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Canadian PM lashed for snubbing China

By Kirk Makin

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has risked relations with China by failing to attend the Olympic Games and going overboard in honouring Tibet’s Dalai Lama, former prime minister Jean Chrétien said yesterday.

Speaking to a Canadian Bar Association gathering, Mr. Chrétien said the missteps are indicative of a government that naively fails to understand the enormous strides the Chinese regime has made in recent years, and that China has a long “collective memory” when it comes to international slights.

“There are always consequences in what you do,” he said. “If you think that attacking them would be positive, what do you gain? It is the second-biggest economy in the world, and in 50 years, it will be the biggest economy. Suddenly, you break the bridge. It would be so easy to be there [at the Olympics].”

Canadian trade missions once attracted thousands of people, Mr. Chrétien told the CBA. “The last meeting I went to, there was 300 people, and most of them were Canadian,” he added. “You know, they have a collective memory there that is very important.”

Mr. Chrétien said Canada has to keep in mind that it is too small a global player to hector the Chinese or try to hurt them with boycotts.

“We have to live with reality,” he said. “It’s 1.3 billion people, and I’m telling you that they are moving fast. You think that Canada is very important in the world? I remember when I was going to China … the press saying: ‘Mr. Chrétien, you have to tell the president of China to do this and do that.’ Oh really?

“You want me to the tell the president of a country of 1.3 billion people you should do this and do that, but I don’t dare to say what to do to the premier of Saskatchewan? You have to put things in perspective.”

Speaking to reporters afterward, Mr. Chrétien continued his fusillade. “We are at the bottom of the ladder in terms of having any influence with China. Ask any businessman who has been to China, and he will tell you the same thing.”

Mr. Chrétien, who adopted a policy of heavy engagement with China and who made several trips there as prime minister, has regularly travelled to the country since leaving office to represent several business clients.

He has accompanied executives from Montreal-based Power Corp., a company whose co-CEO, André Desmarais, is married to Mr. Chrétien’s daughter, France, and which has extensive business interests in China. And the former prime minister has forged ties with officials from China’s largest state-owned conglomerate, China International Trust and Investment Corp., visiting China at their invitation.

Mr. Chrétien said that were he still prime minister, he “would not have hesitated for a second” to attend an Olympic Games that obviously mean so much to Chinese national pride.

In another apparent swipe at Mr. Harper, Mr. Chrétien named every federal leader going back to prime minister Lester Pearson and said their attitude toward the United States and its international policy had been “independent.”

“We did not pass as the newest little dog of the United States,” he said.

Mr. Chrétien also took issue with a CBA lawyer who asked him about whether China is likely to “remain resistant to any change” on its human-rights record in the wake of the Olympic Games.

“To make a broad statement is easy,” the former prime minister said. “Of course, Tibet is a problem. But Tibet has been a province for them for a long, long time. To make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen of Canada was not a compliment to China.”

The Dalai Lama may be a well-received religious icon in Canada, Mr. Chrétien said, “but for them, the Dalai Lama is not a religious leader. ...

“I have to tell you that when you say resistant to change, you should have been with me in 1994 when I visited China. Go to China today and you’ll see there has been a hell of a lot of change. They have improved.”

Mr. Chrétien specifically defended his record as prime minister, saying he made 14 trips to China and was “the first Western leader to make a speech about human rights in public in China, at the University of Beijing. Some people who say I never mentioned human rights, they are completely wrong.”

However, China is not Canada, he said. “You have to engage them. You have to live with the reality they have. If you gave the freedom of movement we give in Canada today, there would be 20 million people arriving in Shanghai within a year. How do you deal with 20 million refugees coming into one city? It’s a very realistic problem.”

(With a report from Campbell Clark)

Copyright © 2008 Globe and Mail

Published in Globe and Mail