The case of Meng Wanzhou has torpedoed the Trudeau government’s China policy. At the same time, it has also sunk China’s Canada policy. Call it a win-win. It has been a strained couple of weeks in Canada-China relations. And the causes of the tension remain: Ms. Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, one of China’s flagship companies, faces extradition from Canada to the United States. She is out on $10-million bail; the case will go on for months, possibly years.
Meanwhile, Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor sit in Chinese jail cells, detained in a clear act of retaliation by the Chinese government. They face hard conditions, and possibly torture. The crisis has dispelled a lot of illusions on both sides of the Pacific. It’s never pleasant to discover the gap between one’s wishes and objective reality, but it is the beginning of the path to wisdom. The Trudeau government is being forced to wise up about the nature of the People’s Republic of China.
