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Selling out to the ¡¥almighty dollar¡¦
It didn¡¦t take long for the Canadian government to show its displeasure with
Beijing¡¦s knee-jerk reaction to dissident Liu Xiaobo (¼B¾åªi) being awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month.
No sooner had Liu¡¦s wife in turn been placed under house arrest by the Chinese
security apparatus than Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was telling an
audience: ¡§The friendship between Canada and China has ... grown in recent years
in the context of a frank and respectful dialogue on the universal principles of
human rights and the rule of law.¡¨
Right. Harper also told the conference celebrating 40 years of official
Sino-Canadian relations that Canada could now talk to Beijing about human rights
in a ¡§respectful¡¨ manner that (hold your breath) would not harm trade relations.
It should be mentioned at the outset that Harper¡¦s remarks came as he was
hailing the ¡§strategic partnership¡¨ (here Ottawa is plagiarizing Beijing¡¦s
favorite terminology) that has developed between the two countries ¡X and by this
he means Canada starting to look more and more like a source of energy for the
Asian superpower.
Not so long ago, Harper was getting heat from the Canadian business community
for taking too firm a stance on human rights in China, for vowing, less than
four years ago, not to sell out Canadian values to the ¡§almighty dollar.¡¨
What happened, then, to so radically alter Harper¡¦s views? Certainly it wasn¡¦t
any perceivable improvement in the human rights situation in China, for had this
been the case, there would have been no validity to awarding Liu the Peace
Prize. Liu received the prize because the situation remains bad in China.
Was it, perchance, the ¡§almighty dollar¡¨?
China¡¦s ¡§insatiable¡¨ thirst for energy and natural resources, added to Canada¡¦s
positioning as an ¡§energy superpower,¡¨ have put the two countries in a position
where they can cooperate to their mutual benefit, Harper said. Sadly, the prime
minister doesn¡¦t seem to understand that an improved human rights situation in
China would also benefit Canada, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the
more powerful China becomes, the easier it gets for it to impose its
authoritarian values, the so-called ¡§Beijing consensus,¡¨ on its partners ¡X
Canada included.
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