If China’s government wants to know who’s responsible for recent international condemnations of its actions, it just needs to look in the mirror.
Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party shows no signs it intends to drop attempts to bully others into silence.
Kudos, then, to Canadian parliamentarians for overwhelmingly passing a Conservative motion in Ottawa on Monday that declares China is committing genocide through its persecution of the Uighurs, and other Muslim minorities, in its western XinJiang region.
Sadly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet, except for Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau, skipped the vote. Garneau abstained, saying he did so on behalf of the government.
International human rights groups say there are numerous, credible reports that China has detained up to a million Uighurs and subjected them to abuse, including political indoctrination, forced labour, sexual violence and involuntary sterilization.
China routinely lashes out at such critics, denying its actions are genocide and accusing other nations of meddling in its domestic affairs. It did so Tuesday, accusing Canada of ignoring “facts” and of maligning the Asian nation.
But if China has nothing to hide, why does its government not allow an independent investigation of the allegations? Why does it routinely interfere with foreign media attempts to investigate what’s happening in Xinjiang?
History shows that genocide — the attempt to eradicate a culture or people — should never be considered an internal affair.
The week before, China had berated Canada for joining the U.S. and 56 other nations in signing an international declaration against state-sponsored arbitrary detention of foreign citizens for political purposes, so-called hostage diplomacy.
In Canada’s case, the statement was clearly tied to China’s unconscionable detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — the two Michaels — who were arrested by China more than two years ago on widely-perceived trumped-up allegations of espionage.
Those arrests came, not coincidentally, after Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was detained in Canada on an American extradition request.
China’s boldfaced claims the two events are not connected are clearly untrue. Chinese government officials have, more than once, explicitly linked progress on freeing Kovrig and Spavor to Meng’s release.
The men have languished in Chinese custody for more than 800 days awaiting trial. Canadian consular access to the pair has been irregular.
Earlier this week, new U.S. President Joe Biden called for Kovrig and Spavor’s release after a bilateral meeting with Trudeau, saying “human beings are not bartering chips.”
That’s exactly what they appear to be to China.
All of which — along with China’s reneging on its deal with Britain to not impose a socialist government in Hong Kong until 2047 — makes former Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil’s recent pro-China comments particularly cringeworthy.
In late January, McNeil told a Canada-China business group that “it’s not our role to go in and tell someone else they’re wrong.”
We understand that the then premier was talking about building business ties with China, which has been extremely important to the Atlantic region’s economy in recent years.
We’d argue, however, there must be limits to biting your tongue.
