Colby Cosh: Canada’s secret meeting with the Chinese military

Article content

Some of you will have noticed a new and slightly shocking example of Canada’s longstanding case of information constipation: namely, the occurrence of Fifth China-Canada Defence Coordination Dialogue, which took place in Ottawa on Friday of last week. If you are hearing about this for the first time, you may have all kinds of questions. Such as “Canada is coordinating its national defence with China’s?” Or “Why are we doing that?” Or “What would this involve exactly?” Or “This is the fifth time?”

Article content

Article content

And perhaps the biggest question of all: why hasn’t Canada officially announced that this happened? Because the People’s Republic of China, for its part, managed to put out a press release the day after the conference took place. Apparently representatives of the two countries “had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on international and regional issues of mutual interest, expressed willingness to strengthen practical exchanges and cooperation between the two militaries, and enhanced mutual understanding and trust.”

Article content

Article content

Article content

To be sure, this paragraph of verbiage tells the Chinese and Canadian publics nothing, but at least the Chinese Ministry of National Defence went to the trouble. One notices how much a literally communist press circular resembles the press releases our own government authorities and corporations routinely emit, when they get around to it …

Article content

There has been no corresponding public explanation of the talks from the Canadian side, but the Globe and Mail’s star Steve Chase and Canadian Press’s Dylan Robertson, chasing down the Chinese clue, were fed a statement by a spokesman for our defence department. The spokesman was able to confirm that the meeting took place, and that it happened in Ottawa. “As part of ongoing working-level dialogue,” the statement read, “Canadian and Chinese defence officials met on September 4, in support of ongoing military-to-military communications at the functional level.”

Article content

Article content

Which doesn’t add much to what the Chinese said (proactively, without having to be hassled by reporters). It added that “As a matter of longstanding practice, the Government of Canada does not publicize working-level meetings by officials.” Chase was able to find a background source who told him that about 10 Canadian officers and diplomats were present.

Article content

It is certainly the longstanding practice of Canadian officials to sit on information until it dies of buttock suffocation, but I wonder if this is justifiable or healthy. Actually, scratch that: I don’t wonder. It’s not. No doubt some people will be tempted to make trouble with the Americans about a low-level side chat between the Canadian and Chinese militaries, but look at how the U.S. military handles this stuff. The senior American military commander in the Pacific, Adm. Samuel Paparo, met personally with his People’s Liberation Army counterpart on Canadian soil the day before the China-Canada talks.

Article content

We know this because U.S. Pacific Command put out a public press release about the meeting. And this American statement, unlike Canada’s privately circulated one, actually explains the purpose of the meeting in plain English words. “The two leaders [Paparo and PLA Gen. Yang Zhibin] discussed the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between senior U.S. and Chinese military leaders to reduce the risk of miscalculation and promote safe and professional conduct between forces.”