We’ve seen a great deal of the Chinese Communist regime’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” in action over recent years and months, and it is only getting worse. Proponents of the CCP aggressively denounce and attack anyone critical of Beijing's totalitarian machinations, going to lengths to threaten journalists, citizens, businesses, and entire countries alike. It is getting worse because the CCP has discovered that it works. With Canadians going to their deaths on trumped-up charges in China, over 26,000 Canadians dead from a virus manufactured in Wuhan, the mounting CCP aggression against the sovereign island nation of Taiwan, brutalities committed daily against pro-democracy Hong Kongers, and a globally-recognized genocide underway in Xinjiang, it is now time for Canada to employ some grizzly diplomacy and roar back.
Conrad Black pointed out in The Canadian Manifesto that this nation “has never really had a strategically-based foreign policy beyond supporting a principal ally, and we now have before us a splendid opportunity to create one.” Sure Biden, Johnson, Morrison, Modi, et al, constitute allies who share our grievances with Communist China, but we have our own sound, uniquely Canadian reasons, grounded in strategic possibility, for bearing our teeth and ending our collaboration with the Xi regime.
As the CCP continues to flout international norms and makes a mockery out of the international rules-based system, Canada has a responsibility not to be daunted by wolf warriors and to continue—as it always has—to punch (or claw) above its weight. This is not a matter so much of joining but of leading other defiant nations in confronting the menace working on becoming world hegemon by 2049 (see: Michael Pillsbury’s The Hundred Year Marathon for details regarding their stratagems and objectives). If the UN is too compromised and toothless to work through, then Canada and its grizzly diplomacy would be better served through the formation of new bodies and alliances or by updating those existing ones, which are neither wholly corrupt nor derelict. That said, while multilateral action and efforts are still required, Canada should not hesitate to take unilateral action.
To address the wolf at the door, we should first make sure that our home is in order. Now, we won’t make any headway with the likes of those Canadian senators who are little more than sycophants for the CCP, and cannot expect much from a statist prime minister who admires Xi Jinping’s “basic dictatorship.” Fortunately, in a democracy, a government that does not protect those who’ve conferred to it the privilege to rule, and which is therefore not suited to its duty and office, can be replaced. In the interim (i.e. before that replacement occurs), it is critical that individuals recognize the evils their rulers are presently happy to ignore, to suffer, and to accommodate, and to speak up and speak out.
There are more than a few Canadians now preoccupied with urging their provincial leaders to exchange a little security for the illusion of safety in the way of vaccine passports. (Ben Franklin would point out that “those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”) Instead of or extra to this demand on our leaders, it would be worthwhile demanding rectification for the treachery that first created the perceived need for passports.
Although Trudeau and the federal Liberals warrant a great deal of blame for dropping the ball in terms of the vaccine rollouts and in ensuring that infected foreign nationals weren’t pouring into our ports of entry at the height of the crisis, it was the CCP that ultimately got 26,679 Canadians killed.
The Chinese Communist Party shut down domestic travel to and from Wuhan after the initial spread of COVID-19 [1][2][3], but permitted international travel out of Wuhan ahead of the Lunar New Year Festival (only halting flights in January)—that is, when China sees its highest annual outbound travel (i.e. hundreds of millions of people according to The New York Times). In fact, millions left Wuhan before the quarantine [4]. Chinese government records indicate that the first case of infection was recorded on the 17th of November [5], but the government did not report the infection until December 31st [6]. Furthermore, Beijing deceived the World Health Organization about the virus’ human-to-human transmissibility as well as about the nature of the virus [7][8], blocked W.H.O. scientists from critical information [9] and indicated suspected cases were “declining,” misrepresenting both case numbers and death tolls. Additionally, Xi’s regime lied about what the incinerators sent to Wuhan were working overtime burning, which tipped off international observers to the lethality of the virus [10]. Ultimately, the CCP—for its deception, unethical behavior, and duplicity concerning COVID-19—bears most of the responsibility for putting the world behind in its efforts to prepare for and ultimately address the virus that has now claimed over 4,000,000 lives worldwide [11].
Individuals, NGOs, and those few academics not ensnared by CCP money or haunting classrooms with their apologies for the latest statist terror, ought to put pressure on provincial and federal officials to highlight this issue. Failing action from those officials, we all have voices and votes, and can change our leadership in short order.
In his 2020 book Do Something, Reform Party founder Preston Manning identified 365 ways to strengthen Canada. Here’s part of one of those ways: “If our government is reluctant to do so for fear of damaging trade relations with the Chinese government, there is nothing stopping pro-democracy academics, NGO’s, and individuals from [encouraging the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong and in Taiwan], and we should.” A government made reluctant to do the right thing for fear of wolves cannot exercise grizzly diplomacy. In fact, it can do very little value and its international impact will be greatly limited. If the aforementioned desire for change is not, however, majoritive, we will have to—as Manning suggested—seek out non-governmental solutions.
To lead allied nations and those countries not coerced into silence by their participation in One Belt One Road in holding China accountable is a job perfect for a nation still held in high regard around the world. Yes, Canada is commonly perceived to be a mere soft or middle power, but only in its present comatose state. It is, at least in potential, a strong and respectable power. The fact is, notwithstanding our middling ambitions, Canada can achieve a great deal. Consider Lithuania’s opening of a “de-facto” embassy for Taiwan in Vilnius. That a nation with a population with fewer people than Toronto has exhibited more intestinal fortitude than our political leadership in this regard should be cause for much soul-searching, but it is also a sign of what we can in turn accomplish, officially or unofficially; as a nation and or as a people.
The recapture of Hong Kong—where Beverly McLachlin vainly upholds the illusion of judicial integrity—was inevitable, but the invasion of the sovereign democratic island nation of Taiwan is not guaranteed. Here, Canada can make a difference. Recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan. Open an embassy in Ottawa (which will be a monumental step up from the current 'Economic and Cultural Office' we already have).
We find ourselves at yet another critical juncture in history; at another time for choosing. Do we choose to pretend to care about democracy and freedom, while ignoring the attacks on Taiwan’s democracy and legitimacy? While buying up products from the slave-camp region of Xinjiang? While watching pro-democracy dissidents rounded up in Hong Kong? While running away from our responsibility as free people (i.e. to put our freedom into the service of the good)? Our silence and retreat now won't satisfy the wolves' appetite, but increase it. Those thinking themselves pragmatists might respond with: but what can Canada really do? The answer is more.
The path of least resistance for the Trudeau Liberals is to continue to caltrop and destroy western industries while importing dirty and unethical products from China, the world’s greatest polluter and slave state; to libel dead Canadians with accusations of genocide when a genocide is right now happening on the other side of the globe; and to wax poetic about religious rights and freedoms when the Falun Gong, House Christians, underground Catholic Church, and northern Chinese Muslims are savaged by the same regime that starved 40 million people during its “Great Leap Forward” and forced between 20 and 50 million Chinese into labor camps only a few decades ago. A dead thing goes with the stream; only a living thing can go against it. The path of greater resistance is the path whereupon the brave tread.
In addition to staring down the little wolves sent to our door by Beijing, grizzly diplomacy demands making hard decisions for the right reasons. It will require us reevaluating our relationships with Communist-occupied China. It will require reexamining our investments in and trade with that nation set to add a Canadian to its list of executed persons (the CCP executes more people every year than every other country combined). It will require Canada calling out evil and demanding rectification for the CCP’s malicious misdeeds, including but not limited to reparations for the virus it created and accelerated the spread of. Again, it starts with you and me.
What of your soul and national integrity are you willing to sacrifice in service of a false peace? What will you tell your kin come CCP-world-hegemony about your refusal to act when that outcome was not yet inevitable? How many innocents should the wolves devour before the grizzly is prepared to swipe back?