Finally, belatedly, the Harper government understands the importance of China.
Nearly everyone else in Canada figured this out a long time ago, from premiers to previous governments, from important businesses to a few academic institutions. But on arriving in office, the Conservatives – painfully unschooled in international affairs and imprisoned in ideological straitjackets – offered an approach to Beijing that mixed the snub and the lecture.
As if the Chinese cared. The whole world wanted China's attention – and its money. If one little, pretentious country of 33 million people didn't care about the Middle Kingdom, the Chinese could frankly have cared less.
There is this thing about the Harper Conservatives revealed by their policy (if we can call it that) toward China. It takes a maddeningly long time for the Conservatives to drop their ideological nostrums and face facts.
When they do, they never admit to changing course. The four senior cabinet ministers who have been to China in the past four months – the latest being Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, made scarce mention of human rights, did not hector the Chinese and, instead, talked about economics, trade and investment. (About climate change, central to the U.S.-Chinese dialogue these days, the ministers had little to say, Canada being such a laggard on the file.)
Mr. Flaherty had recently been in Brazil, where he bubbled about the importance of that country. Other senior ministers have also been to Brazil in recent months. In the spring, a boatload of deputy ministers travelled to that country.
Brazil, Russia, India and China are part of a group whose acronym, BRIC, suggests a unity of purpose not easily practised. Their leaders meet as a kind of counterpoint to the G8. Their relations are getting closer, as in trade between China and Brazil.
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