Canada vs. thuggish China

Trudeau accuses China of using arbitrary detentions for political ends: ‘This is not acceptable in the international community’

The Guardian

Canada’s relations with China soured after its arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant last December. 

Justin Trudeau has accused Beijing of using arbitrary detentions as a tool in pursuit of political goals in the latest broadside in a diplomatic and trade row with China.

“Using arbitrary detention as a tool to achieve political goals, international or domestic, is something that is of concern not just to Canada but to all our allies,” Trudeau told the Toronto Star editorial board.
He said nations including Britain, France, Germany and the United States “have been highlighting that this is not acceptable behaviour in the international community because they are all worried about China engaging in the same kinds of pressure tactics with them”.
Canada’s relations with China soured after its arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant last December.
Nine days later, Beijing detained two Canadians – former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor – and accused them of espionage as retaliation.
Trudeau added that “we need to figure out how to engage with them, but we also have to be clear-eyed about it, that China plays by a very different set of rules and principles than we do in the west”.
His comments may further inflame tensions between the two countries, which had appeared to be trying to move on from the row. 

This week both Beijing and Ottawa nominated new ambassadors.

The previous Canadian ambassador John McCallum was fired in January after he said it would be “great” if the US dropped its extradition request for the Huawei executive. 

She is wanted by the US on fraud charges and is currently out on bail in Vancouver and living in her multi-million dollar home awaiting extradition proceedings.

Canada’s Ambassador to China Pushed Out Over Stupid Huawei Comments

By Dan Bilefsky

The Canadian ambassador to China, John McCallum, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, earlier this month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the ambassador’s resignation on Saturday.

MONTREAL — Canada’s ambassador to China has resigned following a series of diplomatic missteps that further complicated strained relations between the two countries.
The resignation came days after the ambassador, John McCallum, stunned seasoned diplomatic observers by saying that Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom firm Huawei who was arrested in December by Canadian authorities in Vancouver at the United States request, stood a good chance of avoiding extradition to the United States.
His public assessment of the sensitive and high profile case came under sharp criticism, including from the leader of the opposition conservative party Andrew Scheer, who said McCallum’s comments threatened to politicize the case and called for him to be fired.
“Last night, I asked for and accepted John McCallum’s resignation as Canada’s ambassador to China,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday.
McCallum backpedaled on Thursday, saying that he misspoke. 

But a day later, following a news report quoting him saying that it would be “great for Canada” if the United States dropped its request to extradite the Huawei executive, he was once again under fire.
Canada is in the middle of a struggle between China and the United States, two countries engaged in a protracted trade war.
Canada has vowed not to intervene politically in the Huawei case, which is currently pending in Canadian courts, making McCallum’s comments all the more awkward. 

China has characterized Meng’s arrest as an abuse of power by Canadian authorities.
The United States is expected to formally request the extradition of Meng from Canada in the coming days. 

It has until Jan. 30 to make the request. 

Once made, Canadian courts will decide whether she can be sent to the United States, with a final determination made by Canada’s minister of justice.
Canada has also been trying to help three of its own citizens held in China, including Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was working for a research organization, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, who have been detained on suspicion of “endangering national security.” 

The third Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, was sentenced to death this month in China for drug smuggling.
McCallum is known to speak his mind. 

A former academic, he has held a series of senior positions in Liberal governments including as minister of defense and as Trudeau’s minister of immigration. 

He played a leading role in Canada’s decision to welcome thousands of Syrian refugees to the country.

No China for Canadians

Hundreds of Canadians held by China raises the stakes for Trudeau’s government
By TONDA MACCHARLES

OTTAWA—Around 200 Canadians are currently detained in China for a variety of reasons, the Star has learned.
The staggering number paints a worrying picture of what is at stake for the federal Liberal government — and for many individuals abroad and their families here — when it comes to dealing with Beijing’s newly aggressive posture towards Canada.
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver earlier this month. 

Justin Trudeau adopted a deliberately measured tone Wednesday as news broke of a third Canadian detained by China.
Trudeau said it does no good to “politicize” or “amplify” consular cases because it can actually hinder what he said is the ultimate goal of securing Canadians’ release from detention and their safe return home.
He said every year there are “tens of thousands” of Canadians who visit, work or travel within China and “hundreds” of consular cases there that Global Affairs Canada oversees.
Federal sources have told the Star the number of those currently detained stands at about 200.
Global Affairs has not yet responded to the Star’s request for clarification on how many of those detentions have occurred since tensions heightened.
But sources told the Star up to three arrests a week is common, often involving dual Canadian-Chinese citizens (China does not recognize dual citizenship), in cases of drunkenness, drug use, other kinds of criminality and alleged visa violations, with only a small number considered political cases. Still, the broader picture of those who remain in detention right now is alarming.
China publicly admitted Thursday it has detained a third Canadian, Sarah McIver, an English teacher, for an alleged and unspecified violation of her work visa.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing that McIver has been detained because “a local Chinese public security authority imposed (an) administrative penalty on a Canadian national for illegal employment.”
And while China and the Canadian government have differentiated McIver’s situation from those of the two other Canadian cases, pointing to “national security” allegations in the latter, the timing of her arrest in the wake of Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has raised alarms that Beijing is further cracking down on Canadian travelers in that country.
Former ambassador to China David Mulroney, who headed Canada’s mission there from 2009 to 2012 said the cases require lots of attention.
“We worked hard deploying consular officials to every corner of China to call on them. Dual citizens are heavily represented in that number, often because of business deals gone sour. Commercial disputes can often morph into criminal cases. In those cases in China, the foreigner almost always loses. Few if any were political.”
The Chinese government has demonstrated its fury over Meng’s arrest by warning Ottawa of “grave consequences” if she isn’t released.
Chinese state security forces then arrested two Canadian men, levelling vague allegations they “endangered China’s national security.”
Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig, an analyst for respected non-governmental organization International Crisis Group, and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor, who runs Paektu Cultural Exchange, described as a non-profit group that facilitates sport, culture, tourism and business exchanges with North Korea, are still in detention.
Little is known about their condition.
Canada’s ambassador in Beijing, John McCallum, has had one “consular access” visit with each man to ascertain the basis of their detention, whether they have legal advice, and their health condition.
Officials have said nothing further about their cases, citing Canadian privacy law.
However Trudeau told reporters Wednesday the detention of the third Canadian — whom he did not name — “doesn’t fit the pattern” of the other two.
It is not clear, however, how many of the other “hundreds” of detentions occurred before or after Meng’s arrest drew Beijing’s wrath.
But given the current climate, families are worried, with McIver’s Alberta relatives turning to their Conservative MP and later foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole for help.
Trudeau insists that he will continue to engage with China despite the current tensions, citing the need to deal with the world’s second-largest economy.
However as the broader picture becomes clear of just how many Canadians are at the mercy of China’s judicial system, it’s obvious Trudeau must maintain engagement with the Chinese despite the uproar over Meng, in order to preserve their rights as well.
Meng’s company, Huawei Technologies, was founded by her father, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei, and is regarded as a corporate jewel in China’s eyes.
It is also a company whose ties to the Chinese government are at the centre of global scrutiny right now as Canada and allies develop the next or fifth generation of ultra-high-speed wireless networks, known as 5G technology.
Meng has since been released on $10-million bail and ordered to remain in Vancouver to await an extradition hearing.
But her release on strict bail conditions has not led to the liberation of Kovrig or Spavor — whose detentions were widely seen as tit-for-tat measures by Beijing.

Dances with Wolves: Does Justin Trudeau get China?

China is not just an economic opportunity, but also an absolute dictatorship, a threat to the world order this country helped build, and under which we have long prospered
The Globe and Mail

Canada has never had to deal with a problem quite like China. 

Managing its rise, and our relationship with this superpower that is both aggressively capitalistic and unapologetically anti-democratic, will be one of Canada's biggest challenges in the years to come.
Does Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government understand this? 

Does it get that China is not just an economic opportunity, but also a threat to the world order this country helped build, and under which we have long prospered? 

China is cast as the glittering business case at the top of every Davos PowerPoint presentation and the pot of gold at the end of every Team Canada trade mission rainbow, but the reality of China is a bit more complicated.
Throughout our history, our closest allies and trading partners have been nations with whom we largely agree about how the world works, and how it should work. 

With Great Britain, the United States, the European Union and post-war Japan, we have long shared a common culture of democracy and the rule of law. 

We fought two World Wars and a Cold War against opposing views. 

But in the early 21st century, things are different.
The week, the Global Times, an arm of the People's Daily and owned by the ruling Communist Party of China, called this editorial page "irritating and ridiculous" after we described China as an "absolute dictatorship."

But the Communist Party of China is, absolutely, a dictatorship. 

There's no free press, no free speech, no rule of law and no elected government. 

The CPC regime will tell you this is what the Chinese people want.
But Hong Kong and Taiwan, both of which are considerably more prosperous than mainland China, operate under very different systems. 

Hong Kong still has a high degree of freedom and rule of law, and Taiwan is democratic. 

There's no guarantee the CPC will rule forever.
But for now, and likely for a long time to come, Canada must get along with the unelected, unaccountable dictatorship of the hard men of Beijing. 

They rule over 1.3-billion people. 

They preside over the world's second largest economy, soon to be the largest. 

Their level of control over that economy's is high, as their personal financial stake in its businesses. They run an increasingly aggressive foreign policy. 

Some Canadians may be sentimental about Norman Bethune; they are not. 

These men (and the governing Politburo Standing Committee's seven members are all men) are not our pals.
But neither should Canada set out to make them our enemies. 

Ottawa has no choice but to try to get along with them as best it can, neither antagonizing them unnecessarily not bending to their will; neither picking fights with them nor shying away from defending Canada's values and interests.
Which bring us back to the question raised and left unanswered by Mr. Trudeau latest Chinese adventure: Does he get who he's dealing with?
It was assumed that he was going to China to kick off talks on a free trade deal; instead, he found himself left at the altar, with his International Trade minister sent back to try to reschedule a wedding. We and the Global Times can agree on this much: Beijing just put on an impressive demonstration of negotiation martial arts.
Canadians still don't know precisely what the Trudeau government was seeking this week, or what it wants for the future. 

We do not know what it hopes to get out of a so-called free trade agreement with China. 

For the Chinese, it's not so much about trade – their exports here mostly move freely already – but about issues like giving state-owned enterprises the freedom to invest unhindered in Canada.
We also don't know how serious the Trudeau government is about its talk of insisting on clauses on environment, labour standards and gender parity in all trade agreements.
The words play well with a key Liberal constituency, but is there substance behind the politics? 

Is this a pantomime for Canadian voters? 

A way to score domestic points with trade negotiations that, like NAFTA, appear headed for failure?
When doing international diplomacy, a government can't always publicly say what it means, or mean what it says, lest it give away the game to those on the other side of the table. 

But Canada being a democracy and all, Canadians deserve to know what their government is up to with China.
They deserve to know whether the government is as naive as it appears – or whether what happened to Mr. Trudeau in China this week shows that he is trying to avoid getting too far into bed with Beijing, without provoking the ire of an easily offended partner.

The Manchurian Canadian

Trudeau’s strange China syndrome
By John Roe

In this photo, Li Keqiang and Justin Trudeau stand in the Hall of Honour as they take part in a signing ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in 2016. Caution is urged by many as the Canadian government pursues a stronger relationship with China.

The Canadian government's worthy pursuit of a stronger relationship with China should not come at any cost.
Justin Trudeau's Liberals should not make a new friend of the Chinese in a way that recklessly alienates our oldest and strongest friends in the United States and Europe.
Nor should Canada seek short-term economic gains by putting at risk the long-term security of our trusted North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.
Regrettably, the federal government could be making all of these mistakes by saying yes — too quickly, too carelessly and without a strong enough review — to a Chinese takeover of the Canadian high-tech company, Norsat.
Norsat sells satellite communications systems to the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. army, the U.S. Marine Corps, NATO, the Taiwanese army as well as NAV Canada, the agency that oversees civil aviation in Canada.
From a security standpoint and the perspective of those customers, that's highly sensitive technology.
However, Trudeau's government has OKed the takeover of Norsat by Hytera Communications of Shenzhen, China.
This decision came after the federal government conducted only a routine security analysis.
What should worry Canadians — and what is worrying an American congressional committee — is that the Liberals failed to conduct a full, national-security review of the takeover to discover how it might affect the transfer of important technology outside Canada.
Trudeau says there's nothing to worry about.
A host of security and diplomatic experts disagree.
Two former directors of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — Richard Fadden and Ward Elcock — say they would have recommended that Hytera's proposed takeover of Norsat be vetted by a comprehensive, national-security review.
That process, they say, would determine whether the deal could hurt Canada and its allies.
A former Canadian ambassador to China, David Mulroney, is also puzzled by the government's behaviour and calls the takeover "worrying."
The most pointed American response so far has come from Michael Wessel, head of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an American congressional body.
He says the sale "raises significant national-security concerns for the United States" and wants the Pentagon to review its dealings with Norsat.
These are significant alarms Trudeau is doing his best to ignore. 

He should think again.
Canada has a long, usually positive history of engaging China. 

There are compelling arguments for strengthening our economic and cultural ties even more.
But this should not blind Canada to reality.
China is a communist country ruled by a single party. 

It is a dictatorship with a terrible record of trampling the human rights of its own citizens.
It is challenging the United States' status as the world's pre-eminent superpower, expanding its armed forces and militarizing reefs in the South China Sea to add muscle to its bid. 

And it is a part-owner of Hytera, which wants Norsat.
While an American company is making a counter-offer to Norsat, that offer will likely fail.
If it does, the Liberals should order a proper, in-depth national-security review of the Hytera takeover — for the sake of Canada and its allies.

Tsai is world’s 8th-greatest leader: ‘Fortune’

‘BOLD MOVE’:The magazine cited Tsai Ing-wen’s phone call to US president Donald Trump, economic reforms and the wooing of tourists from Southeast Asia
Taipei Times

President Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 was listed eighth in a list of the world’s 50 greatest leaders in Fortune magazine’s latest annual ranking.
The list was released on Thursday, the New York-based business magazine’s fourth annual ranking of world leaders.
The section introducing the Taiwanese president said that Tsai captured headlines in December last year when she telephoned US president Donald Trump, the first known call between Taiwanese and US leaders since 1979.
That year, Washington withdrew diplomatic recognition from Taipei in favor of Beijing.
“It was a bold move for Taiwan’s first female president, who is steering a cautious path between the US and China,” Fortune said.
Describing Tsai as sympathetic to independence, the magazine said that when Beijing tried to punish Taiwan after her election victory in January last year by restricting the number of Chinese visiting the nation, she wooed tourists from Southeast Asia and sparked a tourism boom.
Tsai has also pushed economic reforms, including shortening the workweek to five days from six, it added.
The list covers government, philanthropy, business and the arts, and focuses on “men and women who are transforming the world and inspiring others to do the same,” Fortune said.
Other leaders on the list include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, ranked 10th, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at 31st, and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, 45th.
Heading the list are Theo Epstein, president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs, last year’s World Series champions; Jack Ma 馬雲, executive chairman of China-based e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd 阿里巴巴; and Pope Francis.
In April last year, Time magazine listed Tsai among the 100 most influential people in the world that year.
In June of the same year, she was ranked the 17th-most powerful woman in the world by US magazine Forbes.

Giving Chinese second chance at tech firm 'dangerously naive'

Canada's national security is not for sale

By Amanda Connolly

Conservative leader Rona Ambrose says the decision by the Liberal government to give a second chance to a Chinese company’s rejected bid to take over a Montreal tech firm is “dangerously naive.”
“The fact that the Trudeau Liberals are paving the way for foreign interests and foreign powers to take over Canadian companies shows they are just trying to curry favour with China,” Ambrose said in a speech Thursday from Quebec City, where the Conservatives held a caucus retreat. 

“When Justin Trudeau holds cash-for-access fundraisers, surrounded by Chinese flags and influential communist officials, and then weeks later reopens national security reviews, Canadians rightly wonder, is our national security for sale?”

The deal in question concerns the acquisition of ITF Technologies of Montreal by O-Net Communications, which is based on Hong Kong but is viewed by national security officials as being under the control of the Chinese government.
Adding to the concerns is the fact that ITF Technologies has sold technology to the Department of National Defence and participated in research with CSIS, Canada’s spy agency.
Both CSIS and defence officials have raised serious concerns about the deal, noting that the risk cannot be mitigated and that allowing it to proceed would jeopardize military advantages held by Canada and its allies because of the type of military-grade laser technology produced by the firm.
“If the technology is transferred, China would be able to domestically-produce advanced-military laser technology to Western standards sooner than would otherwise be the case, which diminishes Canadian and allied military advantages,” says a 2015 national security assessment given to the Canadian cabinet in 2015 by security and defence officials and obtained by the Globe and Mail.
Ambrose said the Conservatives, who were in government when the deal was rejected the first time, will not let the deal float under the radar.
“We will be giving these issues the attention they need,” she said. 

“That’s what Canadians expect of their Conservative opposition.”

Trudeau’s embrace of China exposes his naïveté

By DAVID MULRONEY

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new foreign-policy team has what it takes to ramp up our trade and economic relationship with China. 

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is China-friendly, brings a creative policy mind and a wealth of blue-chip international connections to her new assignment. 

John McCallum will arrive as our ambassador in Beijing with impressive credentials as an economist and as the minister responsible for two major portfolios – National Defence and Immigration – with significant international dimensions.
Some observers are even suggesting the current Prime Minister is trying to forge with China the kind of Third Option that his father, Pierre Trudeau, tried but failed to put in place with Europe in the 1970s. 

For Mr. Trudeau, the idea was to get out from under the economic and cultural domination of the United States by encouraging deeper economic links with Europe. 

As we enter the Donald Trump era, it is easy to understand why Justin Trudeau might be interested in reviving the idea, with a rising China as the partner of choice.
But it is far from clear Canadians share his enthusiasm for a world that is more China-centric.
While these are early days, our emerging China policy appears to be hostage to two familiar and misguided tendencies. 

The first is to focus on only one aspect of modern China’s complicated identity. 

The government seems smitten with the dynamic, entrepreneurial and innovative China that dominates the business pages, while remaining largely silent about the China that tramples human rights at home and intimidates rivals abroad. 

This is more than morally repugnant. 

Countries that flout laws and stifle the free exchange of ideas make for dubious business partners.
The second problematic tendency involves falling prey to an enduring and particularly Canadian naïveté about China and its ruling Communist Party.

Pierre Trudeau flirted with a rose-coloured interpretation of Mao Zedong and his legacy, but was sufficiently worldly to keep it in check. 

That’s more of a struggle for Justin Trudeau, who was rightly criticized for comments glossing over the impact of dictatorship in China.
And far from sending an early signal that national security always takes precedence over business deals, the government recently reopened consideration of a Chinese acquisition in Canada’s high-tech sector that the Harper government had blocked. 

More worrying, the Prime Minister’s presence at a fundraiser involving wealthy Chinese business people seemed to suggest that we are as willing to bend the rules as China is.
The notion of a Third Option with Europe was at least partly based on confidence in our deep and broadly based complementarity. 

The idea was that economic opportunities would flourish in a context of common values, shared international commitments and similar institutions. 

But the proposal foundered because the economic advantage of our proximity to the United States overwhelmed the fondest dreams of the Third Option proponents.
The idea of a Third Option with China is, if anything, more deeply flawed. 

It isn’t just that trade with China, while promising, is still only about 10 per cent of what flows across the Canada-U.S. border, but that there is an complete lack of complementarity at the level of values, laws and institutions.
Here, the current Prime Minister may be hostage to his contention that we are a country without a core identity. 

Not only does this ignore our history, but it is fundamentally at odds with how Canadians see themselves and the world around them. 

It is why they express such deep and persistent reservations about establishing closer links with China, a country that does not respect the rule of law, or basic freedoms for artists, journalists, ethnic minorities and religious believers.
China is an important country and we absolutely need to get the relationship right. 

But we can’t get it right if we’re not clear about who we are and what we stand for.
Pierre Trudeau had to acknowledge that nostalgia is no basis for foreign policy; Justin Trudeau needs to understand that neither is naïveté.

Kowtowing to China’s despots

Trudeau Has More Time for Chinese Billionaires than Us, Rights Group Complains
By Jeremy J. Nuttall

Trudeau greets Chinese entrepreneurs
As a “club” of Chinese billionaires travel across the country meeting politicians and business leaders, Canadian organizations concerned with human rights in China complain they’ve been sidelined since the Liberals took power last year.
Members of the China Entrepreneur Club, representing the 50 largest Chinese companies, have or are meeting Canada’s political and business elite on tour this week, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
But organizations focused on human rights in China say they haven’t been able to get the same access to decision-makers.
In fact, said Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China, access was better under the former Conservative government than it has been since the Liberals took power more than a year ago.
“They’re focusing on business, while they’re soft-pedalling on human rights,” Kwan said.
The desire to do business with China is understandable, Kwan said, but human rights issues must also be part of the discussion.
Kwan said his organization was able to win occasional meetings with foreign affairs minister John Baird during the Harper government, which had cooler relations with China.
But he still hasn’t had a response to a year-old request to meet Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion to discuss human rights issues, Kwan said. 

Other groups have similar complaints, he said.
“I’m sure that they have been listening to business groups and more pro-China lobbying groups more than they ever listen to us,” Kwan said.
Kwan said he had also pushed for a meeting with Global Affairs Canada officials before Trudeau’s recent China trip, but it was scheduled for after the mission. 

Meeting before the trip would have given government officials an updated briefing on rights issues, he said.
Since the end of summer, Trudeau has met at least four times with two Beijing-friendly business associations.
The Prime Minister attended a dinner hosted by the Canada China Business Council in Shanghai on Sept. 1 and an event the group hosted in Montreal with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Sept. 23.
International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland also met with the group this year. 

Its former president, Peter Harder, was nominated for a Senate seat in March.
The organization was formed in 1978 by businesses including Canada’s SNC Lavalin and Bombardier and the Chinese state-owned CITIC group (formerly the China International Trust and Investment Corporation).
Trudeau also met with the China Entrepreneur Club in Beijing on Aug. 30. 

On Tuesday, he met at Meech Lake with some of China’s wealthiest business people as part of the club’s cross-Canada tour.
Members of the current Chinese business delegation said they intend to raise Canadian trade policies they say hold back investment.
Chinese real estate developer Frank Wu said he wanted to complain to Trudeau about the “unfair” 15 per cent tax on foreign homebuyers in Metro Vancouver introduced by the B.C. government.
A spokeswoman for the China Entrepreneur Club told The Tyee at a lunch for the billionaires hosted by Invest Ottawa this week that the Canadian government reached out to them with an invitation for the meetings.
Conservative foreign affairs critic Peter Kent said he’s concerned the Liberal government is meeting far more frequently with pro-trade business groups than with human rights organizations.
Kent said the government also appears to be silencing or muting rights campaigners.
He pointed to a “privacy wall” erected at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa to prevent visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang from seeing protesters as he entered and left the hotel. 

Many of them were practitioners of Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong. 

Followers report persecution by the Chinese government.
Kent said it isn’t yet clear what if any role the government played in the wall, but said he’s concerned Ottawa may have been.
A Falun Dafa group also lodged a complaint with Parliament Hill security officials alleging an RCMP officer disconnected its sound system on Parliament Hill when Li arrived, an act Kent said is against protocol.
“It would seem that someone in the PMO directed the RCMP to interfere with free speech on the Hill,” he said. 

“And that’s simply unacceptable.”
Kent said it’s important that MPs meet with groups to get a better sense of their concerns.
And he accused the Liberals of being soft on human rights in China to advance their pursuit of business deals. 

The government needs to do a better job of balancing the two priorities, he added.
Global Affairs spokesperson Austin Jean said in a written statement that promotion and protection of human rights is “a priority in our relationship with China.”
The government consistently raises human rights concerns with the Chinese government, Jean said, and engages regularly with “a wide range of groups from Canada, China and elsewhere” on labour rights, democracy and human rights in China.
Alex Neve from Amnesty International said he has no complaints about communication with the government, but he is concerned about talk of a potential extradition treaty with the country.
During Li’s September visit, Trudeau revealed he is discussing an extradition treaty with Beijing. Dion subsequently denied negotiations are taking place.
Neve said an extradition treaty assumes Canada and China have similar justice systems. 

“Given all of the very significant human rights short comings still in the Chinese justice system, that process is going to have a lot of pitfalls,” he said.