The Star: Chinese rights abuses more than 'disturbing'

China recently packed off a 60-year-old Canadian citizen, Zhang Kunlun, to a forced labour camp for practising Falun Dafa exercises, during a crackdown on [Chinese government's slanderous word].

Zhang was lucky. Canadian lobbying got him sprung after two months, and electrical shocks.

Zhou Jiangxiong was not lucky. He was arrested in May, 1998 because his wife was pregnant without permission. Amnesty International reports that Zhou, 30, was whipped, clubbed, burned, branded and castrated. He died.

These are facets of China's notoriously repressive system. Zhang was a political prisoner, Zhou a common offender.

Yet when Jean Chrétien delivered a major speech on Tuesday to China's National Judges College during the Team Canada trade mission, he had precisely nothing to say about either case, or their implications for China's future dealings with the wider world.

Chrétien merely observed, in passing, that Canadians have been ``disturbed'' by reports that Beijing lacks respect for basic freedoms and individual rights. He devoted one sentence to the problem, in a speech that otherwise welcomed Beijing's professed embrace of the rule of law.

This is feeble. Canadians aren't disturbed by China's disregard for global legal norms. Many are sickened and outraged. What they find disturbing is the PM's reluctance to tackle the issue head-on.

Even before his address Chrétien sabotaged his message by saying that it isn't realistic to expect Canada to ``tell the Chinese what to do.'' Does that mean we can't tell them what we think?

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton didn't hesitate to condemn China bluntly for political, religious and social repression. The Chinese didn't like it. But they didn't cut off trade, either.

Chrétien's ultra-cautious, self-censoring performance invited the Chinese media to trumpet that ``Chrétien spoke highly of China's judicial reform.''

Cao Jianming, head of the judges college, felt sufficiently emboldened to lecture the Canadian media for ``lacking objectivity'' in reporting abuses.

So much for the PM's impact.

Better could have been expected of a veteran leader of an affluent, mature democracy that calls itself a compassionate society.

Yes, Canadians acknowledge that the Chinese are freer, happier and richer. That China now pays lip service to conventions on political, social and other rights.

Yes, we are pleased that Team Canada has signed $5 billion worth of deals, some of which may even make money.

And yes, we know that Beijing reacts better to honeyed compliments than to blunt talk.

But Canadians know, as well, that China remains a place where people are arbitrarily jailed for daring to think or pray differently, and some are arbitrarily killed. Those are harsh truths. They are unsettling for business.

The PM might have mentioned it.