Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs
Issue 23 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 5, 1997
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs met this day at 4:10 p.m. to examine and report on the growing importance of the Asia Pacific region for Canada, with emphasis on the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference to be held in Vancouver in the fall of 1997, Canada's year of the Asia Pacific.
Senator John B. Stewart (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: We will resume our work on the relations between Canada and the Asia Pacific region.
With us today is Dr. Paul M. Evans, who is a graduate of the University of Alberta and Dalhousie University. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Toronto and at Harvard University. He is a professor in the department of political science at York University.
His principle books include John Fairbank and the American Understanding of Modern China, and a co-edited volume entitled, Reluctant Adversaries: Canada and the People's Republic of China. He has done work on security topics and is now involved in doing research toward the publication of a book on security relations in Asia Pacific.
I have asked Dr. Evans to deal with the whole question of human rights in the context of trade and investment relations and, since he is an authority on the matter, to say something about security questions. Please proceed.
Mr. Paul Evans, Professor, Joint Centre for Asian Studies, York University: It is an honour to have the opportunity to be with you today. I do not have a prepared statement, however I have brought two essays with me. One pertains to the engagement of China and some work we did in the context of the program of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on how to engage China. The other essay relates to the question of APEC and regional security and ways in which APEC can begin to look at regional security questions around the margins.
I appreciate that my testimony is being given at the same time that you are approaching the writing of the interim report. You kindly provided me with transcripts of some of the earlier discussions. I can see how widely the discussions have ranged and how probing some of the questions have been. The jigsaw puzzle that you have in front of you is starting to take a pattern. It also appears that some of the pieces are wiggling around as you are trying to place them in the pattern.
I wish to say a few words on three topics, in part because they have risen in your discussions with other witnesses and because they will be themes that will underline the key issue in your report.
First, I wish to talk about the nature of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Second, I should like to comment on Canada as an Asia Pacific country, particularly this year, 1997. Finally, I wish to remark on the rise of China and its implications for this review and broader Canadian foreign policy in the Asia Pacific region.
Gareth Evans, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia, described APEC as four adjectives in search of a noun. This strange beast, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, something, is a rather unusual beast. I will suggest that not only is it four adjectives in search of a noun but also the title, "APEC", summarizes some of the debate around what the organization should be, not just that there is no word like "community" at the end of it, but, rather, how the word "Asia Pacific" is spelled.
I notice that throughout your hearings and in the terms of reference in this committee you have used Asia Pacific without the hyphen. You have written "Asia" and "Pacific" with nothing in between. The formal organization, APEC, has a hyphen between "Asia" and "Pacific". While it might be a bit of a tendentious point, the debate about the hyphen speaks volumes about the differing understandings of what Asia Pacific might mean.
To put it roughly, those who advocate the hyphen -- that is, "Asia-Pacific", essentially feel that the focus of activities is what is occurring on the other side of the Pacific in those countries in Asia that are also on the Pacific. These can be countries ranging from China and Japan in the north to Indonesia in the south. The others that are involved in Asia-Pacific do so as well-intentioned outsiders, but the dynamic is what is occurring in Asia.
When the phrase "Asia Pacific" is used without the hyphen, this has been a signal or code for those who conceive of Asia Pacific as a trans-Pacific area and as a trans-Pacific process.
In that respect, the United States and Canada are not just countries with an interest in Asia Pacific, but are part of the region itself. This is an area where there is considerable debate still on how the spelling should be used. People are relatively aware of what the stakes are in this.
Whether we use Asia Pacific with or without the hyphen, APEC has essentially been interpreted in two different ways. One of them is that APEC is essentially an instrument for trade liberalization for the promotion of commercial relations among its members for what I would call the liberalization agenda in moving forward trade and other commercial operations.
My colleague at the University of Toronto, Sylvia Ostry, is one of the more interesting interpreters of APEC as essentially being an organization that is designed to assist business and trade policy analysts and makers in liberalizing markets in the Asia Pacific region.
I am drawing this distinction between two interpretations because, according to that first interpretation, a variety of issues such as human rights and political security matters should not be part of the agenda of APEC. In fact, it would be to deflect it from its real mission.
A second interpretation of APEC has been heard in some of the testimony that has been given to this committee. It is that Asia Pacific is about economic liberalization, but it is also about something much broader. It is about community building on a trans-Pacific basis around the region.
In that understanding of APEC is embodied the idea that there is a leader summit, or at least a leaders' meeting that occurs. When those leaders meet, their agenda extends far beyond narrow economic issues.
There is also an understanding within that second school of thought that APEC deals not only with facilitating trade liberalization but also with promoting business and cooperation. Cooperation can involve fields such as human resource development -- that is, the training of individuals to make sure that business works better. Cooperation can also involve economic cooperation. Some issues in fundamental assistance, for example, would be a natural part of the understanding of the evolution of this organization.
There is also a broader sense that APEC is about political and diplomatic relations. The measurements of APEC's success is not only how it has produced or increased trading activity on the business side but also how far it has served the communication among great powers and civil societies around the region.
In other words, this other larger conception of APEC includes the making of rules for the region. APEC is coming on to the agenda at a time where the rules of economic intercourse and the discussion on political and security matters are no longer primarily generated in Washington.
Asia Pacific is a region in which the locus of power and authority is becoming more diffuse, but it is also rising in the context of Asia. It is the rise of Asia, and how we deal with a rising Asia, that some feel APEC is really about. In the creation of rules and understandings, this is no longer a western-generated club to which Asians are participating. APEC instead is a kind of forum where the new rules of trans-Pacific economic and political interactions are being defined. To put it slightly differently, it is a body that is essentially about politics and only secondarily about economics.
Further, APEC perhaps can be seen in this second school of thought as not just being about governments. APEC is a formal governmental organization. It is often our government representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs that attend the meetings. Our ministers and our Prime Minister attend the annual session. However, some say that whatever goes on at the governmental level, APEC is swimming in a new sea which is the web of business relations that exist across the Pacific. It is also a web of other kinds of institutions -- some of them academic and what I would generally categorize as Track II. These are the very peculiar processes that have emerged in Asia Pacific in which government, business and academics work together in common cause. It is an original diplomatic form of interaction. Therefore, one could argue that, while we can look at APEC in a narrow sense of a formal governmental organization to promote trade and liberalization, it can also be understood to be a much broader process. As you can tell from the tenor of my remarks, I tend to see APEC in that second category. That is what why I think it is legitimate and proper for this committee, and also for APEC, to look around the margins of the economic agenda and to look at horizons in addition to narrow economic cooperation. APEC is the most important organization we have for building the rules for a new Pacific order.
I now wish to address the subject of Canada as an Asia Pacific country. Let me emphasize that I use "Asia Pacific" now without the hyphen. We sometimes joke and ask a kind of cocktail party question. If people tell you, "I have just come back from Asia Pacific," one wonders where they might have been. Everyone would agree they might have been in Tokyo or Beijing, but they might also have come from Vancouver. I could also make the case that they might have come from Toronto or New York. Contrary to some of the views that the committee heard when it was in Vancouver, the concept of Asia Pacific is not restricted to the literal areas of the Pacific Ocean. In fact, many of the rules and the political and economic processes that are involved in APEC involve the continental hinterlands in North America and also in Austral-Asia.
I wish to make a few comments on Canada as an Asia Pacific player. The first observation would be how remarkably successful our government and agencies like the Asia Pacific Foundation have been in introducing the concept of Asia Pacific into Canada. This is a concept that five years ago almost no one except a handful of specialists would have understood. By talking about Asia Pacific, what has occurred at elite levels is that, first, we are seeing our connections with Asia as a integral part of our own economic and political destiny. Second, by dealing with Asia Pacific as compared to the phrase "Asia", we are focusing on the new kinds of institutions that are being built across the Pacific which, I would argue, are fundamentally in Canada's national interest.
We are mobilizing a great deal of academic, governmental and business support for Canada's year of Asia Pacific. As a professor of Asia Pacific studies, I can only be heartened by this. However, there are some costs to the way that much of the treatment of Asia Pacific is being presented in Canada this year.
I would argue that particularly in the business community, but also among some of the academic community, we tend to present Asia Pacific as all things bright and beautiful. It represents market opportunities and an opportunity for Canadian business and for the Canadian economy to grow and expand. I think that is definitely part of the picture -- and I am an Asia Pacific enthusiast -- but I think this is a year for establishing more maturity in Canada in the public debate about our involvement in Asia Pacific.
Let me use as a parallel case not the American but, rather, the Australian experience. Approximately six years ago, when the Australians decided that their future lay in Asia or in Asia Pacific and that their economic and political and security destiny was to be created not by being outside of Asia but by being part of Asia, they began to ask some very interesting questions. In a project that was done four years ago, they commissioned academics, business people and labour people from within Australia and Asia to look at a variety of issues. These questions included conceptions of citizenship, democracy, human rights, education, business ethics, and so on. They did a series of several studies. The question they asked was: If we take seriously the idea that Australia will be integrated into Asia, how must we change and how are we likely to change as part of that process?
The findings were quite remarkable. They got a group of business people together from Australia, from Indonesia and elsewhere, to talk, for example, on the question of business ethics. It was very clear to Australian business men and women that when they did business in some parts of Asia, in this case particularly Southeast Asia, the rules were different. They asked: What kinds of ethical questions, as well as political and legal questions, did that raise for the Australian business community?
I think that those studies revealed that Australia would indeed have to change to become an effective part of the Asian region, and in ways that were challenging to fundamental pillars of Australian life. There were numerous examples that came up in that discussion, but it is very clear that several of the participants in that process realized that the Monarchy in Australia was causing difficulty in Australia's integration into Asia. Some of the pro-republican forces were strengthened by this process.
I could give many other examples. However, in the context of Australia, there has been a very intense debate not only about the good things that flow from the region but also about some of the negative aspects for Australian values and some of the complexities. The basic idea is that not only would Asia have to change as the west or Australia became more active in the region, but so would institutions, values and processes within Australia.
It strikes me that the subject of how Canada is changing as a result of its deeper integration into Asia Pacific is a topic that we have not explored sufficiently. We are changing in part because of waves of immigration of people who have made a contribution to the economic well-being of Canada, but who are also carriers of ideas and values that are sometimes different from those of mainstream Canada. If we look at an issue like self-determination -- something that is at the heart of current Canadian political debate -- some Asians take a very different view on the issue.
Your inquiry has started to raise some of these questions in interesting ways. I am advocating that we look at Asia Pacific as a complex area that affects us as much as we affect the other side of the Pacific. The year of Asia Pacific should be more than all things bright and beautiful. I was delighted that these hearings have also dealt with issues like human rights -- and I will return to that in a moment -- which will be an impediment to our relations in Asia Pacific in some instances.
Our thinking on human rights has been only narrowly and almost "non-existently" affected by our involvement in the Asia Pacific. In other words, the Asia Pacific is a two-way door. Some of the things are good and some are not as good. In effect, we are being changed as part of this process.
Let me comment on another topic, namely, the rise of China. I have been asked to speak to this issue in part because it relates to the human rights agenda and also because of its political security significance.
This is a very interesting question. Why should we focus on China as perhaps the defining element of what patterns of cooperation will be possible across the Pacific in the future? It is an unusual question because China is not Canada's most important partner across the Pacific. In trade terms, Japan is far more important. In terms of the intensity of our relations, other Asian countries are more important. China is important to Canada historically not only because of our missionary connection and earlier linkages to China but also because of our recognition of the People's Republic of China in 1970, which initiated a chain of events that was part of the opening of China to the international community.
It is not obvious that China should be at the centre of our Asia Pacific strategy. However, the question of China and the implications of its rise and how we should deal with a strong and ascendant China is the major question preoccupying governments and intellectual communities around the Pacific. It is impossible to attend a meeting in the Asia Pacific now on either side of the Pacific where the China question does not come up.
We could talk about some of the developments in China, particularly after the death of Deng Xiaoping. I would offer a couple of introductory comments about some of the strategies under discussion with respect to how we deal with an emerging and rising China.
The phrase that Senator Grafstein asked me to speak about in particular was the concept of the engagement of China, an idea which has been broached in Washington and around the region. The basic concept of engagement is that the engagement of China is preferable to the isolation of China or the containment of China. There is no clear understanding of what "engagement" means, but in very crude terms, all advocates of engagement have in mind finding a way to integrate China more closely into regional processes, of which APEC is a part. Some of the new political security organizations in the region such as the ASEAN regional forum are other examples. However, the consensus ends there.
Our American colleagues have spent a great deal of time talking about engagement strategies. The debate has been not so much about the word "engagement", but about the adjectives that come before the word "engagement". Joe Nye at one stage spoke about deep engagement. Some Americans talk about constructive engagement in China. I heard recently someone advocating the sceptical engagement of China. There is a phrase that we used on the Council on Foreign Relations project called the conditional engagement of China. There is a debate about the adjectives.
The debate is as follows: Will China come into the international system on the basis of rules determined primarily in Washington and to a lesser extent among Washington's allies in the region, or will China come into a regional process in which it will be a founding member and in which it will help create the rules? In other words, is the objective of engagement to change China, to alter its aspirations as a nation, to alter its internal politics and economy, or is the objective of engagement to create a set of rules that are binding on China as well as other members of the region?
There are very deep differences of opinion. Some of us feel that it is essential not only to bring China into institutions but also to find ways in which those institutions will adjust to the presence of not just a new country and a new civilization, but a major player on the international system.
Let me give a couple of examples of that to be more concrete. One is the debate about China's entry into the World Trade Organization, a subject that has been before you for discussion. There is a very powerful case, geopolitically, for including China in the WTO. At the same time, there are real concerns about negotiations with China on the terms of entry. I would argue that that debate misses the point somewhat. It is possible that we will have to redefine the WTO in part to accommodate a new China. It is the kind of argument that some of our Japanese colleagues have made very strongly.
Let me give another example. This concerns engaging China in regional discussions on confidence building, something which is very key to the security agenda. The Chinese have made it very clear that they prefer bilateral instruments for discussing confidence building -- that is, that these regional processes are all right, but that the real action should be at the bilateral level -- whereas a variety of the countries in the Asia Pacific, particularly in Southeast Asia, feel that multilateral processes are necessary. An interesting example is the South China Sea, where there is considerable conflict between China and Southeast Asian neighbours. Where China prefers a bilateral system of negotiation, the Southeast Asians prefer a multilateral system. My argument in that case is that we can expect the Chinese to go only so far in wanting to pursue multilateral negotiations and that we must be more accommodating to their world view, which places an emphasis on the bilateral system.
Those are just some ideas.
Let me conclude with a couple of comments on the question of human rights and trade issues. We could put them in the context of APEC. We might return to them in the context of Canadian policy or in the context of China. Let me offer the following thoughts.
In essence, there is a connection between economics and trade matters, the promotion of domestic and political change, increased political participation, and the promotion of human rights. My suggestion is that the linkage of them at a policy level -- that is, using trade as a sanction or a weapon or a punishment to China or to other Asian states -- is a recipe for confusion and disaster. First, it is a recipe for confusion because the rules emerging in the Asia Pacific, whether we like them or not, are essentially rules that commerce will move independent of human rights. Not a single Asian government would strongly advocate or advocate in any way the use of trade mechanisms as a punishment for human rights violations. We are now dealing in a regional context in which none of our regional partners would seriously entertain that, except under the most extraordinary of situations. It is a recipe for disaster because we have the ability to harm ourselves not only economically but also in the eyes of the governments and elites and the NGO community in Asia itself, which is very hesitant about seeing either developmental assistance or economics as a tool.
Having said that, there is a connection between economic issues and human rights promotion. As I have seen it in the context of discussions at this hearing, there are a variety of ways in which the agenda of human rights can be promoted by organizations which have a primarily economic focus. I would include APEC in that.
My suggestion is that we can continue the process of promoting the kinds of values that we would like to see develop in Asian societies through existing effective instruments. Canada has been a leader both in creating them and in using them effectively. There has been this whole range of what I would describe as Track II processes.
For example, on Asia Pacific security matters at a non-governmental level, more than two meetings per week are occurring now somewhere around the region, many of which have Canadian participants. In the context of Southeast Asia, Canada alone promotes more than 15 meetings a year on issues that relate sometimes to political security and also to human rights questions. The creation of linkages between Canadian NGOs that have an interest in human rights and the creation of mechanisms for the serious but quiet discussion of these questions around tables similar to the one we are sitting at today, at which there are representatives of governments in their private capacity plus academics or NGO representatives, is emerging as the instrument of choice for the discussion of many Asia Pacific questions.
I will conclude by giving one example of how those new kinds of processes can raise questions, even among government officials, in a way that was almost unimaginable until quite recently.
In January of this year, we hosted a two-week Track II seminar with representatives from China from the Chinese foreign ministry, the Peoples Liberation Army and the directors of think tanks. China sent a delegation of eight to Canada for a two-week stay. They spent one week in Toronto speaking to academics and one week here in Ottawa speaking to academics and government officials.
The level of candour and frankness in that discussion was astonishing. It demonstrated two things. The first is that Chinese government ministries are changing and they are looking for instruments through which to have candid and frank discussions that do not involve the aura of formal governmental organizations. This is something we have done in ASEAN for many years. If you want to have a serious discussion with ASEAN political leaders, you do not necessarily do it in the context of a formal governmental meeting. You do it over a dinner or through this Track II process.
One of the most interesting developments of the last year is that the Chinese are now starting to use some of these instruments and are willingly participating in them. That opens the door, first, to more participation of our NGO community. Not only are they actually in the same room with government officials, but they are there, in some ways, on an equal footing.
The myth of Track II is that you can have a meeting at a table like this with a deputy foreign minister present in his or her private capacity. This myth has allowed us to create some very flexible instruments for discussion.
It is in Canada's national interest to promote the development of increased political participation in Asia and respect for individual human rights. Expression of those values by our government is an important and necessary part of our international politics. However, at the same time, the effective delivery instruments for achieving those objectives will largely be carried by instruments other than government. It will be through non-governmental organizations and these new associations of research institutes on a Track II basis.
Senator Andreychuk: Thank you very much for the overview. It was most helpful to me.
I am pleased that you have pointed out that there is a role for human rights. The Australia example reminds me of an issue which troubled me four years ago when I came back to Canada. There was a growing body of understanding, education and expectation about values, human rights and economic fairness within Canada and there was a different standard elsewhere. Canadians had an expectation that we could move our agenda out to the world. That is not necessarily correct or achievable.
In the Asia Pacific, there was a moment in time when we said that we would not raise human rights. That was said very clearly by our Prime Minister. That set off a chain reaction, I think, as a domestic issue and certainly with our partners.
Are you saying that we should not close off any options? In other words, the debate was around sanctions and I think that was the wrong place to start. On the other hand, however, are you saying that you foresee that it could never be necessary in such an unusual world? In other words, we do not talk about it but we do not preclude it; we simply go on to the art of the possible and create the discussion within our own country of what this change of globalization means to us?
Mr. Evans: My impression is that the subject of how to promote human rights is something of a moving target. It is a moving target both in Canada, where I would say that, among some of the NGOs that are most active in promoting human rights in Asia, there is a growing sophistication on what is necessary to make not only headlines but also positive effects. I think that our community, as compared to four years ago, is more sophisticated.
I thought you heard superb testimony from Heather Gibb and Maureen O`Neil from the North-South Institute which started to indicate some of the growing Canadian sophistication on this. It is not perfect, but it is growing.
It is also a moving target in the context of Asia. The discussion on human rights violations touches some very sensitive nerves. Some of it is the power interests of ruling groups; others are genuine, deeply felt cultural differences about how you understand individual liberties as compared to social liberties.
I argue that in Asia this is far from a static discussion, whereas some countries and individuals argue that the shrines of statehood are now non-interference in domestic affairs and that state sovereignty is sacrosanct. It is very interesting that at the ground level, in a variety of Asian countries -- and I would include in that category most of the countries of Southeast Asia; certainly Korea and Japan in the north -- there is a view that the human rights element is essential to the rule of law and is essential to the setting of circumstances in which the economy can function effectively.
As an example of this, the pattern of discussion is changing in Asia on the ideas of how you promote human rights and how you defend the state at the same time. There is a lot of fluidity in this debate.
I was at a meeting last year in Williamsburg, Virginia at which was also a very articulate Singaporean who had been the Singaporean ambassador to the United Nations. This gentleman made the case that Americans and Canadians did not understand Asian values. He said that when he was a young boy his mother put him on her knee and told him what they respected, which was hard work, family, non-interference, et cetera. She listed ten things.
It was very interesting that at that meeting a young woman from Malaysia responded to the comments made by the gentleman from Singapore. She said that when she was a little girl, just a few years ago, her grandmother also put her on her knee and told her that to be Asian is to respect human dignity and to oppose arbitrary authority of the state or of the outside. She went through each of those ten points with a slightly different twist.
This might have been just another intellectual exchange except that that woman was the daughter of a high-ranking official of Malaysia. The context of debate and discussion, particularly in Southeast Asian countries, is changing. Only five years ago they would argue that there was absolute sovereignty in these matters and that there was no outside interference, even in the case of major human rights abuses such as the kind that are occurring in Myanmar or Burma. That is changing. There is a view that, under extreme circumstances -- the phrase I used a few minutes ago -- there might need to be outside sanctions imposed. This was unheard of in ASEAN discussions three years ago.
Recently, when a group of ASEANs got together in the context of the ASEAN regional forum to discuss regional principles, they began to say that under the most extraordinary of circumstances certain kinds of sanctions and outside intervention might be necessary.
I would not argue that is the mainstream of opinion or of official opinions but that there is movement in this. Canada has been an effective player in finding some of the quiet and patient mechanisms where, in essence, the process of change can be advanced by Asians themselves rather than being pushed from the outside.
Senator Andreychuk: I wish to ask you a question on this engagement, whether we call it constructive or otherwise. The debate seems to centre around the United States and China. Taking whichever adjective you wish, what role do you see Canada playing, if we were to choose the engagement mode?
Mr. Evans: We have already chosen an engagement strategy, at least de facto. It is a principle that has been consistent in Canadian foreign policy back to the era of Pierre Trudeau and the time at which we decided to move ahead with a recognition of the People's Republic of China. In a curious way, although it was not the vocabulary at the time, Canada was the architect of the engagement strategy of China. It was exactly the logic that led us to recognize the People's Republic of China in 1970, which was the view that it was necessary to bring China into the world, into the international community, through bilateral diplomatic political relations, but also through bringing China into organizations such as the United Nations. When I say China, I mean the People's Republic of China.
In some ways, we are already committed to an engagement policy. However, let me suggest that our understanding of engagement is slightly different from what the mainstream American opinion is on engagement.
First, we put much more faith in the creation of these multilateral processes such as the APEC and the ASEAN regional forum, as well as what is occurring in the Track II process. Canada has spent a fair amount of its precious resources in trying to find ways to induce China into international organizations and to assist them in preparing for those organizations.
Let me give you two examples. We did a great deal of this in the 1970s after China jointed the United Nations. We had special programs to assist the Chinese in understanding some of the issues on the UN agenda, et cetera. More recently -- and I gave an example of it a few moments ago -- the program that we did in January with Chinese diplomats was to assist them in moving into regional political institutions. To the Chinese, multilateral institutions are very confusing. Like most great powers, the Chinese would prefer bilateral or unilateral instruments.
Our view of engagement is that while we want to deepen our bilateral connections, we want to assist the Chinese in their legal reform and in a variety of other areas. The principal thrust of Canadian activity has been to get China into regional processes. It was no coincidence that Canada was a strong advocate of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong joining APEC. One of our principal policy goals was to have the greater China -- that is, the three representatives -- included in that. It has been one of our strong roles not only to get China into the ASEAN regional forum but also, once it is in there, to try to enmesh it or to place it in the web of these international processes.
Where the Americans have emphasized bilateral means for engaging China, we have emphasized the multilateral means. In that context, there have been some successes. It is clear that the Chinese now are becoming more successful multilateral players.
At the same time, the Chinese do not like the word "engagement". It is interesting that the Chinese advocate the "engagement" of North Korea, but not the "engagement" of China. They argue, "We are already part of the system. You adjust to us. It is not just a matter of us adjusting to you." That is compatible with the Canadian conception of this. It is why in APEC, for example, we have been more flexible in the kinds of techniques we advocate for trade promotion. It is not just reciprocity that Canadians value in opening economic relations. We have also used a more flexible approach, which has allowed some of the Asian views to become part of the agenda.
Where Canada differs is that we feel China should be engaged, but we also feel that countries such as the United States should be engaged in these processes and should be committed by the outcomes that result from those processes.
Senator Bolduc: Talking about Southeast Asian countries is vast. Would you say that this same approach would apply to Indonesia and Thailand, for example? Or would you say that with regard to China, it is one thing which we do this way, but with Thailand, which is a smaller country, there is the possibility of acting otherwise?
Mr. Evans: If the focus is on ways of improving relations -- and, engagement is an example of that -- then it is unrealistic for Canada to overestimate its influence, even in the smaller countries of Southeast Asia.
I am reminded of incidents in 1991, when there were demonstrations in Dili, in East Timor, Indonesia, which led to the deaths of several protesters and thereafter to human rights protests around the world. At that stage, the Canadian government responded by linking three aid projects in Indonesia to an improvement in the Indonesian human rights situation. The Indonesian reaction was quite interesting. In essence, it was, "That is fine. You do that and we will terminate all of the Canadian aid programs in this region."
What was interesting was that not many countries came to Canada's defence at that time within the region.
Senator Bolduc: I was thinking more in terms of Malaysia, for example. On the international scene, outside the big trade agreements, we have made a specific one with Israel and another with Chile. Why have we not made one with Malaysia, for example, to make a breakthrough there?
Mr. Evans: You are asking how we can advance our economic relationship. The Malaysians are somewhat suspicious of that because they are already a member of the ASEAN free trade area. To the best of my knowledge, the country which has broached the idea of a trans-Pacific free trade agreement is Singapore. The country that is pushing hardest now for a westward expansion of NAFTA is South Korea.
While there are some voices in support of that, there is a view that it might not be necessary because of the kinds of arrangements that are now in place. I refer to the WTO, of which most of the Asian countries you have just mentioned are members. I refer as well to APEC, which is a regional organization; and AFTA, which is the ASEAN free trade area which has been set up. These might be more appropriate instruments for expanding economic cooperation.
Senator Bacon: In Vancouver, Professor Paul Lin said that China had experienced 2,000 years of authoritarian rule and should be given time to democratize to the level of western countries. He also noted that it has taken the west a considerable time to create and perfect its own democratic system. Do you agree with Professor Lin's argument that the west should be patient with China?
Do you believe that the economic reform in China will lead, ultimately, to democratic reform? We have been told that many times. What steps can western democracies take to encourage China to protect human rights? It should be done step by step, I suppose.
Mr. Evans: You raise some fundamental questions that are vexing to policy-makers in North America, in Europe and in Australasia. I did not use the phrase "the west", as you noticed. I have a hunch now that we are as divided on this as the Asians are about Asian values.
Let us take your proposition that economic reform will inevitably lead toward democratization. I tend to be somewhat skeptical about that proposition. I would argue that economic change will alter the political systems in the countries where it occurs but that democracy is not an inevitable outcome, at least not "democracy" as we understand the word. That would mean a multi-party system with the ability to remove rulers through the use of a ballot box.
There I am a little more hesitant, but what I would say -- and we are already seeing some evidence of this in the Chinese case -- is that economic change is altering the nature of their political system.
First, is there a strong probability of increased public participation? I would argue, "Yes"; we are already seeing some examples of that, though the forms of that participation might differ from what we have known as parliamentary systems.
Second, would we say that economic reform is leading to more personal freedoms such as the ability of individuals to move from one part of the country to another? I would say "Yes". We have examples of that in China.
Finally, if we asked, "Does economic reform change the way that authoritarian governments do their business", I would say "Yes". In essence, we have discovered in China that Marxism is of historical interest. The Chinese are now working with a combination of Leninism, which is a strong state, and consumerism. They are the rather unusual factors that hold the country together.
China is in a situation of remarkable change at the local level. The question is what effect that will have on its political institutions. I feel it is not inevitable that democracy will follow. I would also raise the more fundamental question: Is it desirable that western-style democracy will follow?
I would point to an example which makes some of our Chinese colleagues increasingly nervous -- that is, the situation in Taiwan. It is very clear that a process of democratization has been under way there for some time. The Taiwanese are now feeling some of the effects of that democratization. They have fragmenting political parties that are dividing and breaking apart. The level of political violence is increasing in Taiwan. The level of money politics and corruption, which is a problem in any political system, is increasingly acute.
This is leading some progressive Asian intellectuals to ask the question: What is democracy and what forms might it take in the 21st century? I find it a very creative process. They may have at heart some of the same values as we have, such as increasing participation and individual rights and liberties, but how can you have those at the same time as you have social order? How can you avoid the problems, as they see them, of the rights-based societies in the west?
I am not trying to be a defender of authoritarianism, but I am saying that many progressive Asian intellectuals feel that, whether we call it democracy or increased participation, new political forms must evolve in Asia that will not replicate the political institutions of the west.
In that sense, do we need to be patient? Yes, because we do not have any choice. However, we should be patient in a double sense. We must be patient in encouraging those forces of political reform without stigmatizing them by making them appear to be western democratizers. That is the kiss of death in their own political system.
The Chairman: My question brings us fairly close to the question of security. You have used the expression "authoritarian". That is a somewhat loaded term, but the plain word "authority" is not an opprobrious term.
When our system was developing, it used to be argued that liberty is impossible without authority; that authority is necessary in order to enforce what we would now call human rights, just as, out on the highway, you must have policing or chaos develops.
If we emphasize liberty, calling it democracy -- and, assuming that we are successful in this political missionary effort -- would there be a danger of the disintegration of the society, indeed, the disintegration of the polity? That then raises great security questions, does it not?
Mr. Evans: Absolutely. One of the enormous intellectual and political challenges at the end of the 20th century is in the Asian context. What political institutions can be created that provide stable governance at the same time that they allow for increased political participation? I use both "stability" and "participation." They are slightly different words than you have used but they are more frequently used in the Asian context, rather than "liberty" and "authority." This is a fundamental question in the context of China.
I would argue that there is an issue to which there is an instinctive reaction, namely, to use instruments of the Leninist state to at least emphasize the stability. However, there are cracks around the edges which are very clear. Now that Deng Xiaoping has passed, we can ask what will be the legacy of his passing.
Let me give an example of where the unity and stability questions interconnect. It particularly relates to Chinese policy towards Taiwan.
In the era after Deng Xiaoping, it is very possible that Chinese conceptions of what China is will change somewhat. Mr. Deng had a policy of "one country, two systems". This is the formula they are using for integrating Hong Kong back into China and also what they wish to use vis-à-vis Taiwan.
"One country, two systems" is a formula that is almost universally rejected in Taiwan. Part of the reason for that is that they feel that it does not give them sufficient flexibility to recognize the Taiwanese political identity and the differences in history. They feel the formula is too tight and they need something more decentralized.
The Chinese may now raise some interesting new possibilities that would move from a unitary system to, not just one country, two systems, but a commonwealth system if they can come to an understanding that there are forms of political associations other than unitary government. China is not a federal system. Even with one country, two systems, there is an approximation of a federal system but not a fully functioning one. It might well be the case that Chinese leaders will be required to arrive at a new concept of political association when they deal with the Taiwan question. The challenge is how they can have that vis-à-vis Taiwan but not lose control of their own country.
China is an enormous country. In population, it is the size of Europe and the Americas combined. The centrifugal forces are enormous. We are in the difficult position of trying to encourage the Chinese to think through fundamental political philosophy questions of the kind you and I have noted on a commonwealth which many of them feel will pull their country apart or will break it into a variety of either war-lord states or competing provinces.
I am advocating that we sensitively encourage the Chinese to open up these new alternatives. It is inevitable that they will. China is changing. We should not be altogether optimistic or hopeful that these changes will mean a more stable China.
What should be on our agenda? Should we be worrying about China because of its increased military capacities, its nuclear capacity or its missile capacities? Well, perhaps, and I will make a case for that later. However, an equally serious question is in not just China but several other Asian states, where the building of a nation state has been a very fragile process. We have had 100 years to deal with the loosening of central and state powers whereas this is new in the countries of Asia, and it is sensitive terrain. How can this be managed so that you have increased political participation and devolved political structures but, at the same time, some kind of national unity?
Senator Corbin: We have not talked about Indonesia in today's discussion. I remember quite a strong exchange when I was in Africa along the lines of what Senator Bacon was saying in relation to Professor Lin's statement in Vancouver, namely, "Give us time. Lower your expectations. We have our own values. Of course we will do business with each other and we will talk with each other." I heard the same sort of comment put in a much more violent way to us from a number of African leaders some years ago at a conference in which I was participating as a parliamentarian -- that is, a delegate from the House of Commons.
Human rights is very much a lively concern amongst Canadians. There is no beating around the bush. Still fresh in our own minds are scenes of events which have taken place, whether they be in China or elsewhere in the Pacific. There are worse things going on about which we can only imagine.
In terms of human rights, how much should we be expected to tolerate? It is fine for some people to say that some of these issues should not be linked with trade, commerce and politics, but they are there as a deeply felt human concern by most people around the world. Are we just to close our eyes, shun them and put them aside? Are we to tolerate corruption and totalitarian regimes forever? At what point does the stick break? Are we realistic?
It is nice to talk about these things from a distance, but if you are in Indonesia or former Burma or Laos, life is not going on as it does in the United States, or Canada, or Germany, or France, everything else being equal. Are we fudging on some of these issues? Could we not be a little tougher in the sense that we separate trade and commerce, but on human rights -- that is, human treatment for human treatment -- should we not be expecting more in terms of conformity to basic human dignity from some of these future partners or players? I should like to have your views on that. In fact, I would like to push you as far as I can.
Mr. Evans: You have asked two questions.
You used the word "tolerate". Let me suggest that the first thing is the identification of human rights abuses, the awareness of them, the documentation of them, and the presentation of them for constituencies not only in our countries but also in the countries where they occur. This is an essential element of where the human rights debate in Asia is going. You need awareness, whether it be access to the media so that they can cover some issues or, alternatively, an independent judiciary or equivalent which can at least note the problem. In other words, the global community and the concerned citizens are watching.
We are not always on the same wavelength with all Asian governments, but there is an increasing consensus on the need for information about human rights abuses, even in the context of Chinese prisons, which is something we can discuss later. One of the increasing moves is to have lists of individuals, more transparency in not only their treatment but also how long they will be in prison, and other kinds of things. However, the first point to make is that we are watching.
The second point is what to do about it. I do not think it is weak-kneed to suggest that you need to promote human rights not on a showy basis -- and I do not think the linkage to economic issues will benefit the human rights conditions in those countries -- but, rather, to be proactive on a regular basis in trying to improve the situation.
In the Canadian case in Asia -- and we can come back to Africa in a moment because there are some differences in the context of economic development in these countries -- through our aid programs and the efforts that we put in place through non-governmental organizations, we can do a great deal not only to indicate that we are watching but also to push for, in some instances, punishment of perpetrators, though the punishment of perpetrators of human rights abuses must come from within the systems in which they operate. We can imagine a civil war situation in which that does not come.
We differ on this matter because I do not think that our policy has been weak on human rights violations. At the governmental level, through both official statements and these functional levels, we are spending a fair amount of money and working intently, first, to observe; and, second, to bring about processes which will make these violations less likely in the future.
We may disagree on whether the existing processes are sufficient. I suggest that, in most cases, they are. Going to some of the instruments that have been suggested, such as withdrawal of trade, harms us and the recipients in rather significant ways.
Senator Corbin: When you say it "harms us", who is "us"? Is it business? Is it our political relations? Who is it?
Mr. Evans: That is an interesting question. Let us take two examples, China and Indonesia, where I have seen advocates of reduction. First, "us" is the businesses. They will make a case to you, as they already have.
Second, for better or worse, we have indicated that we are an Asia Pacific country. I believe that some of the human rights constituency here, including some of the most articulate, do not believe Canada is part of the Asia Pacific community. They do not believe there is an Asia Pacific community. They believe there is an Asian side and perhaps a western side that interacts with it. However, the main issue here is whether we feel that we want to be a partner, on a regular, interactive basis, with Asian governments. There, it is the case that there is almost no support for the concept of linkage of economics and developmental assistance to human rights issues. That attitude might be wrong -- and we can debate it -- but it is strongly felt.
It is a challenge for us if we want to play in the Asian Pacific world. If we indicated that the East Timor incident in 1981 was sufficient for us to feel that we could not trade with a country that would perpetrate these kind of things, the difficulty would be that it does not strengthen our case in the eyes of the other countries of the region. There are regional ideas evolving around these issues. They are not ones that tolerate political abuses, but they argue that the instruments that should be used for trying to improve situations must be rather more subtle and rather more subterranean, not at the level even of sanctions and actions. When we ask whom it would cost, it would cost us if we wish to be an Asian Pacific country.
When the Australians conducted their investigation of this question, a very articulate group of people indicated, "We do not want to become part of Asia. We do not want to become part of it because of the effect it will have on our economy. It will change our way of political life."
Senator Corbin: And our immigration policy?
Mr. Evans: Yes, immigration policies, et cetera. I am not defending that point of view, I am merely stating it. There were many in Australia who said, "This is an important issue and we do not want to become part of Asia Pacific because of the consequences. We feel, for example, if there are human rights violations, we should not trade with those kinds of countries. There are values higher than economic." I am not an advocate of that position but it is a consistent position on some of this.
My premise at the outset was that in these hearings on Asia Pacific, we are taking it as a given that we are becoming part of a regional process in which all of the values and ideas are not ones that we immediately share but we are in essence saying that we will be working within this system in creating these rules, and they are not rules that are necessarily those of the west. This is a hard reality that sometimes has dark consequences.
Senator Corbin: You were going to say a word about Africa?
Mr. Evans: I am not quite sure which part of the African context I should mention.
The Chairman: Not too much on Africa.
Senator Corbin: It may be helpful.
Mr. Evans: The strategy of constructive engagement -- that phrase that was used -- was often used with reference to South Africa. I would argue that the engagement strategies that are being discussed in the Asian context would be put, first, in the setting of generally rising economic capacity and well-being for most citizens. That is a generalization, but generally these are societies that are increasingly better able to care for, feed and look after their populations. That is not always the case in all African countries.
Second, the case in Asia is of successful and assertive states. The kinds of intervention that have occurred in African states is unimaginable in almost any of the Pacific Asian countries that we can think about. Even if we wished to intervene, the regional consensus would not allow it. These are not weak states that would permit it.
Those are some of the differences.
Senator Andreychuk: I wish to put on the record that I do not think our engagements in Africa were desirable either, but we can go into that at another time.
I would take issue with one thing that you say. You say that we have a role to play by using multilateralism. When I talk about human dignity, to use Senator Corbin's words, the right to life and the right to live without torture are not merely Canadian or western values, they are universal human right values, the ones that every one of the nations of Asia Pacific -- without the hyphen -- ourselves included, committed to in the UN. They are universal documents. Consequently, when we raise those issues, it is not to say that we are without sin. We have many of the problems here. They are free to criticize us and we are free to criticize them. That is the kind of traditional role that Canadians play on the international scene. Surely we have a role to play in that way rather than injecting some of our unique values.
Using the African example, when we were talking about women's issues in Africa, the view of some Africans was not that women should not have the rights that they wanted. What they worried about was some of our methodology being transposed, but not the universal declaration of a human being.
Do we not have a role and should we not insist on adherence to covenants and conventions that are not ours alone? They are theirs as much as they are ours.
Mr. Evans: The easy answer would be to say that you are entirely correct, and at one level, the way the issue is framed, you are quite correct. Some of the advocates of a stronger human rights policy use UN conventions and hold countries to conventions that they themselves have signed. I think that is correct. That is something that we should not shirk. The instruments we use to enforce those is where the debate begins.
However, I would add the following. Rather than give an easy answer, there is a harder question that lies beneath it. If it were the case that the UN process today went back and investigated those same issues, would they come to the same conclusions on these so-called universal standards? I am not so sure of that. If we look at the processes that took place around the women's conference in Beijing and the lead-in to it, it is an argument that the rise of Asian states might mean that we will alter, at least potentially, some of what we conceive to be universal values. As power dynamics change -- that is, if we take seriously the idea of bringing Asians into political global institutions -- some of the rules will change.
Senator Andreychuk: But is that not the more preferable way, namely, having the dialogue and then the change will come in a universal sense?
Mr. Evans: I think I misunderstood. By "multilateral" you also mean that in the context of the United Nations, the global view?
Senator Andreychuk: Yes.
Mr. Evans: Absolutely. That is an instrument by which we can be effective, in addition to what we are doing at the regional level. I believe that the UN side is outside the purview of your discussions.
The Chairman: Some time ago I put down the words "human rights" and I placed a question mark beside those words. Could we move deliberately away from that general language to more specific language? What are we talking about? Are we talking about child labour, for example? Are we talking about the status of women? Are we talking about trial by jury and sentences specific? Do we have a hierarchy of these values so that we will put more emphasis on those toward the APEC countries than others?
What also haunts me is this: Are we not really talking about restructuring the socio-economic structure of these societies? Are we not being rather moral imperialists in the old Roman sense of the word "mores"?
Senator Andreychuk: It means we are changing ourselves, too.
Mr. Chairman: He is advocating that we must be willing to change. The question is this: Are we willing to change?
Senator Andreychuk: In some areas, we have gone kicking and screaming to change.
Mr. Evans: You raise an interesting question. You have a remarkable skill for asking amazingly complex questions with very clear and simple words.
We have used the term "human rights" rather generically here. In your earlier hearings, I noticed that Maureen O'Neil and Heather Gibb got into some child labour questions. You have looked at a number of things. At this stage, after some reflection, I could perhaps give you a listing of our priority items. I can only say that there is merging consensus in the Asian context around some of the more violent, state-supported torture and state-supported infringement of prisoner rights.
The Chairman: Amnesty International?
Mr. Evans: Yes, Amnesty International agendas. In our Asia Pacific context, that is one where there is room for tightening some of the rules and common understandings on a regional basis as well as at the global level.
The Chairman: I will not let you leave without asking you to speculate realistically about Hong Kong. I do not want your hopes, but what do you really think may happen?
Mr. Evans: If we look to the future, Hong Kong will become a Chinese city. The greatest challenge for Hong Kong is whether becoming a Chinese city means a Chinese city of 1990 or a Chinese city of the 21st century. I mean that the concept of autonomy in Hong Kong will be very difficult to sustain. The future of Hong Kong ultimately depends on how fast leadership and how fast other parts of China change as well.
We must be realistic that the model that will be used for political rule in Hong Kong will be one in which individual rights and freedoms will not receive the same attention they have in the last four or five years, but that are more in keeping with the history of Hong Kong itself as a colony and of the level of those rights in other parts of China.
In the short term, there are strong economic prospects. We are seeing remarkable increases in property prices. The business community has not retreated from Hong Kong. However, the major problems of social instability in Hong Kong will have to be faced by any government. The price of real estate, labour conditions and the rising inequalities in Hong Kong will all be serious reasons for instability, holding aside the matter of political liberties. This is to say that Hong Kong's future is far from assured. I tend not to take the positive view that all things will work out in the Hong Kong case.
Having said that, there is very little we can do about the fact that Hong Kong will become a Chinese city. That is in the cards. We can do what we wish to assist in the creation of a Bill of Rights, which we already did and which is now being rolled back. We can establish numerous linkages to the institutions in Hong Kong, which we have done in Canada with great efficiency over the last few years. However, that will not change the fundamental setting. We can argue with the Chinese that we will all be watching Hong Kong very carefully and that this is a test of what we feel Chinese leadership will look like. It is a test, in some ways, of the management of their international affairs, recognizing that the Chinese see Hong Kong as a domestic matter and that our instruments for influencing the situation are very few. They must be handled very subtly.
I am not sure that is the kind of realism you wished in the answer, but I am not optimistic that the kind of Hong Kong that we know now will survive.
Senator Bolduc: Being a specialist in foreign relations, international politics and international relations, you are quite familiar with the structure, organization and human recourses allocation in the Department of Foreign Affairs by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Do you think the actual allocation between Asia, Europe and the Americas is a fair balance, or is it still loaded between North American and Western European influences by comparison?
Mr. Evans: That is an interesting question. I do not know how far the committee will delve into how we organize our diplomatic and commercial business in Asia from the government side.
Our rough calculations indicate that on political security matters, though we recognize the rising importance of the Asia Pacific and our role in it, we spend less than 1 per cent of the money on political security issues in Asia than we do in Europe. That is an interesting figure. It is not a conspiracy. It is largely that your connections in Europe, through NATO and the OSCE are through formal, international institutions to which we have obligations. We do not have those in the Asia Pacific.
Do we have the right number of people working on the Asia Pacific Region? The answer is clearly "No". That probably could be said for other parts of the world as well.
Are we using our diplomatic resources in the Asia Pacific the right way? I would argue there is room for improvement. I would make the case that many of the people who manage our affairs with Asian countries in Ottawa are those who have had not as much experience in the Asia Pacific as they have had in Europe. On political security matters, for example, very few of the individuals making the decisions have rotated through Asian postings largely because our security policy and our interests until recently were Europe focused through our NATO commitments and other things.
If we were looking for areas of improvement -- and this is a subject for more attention at another time -- I would argue that ministerial visits to Asia are fine. However, we do not have enough of our senior civil servants in the Asian context at the deputy minister level, unlike the Australians and even the Americans, who are spending time sending their top bureaucratic people into the region so that they can establish the personal relations necessary to do business and be effective in Asia. Increasingly, I fear that our top bureaucrats are spending more and more time on the home front. That is not just a comment vis-à-vis the Asia Pacific. It is more and more difficult to get them outside.
I think we have quite a successful Asia policy, but it is borne and carried by the mid-ranks in the bureaucracy with some support from political leadership.
If we had more funds, I could give a variety of suggestions. Without spending more money, I suggest that we get more of our deputy ministers and their equivalent to spend more time in Asia dealing with our Asia Pacific partners on a more regular bases and for trips that allow them at least one day to not do business in the location.
One of my academic colleagues from the University of California at Berkeley who attends many of these meetings has a very interesting travel rule. Any time he attends a meeting in Asia he spends at least two days there not attending meetings but seeing the place, talking to people and getting out of the control of those around him.
I am hopeful that when this committee travels to the Asia Pacific region you will follow that rule. It is through personal relations and informal discussions that business is done. I say "business" not only in the sense of commercial transactions but also in the sense of knowledge base. A group of people having a dinner together creates the kind of associational relations that are crucial.
Senator Bolduc: Would it be possible to get your written views and suggestions about increasing the efficiency of Foreign Affairs?
Mr. Evans: Certainly.
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we had a very good meeting. Dr. Evans has given us a very perceptive and realistic discussion.
We are greatly in your debt. Thank you very much.
Mr. Evans: Thank you.
The committee adjourned.