Justin Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy by Norman Hillmer & Philippe Lagassé

Author:Norman Hillmer & Philippe Lagassé
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The Tiananmen Watershed and the Chrétien-Martin Years

The Tiananmen massacre in June 1989 brought this to an end. By July 1989, Zhao Ziyang was under house arrest and the Tiananmen massacre had dramatically shifted popular perspectives on China, with human rights now taking the forefront. Tiananmen, as Charles Burton, a China specialist from Brock University, puts it, “brought home to Canadians the powerful realities of the Chinese Communist security apparatus.”17 The Mulroney government reduced Embassy staff, the size of the recently expanded trade section, and CIDA programmes, and ministerial visits halted until 1991. For the rest of the Mulroney government, little was advanced with China. The Chinese economy stagnated and reforms slowed as more conservative elements of the leadership came to power in the wake of Tiananmen.

Canada’s approach shifted dramatically with the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien (1993–2003). The Chrétien government initiated a significant push on the trade file, seeing great opportunity in China’s renewed economic growth and in the revival of its reform process, pushed with renewed vigour by Deng Xiaoping in a famous visit to Southern China. Chrétien led the first Team Canada mission to China, bringing provincial and territorial leaders (with the exception of Quebec’s premier, Jacques Parizeau), federal ministers, and about 400 business representatives on a visit to Beijing and Shanghai in 1994—the first of three visits and two Team Canada visits during the Chrétien years. The trade agenda was broader and deeper, with agreements on the building of Canada deuterium uranium reactors, insurance services, and a host of business contract signings overseen by the prime minister. Chrétien established good personal ties with Chinese leaders, like Premiers Li Peng and Zhu Rongji (who famously called Canada China’s “best friend in all the world” in 199818) and President Jiang Zemin. Canada’s development assistance programmes continued to grow, particularly in the environment, agriculture, and the judiciary.

Chrétien rarely pronounced publicly on human rights, preferring to keep such conversations to private meetings with his Chinese counterparts. During the first years of the Chrétien government, Canada continued to co-sponsor a United Nations resolution on the Chinese human rights situation. China’s opposition to this resolution became increasingly vocal and vociferous, threatening commercial retaliation against countries participating in the resolution. In the end, following a visit to China and a meeting with Li Peng by Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, Canada’s participation in this resolution was dropped in favour of a bilateral human rights dialogue. China, through pressure and threats about the impact on trade relations, convinced other like-minded countries to adopt this approach as well.

Paul Martin’s relatively short term as prime minister (2003–2006) saw, essentially, a continuation of the approach of his predecessor: heavily emphasizing business, a slightly stronger emphasis on human rights, and intent on promoting his idea of a Group of Twenty (G20) leaders meeting. His only visit to China as prime minister in January 2005 was complicated by the death of Zhao Ziyang. It not only changed his schedule, but forced Martin to address the issue of visiting Zhao’s house to

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