The China panic: Canada left holding the bag

Even more so since Australia and — yes —  even the United States have been making serious moves to stabilize relations with the People’s Republic of China.

At recent APEC meetings in San Francisco, for example, U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping engaged in serious talks with reported agreements to open a presidential hotline, resume military-to-military communications, and to curb fentanyl production. 

And where was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at APEC? Sidelined.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited China recently, as did California Governor Gavin Newsome.

And Canada? Not a single diplomatic delegation to China since 2019.

Last summer, the People’s Republic of China (hereafter ‘China’) resumed group tours to 78 countries, including the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. And Canada? We didn’t make the cut, which is a serious blow given that Chinese tourists contributed more than $ 1 billion per year to Canada’s travel industry before COVID-19. 

Canada-China relations remain in a deep freeze, with little prospect of a thaw. Why? Extraordinary domestic factors have turned a perceived China threat into a “China Panic” that now imperils diplomacy, research, and peace in the Pacific.

Five years ago, CSIS brought to Canada the message that China and Huawei represented the most serious threat to our sovereignty. It was a narrative put together by the CIA, FBI, and other U.S. intelligence agencies appointed by then-president Donald Trump. The director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, David Vigneault, was a true believer. 

As early as 2018, Vigneault began beating his anti-China drum, including during meetings in April and July of that year with Prime Minister Trudeau. Little wonder, then, that the Canadian government willingly accepted the U.S. request to extradite Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, taking the exceptional step of detaining and arresting her while she was transferring planes at Vancouver’s international airport.

The firestorm that erupted, with China’s subsequent detention of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, marked the first phase in a crisis that is now under scrutiny after Spavor’s recent allegations that he had unwittingly become entrapped in Global Affairs Canada’s spy program. Things then went from bad to worse with the COVID-19 pandemic, accompanied by intense anti-Asian racism. Since then, continuous CSIS leaks and constant media accusations of ‘foreign interference’ have turned the China threat into Canada’s ‘China Panic.’

Now, as the U.S. and Australia walk back some of the hyperbole regarding China, Canada alone remains unable to adjust. Why?

A factor unique to Canada is the federal NDP’s feverish anti-China campaign. Indeed, it was an NDP representative who stood in Parliament last May to censure former governor-general David Johnston, the special rapporteur on foreign interference at the time, a move that forced him to resign. 

From early on, the NDP adopted CSIS’ perspective on China. Unduly influenced by some activists’ hatred for what happened in Hong Kong, the federal NDP went astray, leading an anti-China chorus with the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois. This, despite the NDP’s supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals.

While criticism of China is to be expected, the federal NDP crossed a threshold from legitimate criticism to demonization, an object lesson in how anti-communism can reinforce Sinophobia, a problem critically examined by Carleton University’s Xiaobei Chen. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chen and a group of Chinese-Canadian professors launched a petition protesting Global News Sam Cooper’s portrayal of “millions of Chinese Canadians” buying up personal protective equipment, and jeopardizing Canada’s own efforts. Cooper responded by alleging that behind the petition was “the hand of Beijing.”

Such allegations portray Chinese Canadians as an undifferentiated mass, typical of racist stereotypes. It also painted them as “agents of Beijing,” reducing China to a singular image: despotic communism. As Chen points out, however, this stereotype also makes room for another category, the “good Chinese”—victims of the Chinese Communist Party dedicated to a singular narrative of communist oppression. The federal NDP has adopted this stance.

Some Hong Kong activists also fall into this category. When Senator Yuen Pau Woo suggested that a proposal for a foreign interference registry might be a form of modern Chinese exclusion, one activist tweeted: “Time will tell who needs to register as a foreign agent. #CCP.” This branding of people for holding differing views is a form of anti-communism reminiscent of McCarthyism in the United States.

Having embraced and even amplified the Trump-inspired ‘evil China’ narrative, the Canadian government is now left holding the bag. Even worse, Canada’s “China Panic” is having profound negative impacts on universities and military policy in Asia and the Pacific.

John Price is a historian of Canada-Asia relations and a member of the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ National Security Reference Group. He is the author of Orienting Canada: Race, Empire and the Transpacific (UBC Press), and of the recent report The Five Eyes and Canada’s China Panic (Centre for Asia Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria).

Now, as the U.S. and Australia walk back some of the hyperbole regarding China, Canada alone remains unable to adjust. Why?

A factor unique to Canada is the federal NDP’s feverish anti-China campaign. Indeed, it was an NDP representative who stood in Parliament last May to censure former governor-general David Johnston, the special rapporteur on foreign interference at the time, a move that forced him to resign. 

From early on, the NDP adopted CSIS’ perspective on China. Unduly influenced by some activists’ hatred for what happened in Hong Kong, the federal NDP went astray, leading an anti-China chorus with the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois. This is despite the NDP’s supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals.

While criticism of China is to be expected, the federal NDP crossed a threshold from legitimate criticism to demonization, an object lesson in how anti-communism can reinforce Sinophobia, a problem critically examined by Carleton University’s Xiaobei Chen. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chen and a group of Chinese-Canadian professors launched a petition protesting Global News Sam Cooper’s portrayal of “millions of Chinese Canadians” buying up personal protective equipment, and jeopardizing Canada’s efforts. Cooper responded by alleging that behind the petition was “the hand of Beijing.”

Such allegations portray Chinese Canadians as an undifferentiated mass, typical of racist stereotypes. It also painted them as “agents of Beijing,” reducing China to a singular image: despotic communism. As Chen points out, however, this stereotype also makes room for another category, the “good Chinese”—victims of the Chinese Communist Party dedicated to a singular narrative of communist oppression. The federal NDP has adopted this stance.

Some Hong Kong activists also fall into this category. When Senator Yuen Pau Woo suggested that a proposal for a foreign interference registry might be a form of modern Chinese exclusion, one activist tweeted: “Time will tell who needs to register as a foreign agent. #CCP.” This branding of people for holding differing views is a form of anti-communism reminiscent of McCarthyism in the United States.

Having embraced and even amplified the Trump-inspired ‘evil China’ narrative, the Canadian government is now left holding the bag. Even worse, Canada’s “China Panic” is having profound negative impacts on universities and military policy in Asia and the Pacific.