Here’s an odd thing about this interview Brian Mulroney gave the Globe the other day about Canada and China.
As interventions from foreign-policy heavyweights of a certain age go, this one was actually pretty good for Justin Trudeau. The main question at hand on the Canada-China file is whether Canada should proceed with extradition hearings for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, or hand her over to Beijing in return for the release of jailed Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
Mulroney is Team Trudeau on this question—so much so that he says he feels bad about proposing, a year ago, that Jean Chrétien fly to China to sort things out. (Mulroney says he was amazed to learn that Chrétien would have supported a Meng-for-Michaels prisoner exchange. Did he not check his successor’s position before volunteering him for an ad hoc diplomatic mission?) Anyway, however Mulroney got to his current position on the Meng extradition, his support for Trudeau’s refusal to cut a deal puts him squarely at odds with the so-called Gang of 19 former diplomats, bureaucrats and politicians who wrote to Trudeau urging him to make the trade. One assumes Trudeau is grateful for the support.
On every other element of the Canada-China relationship, however, Mulroney perceives a leadership vacuum and a growing list of decisions to be made: on 5G mobile networks, on security in the South China Sea, and more.
Sorry for the long intro. Here’s what seems so odd to me: Mulroney doesn’t demand that Justin Trudeau make those decisions. He calls on Trudeau to find somebody else to make the decisions for him.
[Interesting Read]
