, a husband and wife, were summarily escorted out of the laboratory in 2019 and a year later when their high security credentials were revoked, fired from the lab. Escorted out of the lab at the time was a number of Chinese biology students working alongside them at the National Microbiology Laboratory.

An unauthorized shipment of Ebola and Henipah viruses left the laboratory, sent to the Wuhan Institute of Microbiology with which the two scientists collaborated. It was also revealed that a microbiology specialist who worked for the People's Liberation Army biology laboratory was employed for a while at the Winnipeg laboratory. China has long had a habit of exploiting secret data, the intellectual property of other countries, lifting it and treating it as their own, providing useful short-cuts to refine their own scientific investigations.

Xiangguo Qiu, her biologist husband and her students were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019. The RCMP have been investigating a possible 'policy breach' reported by the Public Health Agency of Canada. (CBC)

The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fought to deny the opposition Conservatives in the House of Commons access to revelatory documents and it has now seen fit to resort to protecting future federal government-funded research projects from the sticky hands of foreign governments. Without naming China specifically, the federal innovation minister announced new guidelines for scientific research granting to avoid as much as possible in future the kleptocratic inroads that Beijing has made into Canadian research property.

The head of the Public Health Agency of Canada defied a Parliamentary order to present the documents requested that would reveal the explanatory background of the two fired Chinese biologists who worked at the Winnipeg laboratory. The situation surrounding the two and the mystery of specific details aroused attention and gave rise to the urgent matter of security related to scientific research, with Canadian intelligence property falling into the wrong hands. Henceforth, researchers applying for grants through NSERC must complete a comprehensive security risk assessment.

Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg on July 5, 2019. After that, the University of Manitoba ended their appointments and reassigned her graduate students. (Governor General's Innovation Awards)

A national-security review conducted by Canadian security agencies and a team of scientists will be called for any project assessed as "higher risk". Any project judged to fall into the category of high risk will not be eligible for government funding. Roughly $1.3-billion is granted each year by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council to fund research and training. It is not the only funding source, however since the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities including most of Canada's research-intensive universities lays claim to funding $8.5-billion of annual research.

Last year the Canadian Security Intelligence Service repeatedly gave warning of Canada targeted by sophisticated state-sponsored infiltrators whose function it is in service to their countries of origin to purloin information and intelligence from Canadian companies and researchers. NSERC grants for the present involving researchers and private-sector partner organizations will require inspection and clearance to qualify for federal financial support for their projects. In time the process is meant to be expanded to cover all federal granting councils along with the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.

Grants are to be scrutinized to determine research that could be of potential benefit to other countries' military, police or intelligence agencies, or that would focus on critical minerals, nuclear power, critical infrastructure or technology and software subject to restrictions under the Export and Import Permits Act. All those categories neatly sum up the interests of the People's Republic of China in securing data and rights of all kinds, as well as its focus on monopolizing critical minerals and software and other areas of technological advances.

Criticism has come the way of the federal government for its obvious willingness to trust cooperative ventures with China-based corporations which then have the opportunity to cyber-access highly secret information. Such as the federal government partnering with Huawei Technologies in the funding of computer and electrical engineering research at Canadian universities. NSERC announced in February its collaboration with the Canadian arm of Huawei to fund studies, in contrast to top universities in the U.S. and Britain which have halted further research funding from Huawei over intellectual property and national security concerns.

A 2018 investigation revealed Huawei to have established a vast network of relationships with leading research-focused universities in Canada in the creation of a steady pipeline of intellectual property (theft) the company uses to underpin its own mobile technology market position. Western countries have assumed growing concerns over efforts by China to scour the world for technology with both civilian and military value -- characterized by Richard Fisher, senior fellow on Asian military affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center as a global "intelligence vacuum cleaner".

The logo of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies is pictured next to a statue on top of a building in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 23, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo

Brainy Battlefield Weaponry, IAI

 

The AI ‘super-brain’ will use an array of high-powered sensors to help tanks and robots patrol battlefields and find enemy targets

"We are not very far from the basic level of getting an automatic awareness picture [of the battlefield]."

"If you ask me [when it will happen], at the end of 2021. I think with 90 percent accuracy that the answer is positive."

Colonel Eli Birenbaum, head, IDF military architecture department

"Ethics is 100 per cent at the heart of what we’re doing. We have a legal and ethical framework that got written and developed with the best ethicists and moral philosophy in the world, [and] which was developed before we coded any algorithms for the project."

"If we want this system to actually sit [with] someone who can use this in combat, what does it need to do? What does it legally have to do? And, then what, ethically, do we want it to do?:

"I had thoughts about conflict experience. I knew at a minimal level that [ethics] are very important. And, then the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre [TASDCRC] had a parallel research program led by UNSW where they had an emphasis on looking at certain ethics problems associated with AI. Trusted Autonomous Systems have a significant research program underway where they had an emphasis on both ethics and law associated with AI."

?This is currently being refocused as an ethics uplift program and guided by a recent Defence report, A Method for Ethical AI in Defence. And they were interested in really good use cases that they can actually apply their ethics theory to products."

"We identified that there were a large number of casualties that were from friendly fire in conflict. There were a number of individual cases where there were large amounts of collateral damage in both Afghanistan and Iraq. There was a fuel tanker incident in Afghanistan where 200 civilians were killed. There was a case involving an AC-130 where 60 civilians were targeted by gunship at a hospital."

"We understood based on conflict there were a lot of flaws with [human decision-making], and the consequences were really bad. We sort of said, ‘Well, how can we use autonomous vision systems to help a human take that tactical pause and actually look at the situation and have something else help them look at the situation, so they can make a better-informed decision'?"

"We had a small background using vision-based artificial intelligence for drones, but not in terms of how we can exploit that artificial intelligence to achieve a better outcome." 

"That’s a person. That’s a child. That person’s got a gun. That person’s got a Red Cross. We actually go through a variety of scenarios and we are consistently looking based on our data set and our use cases: what is the best network to run in a given situation? Sometimes it’s a hybrid of two different techniques, because they want the best of both worlds in some instances — speed and accuracy of the AI."

"How you can ensure that your data is very well validated and very well represented. And then, the third aspect is ensuring that you are using the best algorithms or techniques possible for the vision-based protection."

"About five PhDs, and 10 years of development expertise have supported the project. There’s three things that are super important to our product. One is the accuracy of our vision-based AI — that we are at the edge with the best possible products. And, then once we run it through one network, we cross check it against another network as well. And, this all happens behind the scenes."

"You have to train the network with really good data that’s well-balanced and unbiased."

Stephen Bornstein, CPEng, Israel Aerospace Industries

Athena's AI software classifies a vast array of battlefield objects

 Israeli advanced technology is in the process of developing an AI "super-brain", using an array of high-powered sensors to help guide tanks and robots in their patrol of battlefields and to pinpoint enemy targets. The project has named its artificial intelligence Athena, after the Greek Goddess known for association with the attributes of wisdom, with handicraft, and with warfare. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is in the early stages of development of a program that could be deployed within the space of a future decade.

 

Imbuing robots and military tanks and other equipment with a "brain" to function at a powerful speed in detection and decision-making that no human brain can match. A recent demonstration took place as an instructional tool and public relations gambit of the use by tanks in a combat scenario of this specialized "brain". Israel Carmel tanks were fitted with the AI, the size of a smart-phone, which collected data gleaned from infrared and radar sensors, to tag enemy fighters deep underground and within battlefield buildings.

 

 

 

It took but an instant for the data to be beamed to the commanding officer, then tansformed into a "battle menu", offering the most efficacious methodology of attacking the identified targets. The tanks' fire control and manoeuvre systems can also plug into the Athena brain permitting targets to be attacked automatically. There is also the option available for the commanding officer to produce the final decision on how to proceed, overriding the AI's instant automation attack mode and re-directing it as needed.

 

Athena's AI software classifies a vast array of battlefield objects

IAI is Israel's state-owned defence firm. It is considering fitting the Athena to robotic vehicles which could automatically patrol border fences, searching for intruders. AI defence systems are anticipated to enable Israel's armies to become more efficient, since the machines have the capacity to analyze a battlefield, generating a tactical battle plan far more expeditiously than a human mind is capable of doing.

The Israel Defence Forces are exploring AI warfare through its senior officers' involvement; some aspects of the technology could be usable for real-world situations as early as next year, according to Colonel Birenbaum, head, IDF military architecture department. What the Athena device represents is one of a number of "AI weapons" now in development around the world; which are rarely discussed in public as a matter of national security.

Fitted here on a surplus M-113, Elta’s CARMEL solution fuses several operationally proven ELTA products managed by Athena, an autonomous C6I and combat management system, and can be fitted to any armored vehicle of comparable size. (IAI photo)

"There is a bit of an arms race underway between the U.S. and China, while the Russians are also doing a lot of experiments, but are quite a bit further behind", Dr.Jack Watling, an expert on land warfare at the Rusi defence think tank in London, noted. "It is realistic, and very much available, but not necessarily deployable. And this is partly because militaries are not necessarily sure of the ramifications of using it."

In the U.S., military cadets are programming tanks with algorithms in practise sessions, where balloons are popped, the balloons representing enemy soldiers. Last November the head of the British armed forces speculated that "robot soldiers could represent as much as a quarter of the military", by the time 2030 rolls around. The rumour is that Israel made use of an AI-powered machine gun last year to assassinate one of Iran's top nuclear scientists.

Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Iran's nuclear program, was killed, reportedly, by a satellite-controlled machine gun with artificial intelligence used to target him specifically. Seated beside him in the vehicle where he was killed was his wife, who was untouched, emphasizing the split-precision capability of the AI-guided gun. 

 

The Iranian authorities have put out conflicting accounts of how the scientist was killed   Reuters

China, Helping Canada See the Error of its Ways ....

"I had never even thought of China [back in 1979 when Beijing began opening up to its version of democracy-plus-free-enterprise]. It was not on my radar at all, but this sounded really interesting."
"So, my husband and I went over to China [to travel in China, which led to a master's degree in international relations with a Chinese focus]."
"When I came home [40 years later], I decided to speak out. Up until January [of 2019], I had never done an interview in my life. But I feel it's important that friends of China -- former friends of China -- speak out about this [Beijing's increasingly authoritarian streak]."
"I'm not feeling very friendly toward China, if you can tell."
Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, former vice-president, Canada-China Friendship Association

"We are rolling over, we are acquiescing, at a time when Chinese aggression is on the rise. We should be working with like-minded allies to send a real signal that such conduct is not condoned."
"[If keeping quiet and friendly were going to work with China, Spavor and Kovrig] would have been released months ago."
Erin O'Toole, Parliamentary opposition, foreign affairs critic

"[Beijing] is good at co-opting former government officials and politicians by offering them seats on boards and contracts."
"Obviously, then it becomes very difficult for you to become critical of China."
Guy Saint-Jacques, former Canadian ambassador to China


"There's nothing like back door devices being installed by Huawei. So that's a groundless accusation."
"So we do hope that the Canadian side will provide a fair, just and a non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies, including Huawei."
"We do hope that the Canadian side will reflect on what has happened and take concrete measures to push our relationship back to the normal track. So that's the task for the government."
"And we do hope that those important people in the new [Liberal] cabinet will play an active role in making sure that relations of our two countries return to their normal track on the basis of mutual respect and equality."
Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to Canada Cong Peiwu

Cong Peiwu spoke to reporters at China's Embassy in Ottawa  CBC

"When they get Huawei into Canada ... they're going to know every health record, every banking record, every social media post -- they're going to know everything about every single Canadian."
"What the Chinese are doing makes Facebook and Google look like child's play, as far as collecting information on folks. The Huawei Trojan horse is frightening, it's terrifying."
"I find it amazing that our allies and friends in other liberal democracies would allow Huawei in ... I'm surprised that there's even a debate out there."
"[Such an intrusion would impact on Canada's participation in the Five Eyes Intelligence alliance of Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.]."
Robert O'Brien, U.S. National Security Adviser

Ambassador Cong, in delivering Beijing's message to Ottawa, is using coded language when he urges the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to 'return to their normal track', and to 'take concrete measures to push our relationship back to the normal track'. He has outlined the 'task for the government' of Canada. There is nothing necessarily that Beijing must do to restore relations between the two nations, for it has done nothing untoward. It was Canada's concurrence through its extradition treaty with its southern neighbour that launched the unfortunate decision to comply with the U.S. by assaulting China.

For in arresting Huawei Technology's CFO Meng Wenzhou at the behest of the U.S. State Department, this is what Beijing has accused Canada of -- criminal malfeasance, defying international law. Whereas China's response to the insult bestowed upon one of its citizens by summarily arresting two Canadians in China for business purposes and accusing them of plotting against China -- charging them with espionage, incarcerating them under harsh conditions while Ms. Meng, out on bail, lives in one of her luxury mansions in Vancouver -- has been mindful of and obedient to the rule of law.

Beijing knows with whom it is dealing. While former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien was in office he led numerous elaborate 'trade missions' to China from Canada, familiarizing himself with useful Chinese officials whom he called upon once he left office to become a private citizen and continued to lead trade missions to China, the prestige of a former prime minister opening doors, and with his insider status intact. When former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's policy was to regard trade with China as second to its human rights abuses, Mr. Chretien poured scorn upon him; nothing should impede unrestrained trade alliances with China.

This Liberal government under Justin Trudeau has tread softly around China's outrageous response to the U.S.-Canada extradition treaty, when Beijing arrested two Canadians, imposed death sentences for drug smuggling on another two Canadians and placed punishing constraints on the importation of Canadian canola, soy, peas, pork and beef products, devastating the Canadian agricultural sector through punishing sanctions on a country that refused to come to heel and release the Huawei executive.

Michael Spavor, left, former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig, right (Canadian Press)

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston had dedicated her working life to enhancing relations between Canada and China, collaborating to advance the relationship between the two countries. She aided China in its science and technology development during its period of reform, as a Canadian civil servant, while considering herself a staunch "friend of China". And then, after forty years of work in that realm the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, followed by the incarceration of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, she discovered her locked luggage had been unlocked and rifled through in her Shanghai hotel room.

Soon a local business acquaintance informed her of a list of 100 Canadians that Chinese authorities had compiled representing those who could be detained and interrogated, among the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who live and work in China; Hong Kong alone has 300,000 people with Canadian citizenship. In other words, Canadians living in Hong Kong are also under scrutiny and their security is of concern as well, particularly given the violent turn of the protests in the partially autonomous city.

And China has warned Canada, through the stern advice of its latest ambassador that it would not be in Canada's interests to 'interfere' in China's internal affairs.

A protester is detained by riot police while attempting to leave the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) during clashes with police in Hong Kong, China November 18, 2019. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

The current Liberal government in Canada takes advice from its past prime minister on such issues; and no doubt the advice was not to further ruffle any feathers, to sit back and let events take their course. Naturally, the imprisoned Canadians, despite the harsh conditions they are suffering, would staunchly opt to sit back and suffer their circumstances, in support of their government's position, for no sacrifice is too great to protect Canadian trade with China.

Some 140 and more signatories in the academic and diplomatic global community demanded through a joint letter that China release Kovrig and Spavor. A mere 6 Canadian academics and six former Canadian ambassadors to China signed.

It has been observed that more than a few advisers to the Liberal government have what they consider to be valued and hard-won ties and interests in China. The new ambassador to Beijing, Dominic Barton, among them. Many Canadian academics, politicians and business leaders have compromised positions finding it difficult to criticize China, for to do so would be to risk the status they have won and cherish for the opportunities and funding that status guarantees them.