Canada resumes 'quiet diplomacy' with China

BEIJING — Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon set out today to put Canada's rocky relations with China onto a new “forward-looking” course, albeit by borrowing heavily from Liberal policies that his government had previously dismissed as ineffective.

Speaking to students here at the China Foreign Affairs University, Mr. Cannon acknowledged that the Canadian-Chinese relationship – damaged in recent years by disputes over human rights, Tibet, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision not to attend last years Beijing Olympics – has “gone through its ups and downs.” But Mr. Cannon said he hoped relations between Ottawa and Beijing could be “frank, friendly and forward-looking” from this point forward.

But the new China policy that Mr. Cannon appeared to be signalling today is more a retreat to the past, where Canada pushed human-rights concerns to the back-burner in favour of growing trade relations. Mr. Cannon told journalists that something similar to the old Canada-China Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue would soon be formed, though likely with a different name and a slightly different format.

“What we are proposing, and we want to be able to move forward with this, is a mechanism whereby both parties will be able to look at this issue,” Mr. Cannon told a press conference hosted by the Canadian Embassy a day after he met with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Vice-President Xi Jinping. “I don't like using the words human-rights dialogue. I want to propose a mechanism whereby everybody will feel comfortable as we move forward.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090512.wchina13/BNStory/International/home

Three years of reform policy has wasted ten years of building.

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Their are many industries that have complaints about how the USA has been dealing with us Canuks

The lumber tariff thing that we fought for for over half a decade and got ripped for over a billion dollars

The beef bullshit over the mad cow thing

The steel thing where they bought out Stelco, then closed it.

We WILL market our goods, if the USA don't want them

We'll go elsewhere - -

USA should rethink things carefully

After we lose billions of dollars re-marketing ourselves elsewhere across the Globe

(yeah - there ARE other markets out there for our products)

and we get NEW customers - if the USA finds itself in need of our products in the future

are we gonna give up our new customers?

something to ponder indeed . . .

Or Harper wants to ensure that he is in China's good books, in case any "watching brief", "international consultancy" positions come up in the near future.

Far as the Chinese are concerned, Harper gratuitously insulted and smeared them, and they won't do business with him. Even if he manages to finagle himself an invite to meet inconsequential people, China will not open up for Canada until Harper is gone and been repudiated.

I'm thinking the situation is the same for Europe, where countries are annoyed at Canada's constant blathering about how they should send more troops to die in Afghanistan, and who now see Canada as water-carrier for U.S foreign policy.

I think it will take some time to undo the damage that Harper has done to Canada's standing in the world.

- B