Polices of engagement with China can be overrated

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly recently met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, marking the first official visit following a multi-year diplomatic crisis.

The resumption of ministerial contact has led some commentators to call for a return to regular bilateral diplomacy between Canada and China since “glimpses of a rainbow appear to be on the horizon” for the relationship.

Others have noted that Canadians are still concerned about foreign interference, so icy public opinion makes re-engagement with China politically challenging.

Yet few seem to have noticed that there is no going back: Canada formally ended its longstanding engagement with China back in November 2022 with the publication of its Indo Pacific Strategy.

Canada quietly canceled most of its high-level dialogues and bilateral engagement mechanisms with China and implemented a review process that makes creating new methods of engagement exceedingly difficult.

Failures of engagement

Ending engagement makes sense. China’s penchant for coercive diplomacy vividly illustrated the failures of an engagement policy for Canada — as well as for other democracies such as Australia and Norway.

In Canada’s case, China arbitrarily detained Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in December 2018, using the Canadians as bargaining chips to pressure Canada into releasing Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou after she was arrested by Canadian authorities acting on an American arrest warrant.

Yet there were also earlier signs diplomatic engagement was failing, including Chinese crackdowns on freedom of expression; China’s rejection of the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration; its illiberal trade practices; human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous