Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly recently met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in her first official visit to China since the years-long diplomatic crisis.
The resumption of ministerial-level contacts has led some commentators to call for a return to normal bilateral relations between Canada and China, citing “lighter signs” in the relationship.
Canadians remain concerned about foreign interference, and some say a chilly public opinion makes renegotiating with China politically difficult.
But few seem to realize that there is no turning back. Canada unveiled its Indo-Pacific strategy in November 2022, formally ending its longstanding relationship with China.
Canada has quietly halted most high-level dialogue and bilateral engagement mechanisms with China and undertaken a review process that will make it extremely difficult to create new modes of engagement.
Failure to Engage
Ending engagement makes sense. China's tendency toward coercive diplomacy vividly illustrates the failure of engagement policies, not only for Canada but also for other democracies such as Australia and Norway.
In the case of Canada, China arbitrarily detained Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in December 2018 and used them as bargaining chips to pressure Canada for the release of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who Canadian authorities had arrested on a U.S. arrest warrant.
But there were earlier signs that diplomatic engagement was failing, including China's crackdown on freedom of expression, its refusal to accept the 2016 South China Sea arbitration, its illiberal trade practices, its human rights violations in Xinjiang, and its elimination of presidential term limits. These and other events should have signaled the failure of nearly four decades of attempts to meaningfully engage with China and encourage it to embrace a rules-based international order.
Curiously, however, even as diplomatic tensions between Canada and China continued for years, Canadian officials continued to work to rebuild relations and protect the fabric of bilateral relations, including trade agreements, from what Canada initially characterized as a “consular dispute.”
So why did it take Canada so long to end its engagement policy? Why are so many other Western democracies still clinging to engagement with China? And how did Canada finally end a policy that lasted nearly four decades?
Ending an engagement is hard
The engagement policy is a foreign policy strategy that prioritizes building platforms, dialogues and other mechanisms to foster diplomatic exchanges at all levels of governance and across a range of issues.
Canada's engagement policy towards China began in the 1980s as a development strategy and effort to influence the trajectory of China's political and economic regime. Engagement was maintained to varying degrees by both Conservative and Liberal governments for almost four decades.
A new open-access academic study from the University of Toronto, based on confidential interviews with senior Canadian diplomats and policymakers, finds that engagement policies are difficult to abandon once adopted.
Canada's engagement policy towards China was maintained despite evidence that its goals were not being achieved because engagement is difficult to measure. The policy was never critically evaluated or tested. Over time, the pursuit of engagement became a habit rather than a conscious policy choice.
Engagement policies are particularly difficult to reverse, but other policies could fall into this trap as well. Foreign policy strategies that are hard to measure may ultimately be unable to withstand their own failures.
How to break off an engagement
Once a policy becomes habitual among civil servants, it is difficult to change. Some policymakers knew that engaging with China was not working, but they could not challenge the policy because the logic was self-evident and obvious.
But the creation of two channels for high-level policy discussion in mid-2020 – an inter-ministerial review process and regular vice-ministerial meetings on China – made change possible.
These platforms allowed policymakers to challenge the logic of engagement, try out new policy ideas, communicate the new ideas to the most powerful decision-makers, and build cross-sectoral consensus on new policy directions.
Michael Kovrig embraces his wife, Vina Najibullah, as they arrive at Pearson International Airport after their release from China in September 2021. Photo: The Canadian Press/Frank Gunn A working relationship is necessary
Of course, it would be a mistake to completely alienate China. Given China's global influence and military and economic power, a cooperative relationship and a clear strategy toward China is in Canada's best interest and serves both our nations' mutual interests.
Within this broader strategy, engagement may still make sense. Constructive dialogue on issues of common concern, such as biodiversity protection and climate change governance, must continue. Canada may also still see value in engaging with China on issues of deep disagreement, such as human rights and foreign interference, and in holding Chinese officials accountable when they act in violation of their international legal obligations.
But engagement should not simply be pursued for its own sake. High-level dialogue and other means of engagement must serve precisely and specifically defined policy objectives. In other words, engagement should not be pursued merely as a habit but a strategic and considered choice.
Michaela Pedersen McNab is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Toronto.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
