Otttawa Citizen: Liberal insists China trip must link trade, rights

January 19, 2001

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler has again put his own government colleagues on the spot by urging that Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley recast their upcoming Team Canada business trip to China as a "trade and human rights mission."

The comments came during a raucous news conference yesterday at which KunLun Zhang, the Canadian citizen freed last week from a Chinese labour camp, was accused of lying about the spiritual movement Falun Gong by an Ottawa-based reporter for the state-controlled People's Daily of China.

"It's a lie," said journalist Dehao Zou of Mr. Zhang's claim of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in China. In an accusatory tone that drew return shouts from Mr. Zhang and his daughter LingDi, a University of Ottawa student, Mr. Zou suggested the Falun Gong practised in Canada is much different from the version performed in China, and that practitioners there pose a genuine threat to public order.

"I believe my government," said Mr. Zhang. But Mr. Zhang's graphic description of the horrors he endured during months of detention prompted Mr. Cotler to call the case "a stunning indictment" of China's human rights record.

And declaring Mr. Zhang's refusal to renounce Falun Gong as a "profile in courage," Mr. Cotler added that "his release should not obscure the fact that thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong practitioners remain imprisoned" for performing "harmless" meditation exercises and making "peaceful, non-violent" objections to the Chinese government's decision to outlaw their movement.

Then, referring to the Team Canada mission to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong - which is scheduled for Feb. 9-18 and is expected to include Mr. Chretien, nine provincial premiers and dozens of Canadian business leaders - Mr. Cotler said the federal government's concerns about China's brutal crackdown against Falun Gong "has to find expression as a matter of policy" and that trade talks "cannot become a cover for the suppression of human rights."

Mr. Cotler, an international human rights lawyer, took on Mr. Zhang's case in December and at that time pressured his own government to toughen its stance toward China on the Falun Gong issue.

Yesterday, while insisting that he supports a trade relationship with China "as a means of constructive engagement" of Beijing on human rights issues, Mr.Cotler emphatically stated that "this trade mission simply cannot be business as usual. It has to be a trade and human rights mission."

He added that Canada, following the lead of Britain and the U.S., should re-examine the bilateral dialogue it has been conducting with China over the past few years on human rights issues to assess whether the approach has led to genuine reforms. Mr. Cotler added that Canada should also consider cosponsoring a United Nations resolution at a meeting in March to formally condemn China's human rights record.

While Canadian officials have said that human rights issues are routinely discussed with foreign governments during trade missions, Mr. Chretien's comments about the China trip have been almost exclusively focused on talk of exploiting the economic opportunities available to Canadian companies.

Sophie Galarneau, a spokeswoman for Mr. Chretien, said yesterday that "Team Canada trips are trade missions, but they're also an opportunity for dialogue with the host country."

She pointed to a speech Mr. Chretien gave in November 1998, during the last Team Canada trip to China, in which he made general reference to limitations on the freedoms of Chinese citizens.

"I would be less than frank if I did not say directly to you that many Canadian are disturbed when we hear reports from your country of restrictions on the right to free expression of different political views," Mr. Chretien said in a speech otherwise devoted to optimistic appraisals of China's development and its relationship with Canada.

Mr. Manley, who has said very little publicly about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners but has been praised by Mr. Cotler for playing a "quiet but effective" role in freeing Mr. Zhang, has stated that Falun Gong is "a spiritual brand of exercise that is not politically motivated, not a threat to Chinese stability. But (Chinese government officials) very much believe that Falun Gong is the Chinese equivalent of the [Chinese governments slanderous words]. You might say we see it a little differently."

Any efforts by the Canadian delegation in China to shine a spotlight on the Falun Gong crackdown are likely to raise the ire of Chinese government officials.