Alone in the world?: Making sense of Canada’s disputes with Saudi Arabia and China
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702019834652 |
| Author | Roland Paris |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Policy Brief |
Policy Brief
International Journal
2019, Vol. 74(1) 151–161
Alone in the world?:
! The Author(s) 2019
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Making sense of
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702019834652
Canada’s disputes with
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Saudi Arabia and China
Roland Paris
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of
Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Abstract
Canada has found itself in serious diplomatic disputes over the past year with Saudi
Arabia and China. The Saudis took issue with the Canadian foreign minister’s call to
release human rights activists from prison, whereas China was angry at Canada’s arrest
of a senior Chinese executive on an extradition request from the United States. These
incidents should not be viewed as isolated aberrations. Authoritarian regimes seem
increasingly emboldened to lash out at countries that displease them, including allies
of the United States. But Ottawa has succeeded in rallying considerable international
support for its position in the China dispute, suggesting that while Canada may be
exposed, it is not destined to be alone.
Keywords
Canadian foreign policy, Canada–China relations, China, Chinese foreign policy,
Canada–Saudi relations, Saudi Arabia, Canada–United States relations, US foreign
policy, Huawei, extradition, rule of law
China’s detention of two Canadians in December 2018—in apparent retaliation for
Canada’s arrest of a Huawei senior executive on an extradition request from the
United States—shocked and angered many Canadians, but it was not an isolated
event. Four months earlier, Saudi Arabia had also retaliated against Canada after
taking issue with a tweet from Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland calling
on the kingdom to release human rights activists from jail. The Saudis expelled
Corresponding author:
Roland Paris, University of Ottawa, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Room 6053,
120 University, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5, Canada.
Email: rparis@uottawa.ca
152
International Journal 74(1)
Canada’s ambassador, suspended commercial negotiations, pulled their students
from Canadian universities, and reportedly ordered the divestment of Canadian
assets.
These two episodes made Canada look like an increasingly exposed target.
Authoritarian regimes seem to feel newly emboldened to lash out against countries
that displease them, including allies of the United States. Perhaps they recognize
that under the presidency of Donald Trump, the US has been is less inclined to
defend its traditional friends. Canada lacks the unilateral capacity to strike back
against such assaults, nor does it belong to the European Union, which provides a
measure of protection to its members through strength-in-numbers. All of these
conditions lower the costs that authoritarian states can expect to pay if they pick on
Canada.
Perhaps something else is also at work. Canada is one of a dwindling group of
countries that continue to champion liberal values in the world, including human
rights, the rule of law, and democratic governance. Some Canadian commentators
have criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government for ‘‘preaching’’
about these values and unnecessarily provoking illiberal countries, whereas others
view these commitments as integral to Canada’s identity and argue that the gov-
ernment should defend them with even greater vigour. On this score, however, the
Trudeau government has not significantly differed from its predecessors. With
occasional deviations, Canadian governments have advocated similar values in
their foreign policies since the Second World War. The problem today is not
that Canada has changed. It is the rest of the world that has changed, leaving
Canada as something of an outlier—and a lightning rod.
Did Canada bring these problems upon itself? Freeland’s famous (or infamous)
tweet could have been more felicitous, but Riyadh bears the main responsibility for
the ensuing fracas. The intemperance of the Saudi response bore the hallmarks of
the young crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, who had demonstrated his
impulsiveness on several previous occasions, launching a reckless war in Yemen,
mounting a diplomatic offensive against Qatar, and by some accounts even detain-
ing the prime minister of Lebanon in Riyadh.1 The fierceness of the Saudi reaction
to Freeland’s tweet came as a surprise to most observers, but this type of impul-
siveness is, by its nature, hard to predict.
The China dispute was different. Beijing grew angry not at something Canada
said, but at the arrest of the Huawei executive. However, short of covertly warning
the Chinese executive and enabling her to evade capture—a gambit that would
have raised its own serious problems—there was little Canada could have done to
avoid China’s ire.
1.
David Ignatius, ‘‘Saudi Arabia forcibly detained Lebanon’s prime minister, sources say,’’ The
Washington Post, 10 November 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/
saudi-arabia-forcibly-detained-lebanons-prime-minister-sources-say/2017/11/10/b93a1fb4-c647-
11e7-84bc-5e285c7f4512_story.html (accessed 3 February 2019).
Paris
153
The best defence for Canada under these kinds of circumstances is to rally the
support of like-minded countries. This can be harder than it sounds. States are
generally reluctant to stick their necks out for others, even friends, unless they have
a good reason to do so; and with the United States retreating from its traditional
role as the world’s principal defender of liberal values, other liberal democracies
may have apprehensions about becoming targets of retaliation themselves. This
sense of vulnerability could explain why none—not one—of Canada’s traditional
partners publicly backed Canada in its dispute with Saudi Arabia. Under previous
US administrations, the White House would have likely supported Canada in a
quarrel with Saudi Arabia over human rights, but this time US officials pointedly
refused to take sides. So did our European friends: although some offered back-
channel help, none spoke up for Canada. Not the UK. Not France. Not even
Germany, which Saudi Arabia had subjected to similar treatment not long before.
They responded differently, however, to China’s detention of Canadian citizens
a few months later. The European Union and several of its individual mem-
bers—including the UK, France, and Germany—as well as the United States,
Australia, and others issued statements of concern. It was a display of solidarity
suggesting that Canada’s diplomatic solitude might not be so profound after all.
These episodes offer some lessons for how Canada might respond to such inci-
dents in the future. Our allies’ seeming indifference to Saudi Arabia’s broadside
caught Canadian officials by surprise. Experience had led them to expect more
support, but the world had changed—a lesson that informed their response to
the next incident. When China detained the two Canadians a few months later,
Ottawa quickly embarked on a global campaign to secure the support of other
countries, specifically highlighting the larger issues at stake in the incident.
Duelling detentions
The dispute with China began in December 2018 when Canadian police arrested
Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, while she was changing planes in
Vancouver.2 The US Justice Department had accused her of fraud for allegedly
conspiring to mislead several banks between 2009 and 2014.3 Specifically, they con-
tended that she had misrepresented the relationship between Huawei and Skycom
Tech, a Hong Kong-based company that did business in Iran in violation of US
sanctions. Chinese officials reacted to her arrest with fury, portraying it as a ‘‘pol-
itically motivated’’ ploy by the United States to weaken a major Chinese technology
2.
Portions of this section previously appeared in Roland Paris, ‘‘Canada is on the front lines of
challenges to rule of law,’’ Chatham House, 25 January 2019, https://www.chathamhouse.org/
expert/comment/canada-front-lines-c...
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