Great Unwinding hits and Canada seeks new start in Canada-China relations. Foreign Minister hopes ties can become 'frank, friendly, forward-looking'
Cannon seeks new start in Canada-China relations
Foreign Minister hopes ties can become 'frank, friendly, forward-looking'
MARK MACKINNON
May 13, 2009
BEIJING -- Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon set out yesterday to put Canada's rocky relations with China onto a new "forward-looking" course, albeit by borrowing heavily from Liberal policies that his government had previously dismissed as ineffective.
Speaking to students here at the China Foreign Affairs University, Mr. Cannon acknowledged that the Canadian-Chinese relationship - damaged in recent years by disputes over human rights, Tibet and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision not to attend last year's Beijing Olympics - has "gone through its ups and downs."
But Mr. Cannon said he hoped relations between Ottawa and Beijing could be "frank, friendly and forward-looking" from this point on.
However, the new China policy that Mr. Cannon appeared to be signalling yesterday is more a retreat to the past, where Canada pushed human-rights concerns to the back burner in favour of growing trade relations. Mr. Cannon told journalists that something similar to the old Canada-China Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue would soon be formed, though likely with a different name and a slightly different format.
"What we are proposing, and we want to be able to move forward with this, is a mechanism whereby both parties will be able to look at this issue," Mr. Cannon told a news conference hosted by the Canadian Embassy a day after he met with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Vice-President Xi Jinping. "I don't like using the words human-rights dialogue. I want to propose a mechanism whereby everybody will feel comfortable as we move forward."
The old human-rights dialogue, which began in 1997 under former prime minister Jean Chrétien, was criticized by human-rights groups as an ineffective tool that allowed Beijing to make a show of listening to international concerns while doing little to change its policies on the ground. It was abandoned by Mr. Harper's government soon after it took office in 2006. |
