‘Canadians need to think about being in China. It’s always been risky and this is a reminder to them.’

David Mulroney is a career diplomat who finished his career as Canada’s ambassador to China between 2009 and 2012. Using expertise he gleaned there, he penned the book Middle Power, Middle Kingdom: What Canadians Need to Know about China in the 21st Century. Prior to his posting in Beijing, he was deputy minister responsible for the Afghanistan Task Force, overseeing the department’s role in Canada’s engagement in that country. He also served as associate deputy minister of foreign affairs and as prime minister Stephen Harper’s personal representative to the 2007 G8 Summit. In addition to postings in Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Seoul, he served as executive director of the Canada-China Business Council. He is currently a distinguished senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He spoke with Diplomat’s editor, Jennifer Campbell.

Diplomat & International: With respect to the imprisonment-without-charges of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, was the Chinese government trying to get revenge or was it using them as a bargaining chip to gain Canadian co-operation in preventing Meng Wanzhou from being extradited to the U.S.?
David Mulroney: I think it’s both punishment and leverage. They’re striking out [at us]. They probably don’t want to strike out at the United States because they’re too powerful and they’re in the midst of trade negotiations. So they’re going to pick on Canada. This is hostage diplomacy we’ve seen before and China has practised before on us and on others.

DI: Can you name a previous Canadian example?
DM: [Kevin and Julia] Garratt — the Canadians who operated a café up on the North Korean border. They were detained shortly after a Chinese aerospace engineer was sent to the U.S., alleged to have [stolen] U.S. military secrets. [Kevin] Garratt wasn’t released for 19 months. Sweden and Australia have faced similar detentions. This, unfortunately, is an increasingly common technique against countries that really do care for their citizens.
This is a reality in our relationship with China. Occasionally you fall afoul of it. This has happened to us now a couple of times. We need to think about how we deal with it and how we prepare ourselves. And I think Canadians need to think about being in China. It’s always been risky and this is a reminder to them.

DI: Would you go to China right now?
DM: I haven’t had the need. I’d think carefully about going to China right now.

DI: Because of your profile?
DM: Yes, but I think the risk is higher for everybody. And my advice would be that unless you absolutely have to go, postpone. I think it would be less of a problem for tourists. The highest vulnerability is for diplomats, former diplomats, journalists and human rights workers, who are speaking to people that China considers problematic and are going to places that China considers sensitive. A dossier is kept on you and if they need to pick someone up and you’ve been up to North Korea or Xinjiang, you’re going to be on the list. Where it gets tricky is with, for example, hockey teams. Let’s say there’s an altercation or people are celebrating with too much exuberance. In the past, the police might be involved, but it would be settled quickly. Now you just don’t know.

DI: Is it possible that Meng’s arrest was carefully orchestrated by the U.S., and perhaps its allies, to drive a wedge between Canada and China to prevent Huawei equipment from being used in Canada’s 5G network?
DM: I think it’s highly unlikely. My inclination is to look at the highest possibility. The U.S. is pointing to a serious and troubling case — they haven’t proved it yet — that she misled foreign financial institutions about Huawei’s involvement with Iran and whether or not it [the company] was involved in sales to Iran. That’s the reason. Of course, Huawei is caught up in larger political issues. Some people have said [the U.S.] never targets CEOs or senior people. In this case, [they targeted her] because she made the pitch to the banks.

DI: There seems to have been conflict between the Communications Security Establishment’s initial dismissal, as recently as October, of the danger of spying that Huawei presented versus advice by Richard Fadden, former head of CSIS and Peter MacKay, former defence minister, about the high-stakes security risks of spying. CSE has since reconsidered. Where do you stand on the security risk?
DM: I was a great believer, prior to the 5G era, in what I call risk mitigation. It’s what the British have done in the U.K., where Huawei has established a lab and [where] British technicians look at the equipment for signs of back doors. I’m not a technology person, but I’m led to believe that 5G is of a nature that makes it more difficult to do that kind of risk mitigation.
The unfortunate thing in this — but it may be inevitable — is that I don’t think Huawei is a company that only copies and steals technology. I think Huawei is a really interesting company on many levels that makes good technology at affordable prices. So the cost to us on this is that we build a wall between the West and China that blocks Chinese technology that’s really, really interesting. When I talk to Chinese friends who come to Canada and look at our retail sector, they say ‘Wow, this is pretty backward.’ There are so many innovations in China that we’re not aware of and we’re misleading ourselves if we say China just copies us. It does copy us in some areas, but in others, it’s a leader in technology. We need to think carefully if the result of this is that we’re totally cut off from some of the really interesting things that China’s doing.
I’d like to hear more on risk mitigation. It’s easy for security agencies to simply say ‘Don’t engage.’ China isn’t the Soviet Union, which was only a threat. Our prosperity depends on working with China. Global health issues, global climate change issues — China is part of the solution to a lot of them. I think it’s too early to say we give up on risk mitigation. China poses a lot of risk compared to other partners, but it remains to be seen how we can construct a new kind of engagement that is smarter, but still works to our benefit.

DI: Do you predict that Canada will ultimately restrict or block Huawei, much like allies such as Japan, New Zealand and Australia?
DM: Huawei is under a very significant cloud. To the extent that we have to make decisions before that cloud dissipates, I think it’s unlikely that this relationship is going to grow.

DI: The company does have a number of employees in Canada.
DM: Yes, and a billion dollars in infrastructure that they’ve installed through Bell and Telus. So, it’s an expensive decision. What also interests me about Huawei: When I’ve visited Chinese state-owned enterprises in Canada, very few of them have succeeded in Canadianizing their operations. They look very much like Chinese organizations in China. It’s not bad or good, it’s just different. It doesn’t have a Canadian look and feel, but Huawei was really effective in getting into the Canadian space. It got Canada in a way others didn’t. Its advertisements were very slick and its work at the provincial level, with universities, was very sophisticated. And depending on how you look at it, that’s either good or bad. That’s why China sees Huawei being constrained as a big setback for Chinese ambitions.

DI: You called comments by John McCallum, Canada’s former ambassador to China, on Meng’s extradition request by the U.S. “mind-boggling.” Why?
DM: An ambassador to China has no standing — there’s no role for him to comment on an extradition process in Canada. He can explain to people in China about how the process works, but he should avoid giving an opinion as to how strong a person’s case is and whether a decision would be good or bad. I think that was misguided. The real problem was the amount of confusion it’s sown. It’s confused the Chinese, it’s confused Canadians and it’s probably confused Americans. What’s hard to understand, or maybe hard to believe, is that he was in Canada meeting with cabinet and colleagues and he never mentioned that to them? We’ve been led to believe that they would have said ‘That’s not our policy, you shouldn’t say that.’ There’s a mystery there that has yet to be clarified.

DI: It’s hard to imagine he’d say those things without the blessing of the Prime Minister’s Office.
DM: If this was your theory and you were invited to brief cabinet, you wouldn’t tell them that?

DI: Hard to imagine you wouldn’t, but do you think he didn’t?
DM: I think he did. That’s where the story becomes improbable. If I was about to do a press conference and I was briefing the minister, I’d be in a lot of trouble if I’d kept that from the minister. That’s where this becomes improbable, unless he misunderstood it. But that generates other questions.

DI: Reports say that on Jan. 11 — two weeks before Trudeau fired him — McCallum voiced the same views when he told Canadian business executives in Toronto that the case against Meng was weak and that he hoped the U.S. would withdraw its request for her extradition.
DM: Again, that’s part of the improbable side. If the government didn’t know what he was saying, they weren’t paying much attention at a highly sensitive time. I can’t imagine coming back to Canada as ambassador at a time of this much tension and then going off on a series of speeches. When I came back, they wanted to know what I was going to say, to whom I was going to say it; they wanted someone to accompany me. Not because they didn’t trust me, but because governments have very specific ideas on how things should be managed and what the major message of the day is going to be. If you’re back as an ambassador, they don’t want you stepping on their major message, so that’s why they tend to have an excessive degree of interest in what you’re saying. I find [the McCallum situation] puzzling.

DI: You were posted to China as ambassador from 2009 to 2012, when Stephen Harper was in power. Was the same true of the PMO then?
DM: If I was coming back and I were speaking, I’d be asked: ‘Is it for media, not for media?’ I’d always prefer it be for media and I was generally trusted, but I was careful about what I said. Your job is not to make policy, your job is to explain policy and to tell the story of what Canada’s doing in China.

DI: If it were up to you, whom would you send to China to replace McCallum?
DM: I want to stay out of that. I think there are some very good people at the department.

DI: So a career diplomat?
DM: Yes, I’d say that. And here’s why: Because I never believed that this idea that if you were a minister, you could pick up the phone and speak to the prime minister really mattered. Can current ministers pick up the phone and speak to the prime minister or do they speak [with an adviser]? That I wonder about.
Secondly, on a really important issue, if the prime minister is coming [to the country to which you’re posted], you have a way of communicating with him. But knowing China, knowing how foreign affairs works, is important. I’m confident we have some very strong people, some of whom I’ve served with in various places, who could do that job. But, we also have to continue to invest in that pool of China officers. [Michael] Kovrig was in the pool of upcoming rising stars. We need to keep that pool well stocked and attach priority to having a very strong team of China specialists in the department.

DI: You say Beijing foreign ministry officials followed you whenever you left the capital. Why and how far did they shadow you? Do you suppose it’s worse now?
DM: It wasn’t necessarily Beijing officials. Every province and every municipality had a foreign affairs bureau. I would have to tell the foreign ministry when I was going somewhere and where I was going, and they would meet me and insist on accompanying me to every event. A few times, I changed it up. When I went to Tibet, we had pitched battles. I had to get permission to go to Tibet in the first place, and the first time, they said, ‘OK David, you can go to Tibet in two weeks.’ That was May, which is the season when every parliamentary delegation comes, every premier comes. I said ‘I’m booked solid; I can’t go.’ They said ‘Well, we offered you a chance.’ I didn’t have a chance for another year. We had very strong arguments about my going. I insisted on being able to go out and walk around and meet people and see people and I succeeded to a certain extent.
I was very interested in issues of religious freedom so I’d go to Tibetan areas, Muslim areas. I’d go to Protestant churches and I was very interested in what was happening with the Catholic Church. I heard about a Catholic seminary where the rector had been replaced by a Chinese Communist Party official and the seminarians went on strike. I said ‘I want to meet these people.’ That’s one of the neat things about being an ambassador — you can find out what happened. I’d gotten to know some of the priests in that community so I told [one of them] I wanted to come and see him. He said: ‘David, if you do, please tell the provincial foreign affairs people, because I don’t want to get in trouble.’ I duly informed them and there was kind of an intake of breath on the phone.

So I get to the train station and the priests were coming to the train station in a van to take me to the seminary. And there’s this young guy from the local foreign affairs bureau. This guy, who was very junior, is yelling at me on the train platform and wagging his finger in my face and saying that these people are trouble-makers. It was embarrassing.
He said ‘You have another meeting and it’s very important and with a senior person and you can’t [miss] this meeting.’ I asked when it was and it was really tight, but I said I was still going to the seminary. I still had a very good meeting with them. They were very happy I’d come. I went to this other meeting and it was with a retired official. It was totally bogus — they just wanted to trim my time.
On another occasion in Xinjiang, they insisted that they accompany me. I had made arrangements to meet a family that was important to us and I’d made [the arrangements] on my own. At 5 p.m., I told [my Chinese escort] I had another meeting and asked to be dropped off at a particular restaurant. They said ‘We know you have this meeting and we’d ask you not to go.’ As we pulled up to the restaurant, I said ‘I’ve taken note of your request, thank you, and I’ll see you again at 9 a.m. tomorrow’ and I jumped out of the car. The thing you worry about is getting the family in trouble. I knew I was being watched in the restaurant, so we were careful.

One of my hardest cases like that was there was a moot court, a competition for the best law students in China. The ambassadors of Canada, Germany and the U.S. were invited to speak to them. The meeting was in a province where there was a very famous dissident who was under house arrest. He’d been released from prison, but he had thugs guarding him and they’d even roughed up some of our diplomats who’d gone to see him. This dissident was a lawyer, so I asked myself ‘How can I speak to these law students and not mention this incident in their province?’
So I did. I said ‘I’m a guest here, and I don’t want to give offence, but in speaking to you as law students, I have to say that we should all be concerned about the safety of this person, who is a lawyer like you are going to be and he’s on the other side of your province under house arrest.’ We had coffee, the students were keenly interested in this. Later, the university president invited us to lunch and he was very nice to the other two [visiting ambassadors], and then he just lays into me. He says, ‘That was inappropriate, you don’t understand, our legal system is changing; we’re making so much progress.’ I understood what he was saying, and I didn’t want to get him in trouble either, but I didn’t believe I could just not mention that. So it’s always tough.
DI: Would you say dealing with China is diplomacy at its most difficult?
DM: Yes. I mean, I used to go to Kabul and that was more difficult because your physical safety is at stake. But China is very difficult. I would be told, for example, ‘We would be grateful if you could make sure Prime Minister Harper doesn’t raise the following things…’ I’d say ‘Not only can I not do that, but I wouldn’t do that. He’s here to mention those things and he will.’

DI: You’ve written that freeing Spavor and Kovrig would go a long way toward reassuring world governments about China. Do you think the world is watching this situation?
DM: Yes, and I think it’s something of a turning point. What’s interesting about this incident is the amount of interest that’s coming from the wider world. I’ve been talking to Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. and there’s a great deal of interest. It’s a turning point and I think it’s been a tremendous miscalculation by China.
Up until now, China’s relationships are plateaus and valleys and you go into a valley when something happens that the Chinese don’t like. When you happen to be the country in the crosshairs, everyone else just looks the other way and says ‘Wow, I’m glad that’s not me.’ Norway got in trouble after Liu Xiaobo got the Nobel Prize. Sweden’s been in trouble, Australia’s been in trouble, the U.K.’s been in trouble. I think now there’s more interesting conversation about how we deal with this. Not that we’re ganging up on China, but in a way that others will raise their voices. I think if China hears from enough serious countries — and it doesn’t have to be public — it will take that seriously. They may not change right away and they won’t say this is why, but they will.
This is one place [where] Chinese President Xi Jinping is vulnerable. There’s still a constituency in China that says ‘Don’t push too hard because we’re not that strong yet.’ If other countries are seriously worried about China’s assertiveness, that’s a problem for Xi.

DI: What do you predict for the future of Canada-China relations in trade, diplomacy and foreign policy?
DM: I think we need to be prepared for the fact that there will be a chill and that will have some impact on trade, more in terms of public signings and high-profile events. China likes to convince us that trade is a favour they do for us. But Chinese people buy things from Canada because they need them and they want them and that will continue, so we shouldn’t be unduly worried about that.
I do think there will be a rethinking of the relationship that says we still respect China and we still engage with China broadly, but perhaps not as broadly. We don’t pretend that China is just like us. We don’t contribute to false beliefs about the extent to which China has changed. We’re not afraid to work individually or with others to make clear our expectations for China in the world. Just as much as we welcome its rise, we need to communicate what our expectations are, just as China has expectations for us. I think, to a certain extent, we’ve operated according to China’s playbook, so we’ve internalized the idea that it’s never appropriate to talk back to China or to disagree. That’s just counter-productive.
The other thing we do [that is counter-productive] is to accept China’s notion that it’s so complicated that the only people who can understand China are people of Chinese origin. That creates a sense that the relationship has to be very complicated. We’re lucky we have a lot of people who speak the language and understand the culture, but the relationship doesn’t have to put such a burden on the diaspora. We should treat everyone as Canadians and not enlist them as representatives for the country they used to come from. No one asks my opinion on how to deal with the Republic of Ireland, right? It’s crazy and it creates more problems than it solves. We’re very lucky to have those insights, but we need to raise our China competence as a country.

DI: You recently said you think [U.S. President Donald] Trump might be right in not giving China a pass. How should Canada approach China at this point?
DM: I think we have a stake in seeing progress on some of the technology issues the Americans are raising. The requirements for foreign companies to hand over their technology; efforts to take that technology through clandestine means, we all have a stake there. Trump has surprised, and to a certain extent, discomfited the Chinese. [The Chinese] haven’t read him correctly and it’s unusual to see this, but they’re playing catch-up in terms of the trade negotiations. It’s in our interest to see those negotiations come to a successful conclusion because our interest is in seeing a strong U.S. economy and a strong Chinese economy. But this is one example where taking a tougher approach has worked, I think.

DI: Are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland doing a good job on this file?
DM: I think we’ve come a long way in a year, from when we were trying to do a progressive trade agreement with China. We probably shouldn’t have had to cover that ground but I’m glad we covered it. What worried me about the McCallum comments is that there’s still a constituency in Ottawa that just believes that all we have to do is solve this problem — and it seems we both have this problem, it’s not just one China has inflicted on us — and we’ll get back to the relationship as it was. People are desperate to get back to this relationship. I think we need to be convinced the government is thinking about the future and a new kind of relationship and I’m not sure we’ve seen that yet. To me, you’ve got to manage the crisis and I think now, after the debacle of the McCallum comments, we’re doing a better job, but you also need to think about the future and the jury is out on their ability to do that.

DI: You were executive director of the Canada-China Business Council from 1995 to 1998. How has the relationship changed since then?
DM: It was very different then. Canada and China occupied slightly different positions. We were closer to China than we are now. As we’ve become smaller in China’s eyes, [the relationship has] become much more difficult to manage. We were all more optimistic about directions for China and China’s opening. We had reason to be. Back then, the leadership was still committed to what seemed to be a reform course.

DI: Where do you think the China-U.S. trade war will end up?
DM: The most ambitious U.S. deal would see China agree to systemic change, which is unlikely. My sense is that although the U.S. has the upper hand, they may be persuaded to allow China to buy its way to a truce by announcing some major commitments to step up imports of U.S. goods. What will be interesting is whether the U.S. can get China to agree in return to some kind of compliance mechanism, which would allow tariffs to snap back if China failed to meet its commitments. That would at least allow the U.S. to argue that they’ve finally broken new ground. The big unknown is whether President Trump will attempt to offer some linkage to Ms. Meng’s fate, possibly offering to drop the prosecution in favour of some kind of trade concession. That’s a very bad idea that can’t be entirely ruled out.

DI: Along the same vein, you’ve recently talked about how negotiating with China is now more of a zero-sum game. Can you give a couple of examples of your experience with this?
DM: In the past, I would find that even if China won the negotiation, you’d leave with some face and something [gained]. When I returned in 2009, it was much tougher and [Chinese negotiators] leaving you with nothing was A-OK. What I admired about China in my younger days was they really valued every relationship because they realized they’d need to call on other countries and they treated them with respect.
By 2009, it was so evident they were feeling their status and their power, that they had to make you feel somehow inferior. That’s always bad strategy and tactics. They tended to want to dominate every discussion and you were expected to put up with walking away with nothing. That’s been catastrophic for Chinese diplomacy. Their position in Asia is weaker in some respects because of their assertiveness. They were premature in their celebrations and having behaved the way they have in southeast Asia, people may later agree to go along to get along, but they won’t forget how you acted and they won’t ever trust [China]. The change in Chinese diplomacy is bewildering because it’s counter-productive and it makes it hard for countries to be as friendly and helpful as China would like them to be.
[If] everybody says the sun rises and sets for you, it’s hard not to believe that. And everyone buys into it. It’s a system where deference is very important. This is why I think they miscalculated with the U.S., because they weren’t sufficiently self-critical. That’s a Chinese weakness.