Huawei crisis has Chinese Canadians worried

Tues., Dec. 18, 2018

It was Confucius who said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

The last few days have been a wild-west ride for China-United States-Canada’s trilateral relations. Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of its founder Ren Zheng Fei, was arrested in Vancouver on Dec 1. China has then demanded the release of Meng.

Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, arrives at a parole office with a security guard in Vancouver on Dec. 12.  (DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Since then, Meng has been released on bail in Vancouver under strict supervision. In response to Canada’s actions, the Chinese government detained two Canadians subsequently. Sino-Canadian relations have never been grimmer.

The People’s Daily, the official Chinese state-run media wrote “Canada will Pay!” in a scathing op-ed this week. The world is watching how this unfolds. But few are paying attention to the Chinese Canadian diaspora and its reaction to Meng’s arrest.

Chinese Canadians’ opinions on this issue are split. Some applauded the arrest, feeling Donald Trump can finally teach China a lesson about law and order. Others felt Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s China policy is “naïve.” Many from the Chinese business community who donate to the Liberal party feel their interests are betrayed by Justin Trudeau. They feel Trudeau has been blindsided by Trump and merely acted as his lickspittle.

But for a diaspora with such divergent views, it is rare that two opposing sides share a consensus on this issue: the ramification and fall out of the Huawei feud could seriously harm Chinese Canadians.

Firstly, there are immediate economic consequences following the fall out as Beijing turns the screws on Canada. Many Chinese Canadians are gravely concerned about the prospect of Beijing’s further sanctions against Canada because many have keen business interests in Sino-Canadian trade.

Tourism Minister Mélanie Joly is no longer heading to China next week for the Canada-China Year of Tourism 2018 closing ceremony. Most tour operators that run the Canada-China route are Chinese Canadians. They fear this could seriously harm tourism dollars in 2019.

Commodities make up the majority of goods send to China. In 2017, wood and wood pulp export topped at $4.8 billion while canola oil sold to China at $3.6 billion. Any regulatory changes in China could affect these exports, impact Canadian jobs and stakeholders in these sectors. Many of the stakeholders, not surprisingly, are Chinese Canadians.

Secondly, the Huawei case has put a dark cloud shrouding the psyche of many Chinese Canadians. It is hard to judge definitively how compelling America’s case is against Huawei because the details of the accusations are embedded in national security secrecy.

You might be interested in

• 

  ‘Hundreds’ of Canadians held by China raises the stakes for Trudeau’s government
• 

  Brace yourself Toronto, 2019 is not looking good
• 

  Is it OK to say Merry Christmas? No

However, the “War on Huawei” is also perceived as an extension of the confrontation between the West and China by many Chinese Canadians. The West bet China would head toward democracy and the market economy. That gamble has failed. As China become a global superpower, the West has become weary of China’s ambitions when its own democracies are suffering a crisis of confidence.

Chinese Canadians and the Chinese diaspora at large often find themselves caught uncomfortably between an increasingly suspicious West and an ascending China. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a report claiming that there are at least 274 documented cases of Chinese worldwide espionage since 2000.

The problem is not these cases. Nations have always spied on each other. The problem is that these activities are perceived as means for China to expand its global and geopolitical interests and challenge the existing liberal world order established by the West. China is considered a threat.

A new wave of “Sino-Phobia” makes many Chinese Canadians who work in information technology, media, telecommunication, politics and the academia feel they are automatically suspects.

Now, many Chinese Canadians who have close ties to mainland China due to business or family connections feel they are sitting on the verge of a McCarthy Era re-enactment, in which they will be accused of being “China Sympathizers” and become the subject of aggressive investigations. Their fear is legitimate. After all, Chinese Canadians were the only ethnic minority group that was banned from immigrating to Canada through the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The Huawei arrest is the first major diplomatic spat between Canada and China since the Cold War. In a West, rebuilt on Cold War ideologies and McCarthyism, there is likely to be little place for Chinese Canadians.