Media in China are promoting Liberal MP Michael Ma’s skepticism about the existence of forced labour in China following an exchange with a China expert at a parliamentary committee meeting this week.
Ma later apologized for his remarks after widespread criticism. He said he “inadvertently came across as dismissive of the serious issue of forced labour,” but his statement still did not clarify whether he believes there is forced labour in China.
The article, which was widely cross-published on multiple Chinese-language platforms, said McCuaig-Johnston’s response to Ma “caused an uproar.” However, it was Ma’s questioning that was criticized by numerous opposition MPs and human rights activists in Canada.
McCuaig-Johnston told MPs on the committee, which is studying the government’s electric vehicle policies, that Chinese electric vehicles are made with aluminum using forced labour by Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region of China.
Ma asked McCuaig-Johnston: “Your claim about forced labour in Shenzhen—have you witnessed this yourself? Have you been there ever?”
After media reports covered the exchange, saying it was about Xinjiang, Ma later said in a statement that he meant Shenzhen, not Xinjiang. The two regions are pronounced similarly, but Shenzhen is an industrial hub in China, while Xinjiang is where the persecuted Uyghur people live.
Responding to Ma’s questioning, McCuaig-Johnston said she has been to China “many times” over nearly 50 years. Ma cut her response short and asked again whether she has witnessed the forced labour herself, to which she responded that she works “closely with Human Rights Watch where researchers did witness it.”
She also said Ma suggested that they go to China together to see if they can spot Uyghur forced labour, but McCuaig-Johnston said China “would never show you Uyghur forced labour,” noting that the “only ones who see it are the ones on the ground in China who are being subjected to it.” McCuaig-Johnston noted she has been sanctioned by China for her work on exposing Uyghur forced labour.
‘Propaganda’
The Guancha article said McCuaig-Johnston “euphemistically admitted that she has not personally witnessed the so-called ‘forced labor’ and is indeed hearsay.” It also said accusations of forced labour in China “have always been absurd lies” that are “based on ideological bias” and have been used to “smear China.”McCuaig-Johnston says it seems Ma “designed his rapid fire questions ... so they could be used by Chinese state media showing that he went up against a critic of the regime.”
Conservative MP and industry critic Raquel Dancho also commented on the Chinese media report, saying that whatever Ma’s intentions were, “his questions parroted implicitly the CCP-certified position—that controversy around forced labour is manufactured.”
He noted Ma intimated that Uyghur forced labour has not taken place in China, “even though numerous bodies have concluded that a genocide, including forced labour, is taking place against the Uyghurs in the PRC [People’s Republic of China].”
‘Must Take Responsibility’
Chong also noted that the Privy Council Office tabled a document in Parliament two weeks ago that said the topics of human rights and foreign interference “were not brought up proactively” by the prime minister during his meetings in January with officials in China. Carney’s office later said there was an error in the document and that the issues “were raised proactively at multiple levels.”“These recent statements, both from a Liberal MP and your office, regarding human rights in the PRC raise a legitimate question about what the position of the Liberal government actually is on the forced labour of Uyghurs,” Chong wrote, adding that Canada is bound by international treaties to combat forced labour, including obligations under trade agreements.
