Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan confirmed on Thursday that Canadian soldiers are no longer training members of the Chinese military. Previously, James Bezan, a Conservative defense critic, questioned why Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would maintain such relations with China.
In 2013, the former conservative government signed a military cooperation plan with China to ramp up the coordination between the two countries. The Trudeau government invited the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for joint training at the Canadian Forces Base at Petawawa in the province of Ontario last year, months after China’s arrests of two Canadians.
Such joint training mainly involves non-traditional security coordination, such as anti-piracy, anti-terrorism and humanitarian relief, which is very normal. China has carried out various military drills with other countries including the US. Canada’s response is obviously an overreaction.
Sajjan said one of the reasons is that, “we will always stand up for Canadians who are arbitrarily detained.” As a matter of fact, the one who was “arbitrarily detained” is Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer. Canada was a US accomplice in the illegal arrest of Meng, which is a serious political incident. On the contrary, the two Canadian citizens’ cases are entirely different from Meng’s case. The Chinese authorities arrested and prosecuted them and will put them on trial because they are suspected of crimes that endangered China’s national security. But Canada insists on linking the two incidents.
Anyway, the two cases have gravely impaired the political relationship between the two countries. The Canadian military believes the deterioration of political ties is to affect mutual trust between the two militaries. This logic can partly explain why the Canadian military called off the winter training, despite not being the main reason.
However, the cancellation of this exercise has upset Trudeau. According to media reports, a notice from the Trudeau government to the army stated: “Considering the strengthening of scrutiny, any decision to reduce relations in Canada should be carefully considered to avoid sending any unhelpful or unintentional information.”
The Trudeau administration is self-contradictory. It doesn’t really want to see the China-Canada relationship deteriorate and thus affect bilateral trade. After all, Canada is highly dependent on the Chinese market. If China-Canada military ties decay, the two countries’ political relations will be affected as a result. This is not what Trudeau wants. A further decline of the political relationship will thus inevitably influence China-Canada economic connectivity. Therefore, the Trudeau administration is worried that the recklessness of Canadian military will further deteriorate political ties between Beijing and Ottawa.
We can see that Canada’s diplomatic, administrative and defense departments all have their own thinking. The Canadian military has close cooperation with US troops. And in fact, it is subject to US military interests, and complies with US army and defense department’s requests.
Strictly speaking, the Canadian army is not an independent army. It is more dependent on the US army to carry out combat missions.
The main reason why Canada stopped training with the Chinese military is more due to the pressure exerted by the US military. At present, US political elites remain on the same page: They unfairly label China as a strategic rival and would like to spare no effort to confront it. Canada has to meet the needs of the US and follow its wish to reduce the military cooperation between Canada and China.
Canada’s relations with the US in terms of diplomacy or economics are closely connected but also distant and independent to some degree. Therefore, the Canadian government will take into account its political and economic relations with China and will not simply follow the US’ lead.
Such divergences between the Canadian foreign ministry and the defense ministry may also lead to more problems for future China-Canada relations.
The author is a Chinese military expert and commentator. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Global Times
