John Robson: Advice for Canada’s Foreign Minister on How to Handle Beijing’s Proposal for Better Relations

Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly attends the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Feb. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Memo to Mélanie Joly from the John Robson Realpolitik Agency re improving relations with China.

Dear Ms. Joly,

It’s keen being foreign minister of a G7 nation, isn’t it? But also a lot of bother, with so many ways to look silly by shaking hands with murderous tyrants nobody warned you about. And now the communist regime in China says they want to be friends again, but aren’t they sort of meanies? To help you navigate this confusing file, where being chirpily well-meaning doesn’t seem to cut it, we offer a few pointers.

First, yes, it’s the same China that’s been meddling in our elections and for some reason the public is a bit sensitive about wilful blindness here.

Second, as a committed multiculturalist you may not know they do things differently in other places. Here, government consists of goofily spending endless amounts of money on anything that seems cool and more will magically appear, you can ignore yucky stuff like defence, and nothing seems to have real consequences. But in Beijing they have a less, uh, relaxed view of the world.

Third, in case you haven’t actually read “Xi Jinping Thought” just because the foreign minster of a G7 country should know how the head of the world’s most powerful and aggressive tyranny thinks, in theory as a Marxist he should regard feudal ideology as a latticework of deceptive repression. Instead he openly insists that China has always been way better than anyone else and, despite an inexplicable drop in its influence about 250 years ago, it naturally rules the world. To the current communist leaders, good relations necessarily involve you kowtowing.

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Fourth, they really do things differently there. Sure, your boss doesn’t handle criticism well so it’s “dangerous” to cross him. But Jody Wilson-Raybould’s fate is nothing compared to how they handle dissent in China. See, in 1949 they had this communist “revolution” where the Party shot its way into power and clung murderously to it ever since, jailing, torturing, and killing anyone it felt like, often for reasons difficult to predict and impossible to control. What with the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” (we know, all these details are less fun than photo ops) they’ve killed innocents by the millions, and the guilty including their own close comrades, for so long they consider brutality and terror normal. Along with having a Party constitution subjecting everyone from bottom to top to “the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

Fifth, therefore, from minor district functionaries to ambassadors to the Politburo’s inner “Standing Committee” who all style their hair like Xi except the bald guy, Chinese officials live in a world composed only of people you’re afraid of, people who are afraid of you, or both. Even Xi is terrified of his colleagues, who would indeed depose him if they dared partly because they’re terrified of him.

Sixth, therefore, when they say they want good relations they don’t mean in the vague “kumbaya” way you and your colleagues do, except when the PM goes into one of his snarling fits. They need you to be terrified of them.

Seventh, to understand what they think you really should listen to what they say. Their ambassador to Canada recently claimed: “The strained relations between our two countries is actually not what we would like to see. We can be engaged in a candid and constructive dialogue.” Lovely, right? Except to get there he demands that you submit to re-education, not a gentle rainbow-flag-in-kindergarten process where he’s from. He explicitly requires “correct cognition,” meaning you take the blame for recent strained relations.

Eighth, you must not do so. Appeasement does not work. (Get an aide to brief you on “Adolf Hitler” and “the 1930s.”) The reasons for “strained relations” are the Chinese regime’s meddling in our elections, kidnapping our citizens, building a huge army, navy, and nuclear force to achieve their explicit goal of ruling the world by 2050, and a nasty outbreak of “wolf warrior” diplomacy a few years back when they decided they were so strong they could talk to foreigners in the ferocious manner they use with one another.

Ms. Joly, you are indeed in a tough spot. You could turn the task over to someone who seems more naturally suited to it, although frankly among your cabinet colleagues no names spring to mind. Or you could stand firmly in defence of Western values while rearming your country.

Hard work? Definitely. But after all you are the foreign minister of a G7 country and nobody said the job would be easy. Or if they did they were goofy. Make sure you aren’t too. This stuff is real.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.