An open letter to Mr. Lu Shaye, China's Ambassador to Canada:
Greetings, Mr. Ambassador. I understand that you were invited to address a gathering in Toronto on the issue of Sino-Canadian relations last week. Given the strain between our two governments, one might assume you would call for "cooler heads to prevail" or even a "reset in relations." Instead, your speech was little more than a jingoist diatribe worthy of a political rally.
This is not solely the fault of you or your political master's myopia. The neoliberal mantra long proclaimed China's preordained ascension as the hegemonic world power, even assisting it by handing our musculature labour over, hoping that such magnanimity would foster democracy.
case the slow boat to Shanghai is carrying your news, the Politburo and President Xi ought to be told that the West has gotten wise to the PRC's act. It is well understood that rising wealth does not necessarily mean a more tolerant or democratic society, particularly thanks to the increased powers of state surveillance, which have been achieved by stealing technology or infringing patents. Be warned, Mr. Ambassador: China's impudent ways are catching up with it.
I was puzzled by several parts of your badly proofread speech. Insisting that China had nothing to learn from the West, or had never been expansionist at any point of its history, were non-sequiturs, given your praise of Marxism (a Western ideology) and the brutal treatment of Tibet by the current regime. If this rhetoric had a point, it might be the demand that all "Western countries must respect and treat China as an equal politically" - a sentence I had to correct.
But the People's Republic of China isn't really equal, is it? Despite having three times the population, the PRC's GDP is still six to seven trillion dollars less than the United States. While sabre rattling about the Spratly Islands might earn time on CNN, a simple Google search reveals your navy has fewer aircraft carriers than Italy. Even imprisoning Canadians in retaliation for Meng Wanzhou's looming extradition smacks of an amateur government acting out of desperation.
Furthermore, while we might greatly enjoy the cheap trinkets you export to us, we can live without them, unlike the finished goods the West ships to you. Even a short embargo on raw resources would be catastrophic, as China needs food and energy for over 1.3 billion people.
To put it bluntly, Mr. Shaye, your premise, "Western countries' psychological imbalance towards China's economic and technological development comes down to the West-egotism," is a mirror image of the truth: President Xi and the Party have lost touch with reality thanks to their over inflated sense of self-importance. This has lead the PRC into political and economic positions that are indefensible. How all your leaders forgot Sun-Tzu's Art of War is a mystery.
There is of course a way out of this mess and it is not so lofty as democratic elections or more transparency: release the Canadians and continue legal proceedings for Wanzhou's return to your own country. In the meanwhile, ask for the World Trade Organization to arbitrate your economic dispute with the United States. There are those who would support your cause against the unpopular U.S. President Donald Trump, but they cannot support a regime that takes hostages.
In the long term, China might get more respect if it's denial of intellectual theft was accompanied by genuinely innovative products. This might require a less regulated society and a culture of imagination - things that can be achieved in an autocracy (see Frederick the Great).
But most importantly, the braggadocio embodied by the PRC on the world stage and echoed in your remarks will only earn contempt, particularly given the geo-strategic vulnerability of China.
Mr. Shaye, you praised our long diplomatic history: will you and your country honour it?
