My Take | Canada’s Beijing sanctions are not only useless but hypocritical
Ottawa might be on stronger ground if it had sanctioned both China and Israel on human rights, but just punishing one shows double standards
Well, monkey see, monkey do. Following Uncle Sam, Canada has imposed new sanctions on eight former and current senior Chinese officials for alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang, Tibet and against the Falun Gong religious cult.
“Canada is deeply concerned over reports that China has arbitrarily detained more than 1 million people in Xinjiang since 2017, many of whom were held in camps and faced psychological, physical and sexual violence,” Ottawa said in a statement, repeating the highly disputed 1 million figure.
Psychological, physical and sexual violence? Well, that pretty much covers any and all kinds of treatment for someone under detention. In US prisons, many inmates are regularly subjected to cavity searches and inspection, often in degrading positions. Is that sexual violence?
It’s hard to know what Canada hopes to gain from this round of sanctions when there is no new development or urgency other than to irritate the Chinese. Perhaps Ottawa just needed to prove Donald Trump right. In the past two weeks, the incoming US president has referred to Canada as “becoming the 51st state of America” and its prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada”.
You really wonder how many insults this prime minister of the Great White North can take with a straight face. As the US military likes to say, you salute the rank, not the man. Trump has been insulting Canada and all its citizens, not just Trudeau personally, because he is their elected leader.
As for Xinjiang, here’s an investigative report last year from Britain’s Sky News. “In total, we visited 22 sites. Of the 14 locations listed as re-education camps, 13 were visibly no longer being used as detention camps, with little visible active security infrastructure,” it said.
“Eight were schools, two were abandoned, another two were being used as Communist Party offices or training centres. We couldn’t determine the precise use of one site, but it appeared to be at least partly empty.”
