ON CHINA: Marston emphasizes need for consensus when dealing with China

Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP): I'm going to pick my words carefully here, and you'll understand in a second. I want to tell Mr. Houlden that I agree with his evaluation that there are some areas of human rights that are improving and some that are going downhill.

I met last week with a person from Hong Kong who works underground in China with the civil society groups. This is why I'm going to choose my words carefully. This person was telling me that they believe in the last 15 years there has been a fairly significant change in human rights and that there have been improvements. What this person spoke about, though, was that it seems the military or the police in certain districts are more offensive than in others in the area of human rights. It's almost like the government itself doesn't have that control; it's not systemic through the government.

I'm just thinking for a second, because again I'm watching my words. This person was saying that they're watched, they're interviewed, but they're not apprehended to the degree they used to be. It still occurs, but not like it was before.

I have one question for CIDA. Has there been an external evaluation of your human rights programming in China?

I'll just go a little further and come back. I've made the suggestion here, and others have spoken to it as well, that the dialogue should be accountable to this committee and reporting to this committee. I'd like to see what folks think of that.

The final one is for Foreign Affairs. What specifically has been done, that you can comment on, to ensure the safety and to secure the release of Huseyincan Celil?

Mr. Gordon Houlden (Director General, East Asia Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs): May I go with the last question first, if that's all right--

Mr. Wayne Marston: Whatever order is fine.

Mr. Gordon Houlden: --particularly because of its importance. Of course, as you know, it has attracted the attention of our Prime Minister, who has spoken out strongly on this case, as have others, including some around this table and our chair.

In our view, this is a particularly egregious case, because this is a Canadian citizen who is being held incommunicado. He was travelling on a Canadian passport in a neighbouring country with whom we now have not been able to secure consular or humanitarian access.

Where has it been raised? As you know from the media, it has been raised at the highest level by our Prime Minister with the President of China. It has been raised in multiple meetings with the Chinese foreign minister. It has been raised through public comments by our political leaders. It has been raised in meetings between our ambassador and the authorities in Beijing. It has been raised by our ambassador when travelling in Xinjiang, the region from which Mr. Celil originates. It has been raised with the Chinese embassy here.

I don't mean to give an exhaustive list, but at each opportunity that has any utility at all, this is something that comes to the fore. I believe members of Parliament have raised this issue as well during visits to China.

We're not going to rest until this situation is resolved. It is a particularly troubling case for us. It's not simply a case of human rights; it's also one of consular access and protection for Canadians.

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Mr. Wayne Marston: They lost the “iron rice bowl” in 1978 when they started to change the economic structure over there. The person I was speaking to last week assures me that after the horrific things that occurred in Tiananmen--and this person was in the square and is still connected with people there--there have been what this person called reasonably significant changes in human rights since those days. I want to stress that. We are all troubled by, as the member said, being sure of the balance or not, whether we are making headway.

My question really comes back around the dialogue, and whether you would see it reasonable to suspend it for this group to join with MPs, NGOs, and labour, civil society groups--the Berne group--and maybe come together with a strategy that we're all moving roughly in the same direction on those things that we're trying to accomplish in China. Would that make reasonable sense?

Ms. Adèle Dion (Director General, Human Security and Human Rights, Department of Foreign Affairs): Certainly if we look at the like-minded western countries who have bilateral dialogues with the Chinese, we're all doing it for the same reasons. We have similar values and interests. We've all signed the international human rights legal framework, and we have very serious and very specific concerns. We do try to concert our messages.

If you take any group of countries, obviously there are important variations as to what a specific government will priorize. It's not always relevant, I suppose I could say, to try to come up with a short list of five messages that everyone is going to push. Depending on individual relationships with China, it's more useful for, say, Canada to take the lead on some specific issues where we might have more leverage, either because of our CIDA programming or because of our historic relationship with China.

As to overall coordination, yes, definitely--very important, very useful. Thinking back to 1996-97, when we were still involved in the resolution at the UN Commission on Human Rights, we certainly coordinated with like-minded countries on having that resolution adopted. I think amongst all of us there was a pretty general agreement by 1997 that the chances of success, of getting the resolution adopted, were becoming increasingly slimmer. That was certainly one of the reasons why it was felt that we had to look at additional options for engaging China.

Amongst all of the countries involved in bilateral dialogues, I think we certainly have independently come to the conclusion that with China it's absolutely necessary to stay engaged. After all, they're a huge country. They're a member of the UN Security Council. They're very active in UN and regional fora such as APEC.

As the honourable was saying earlier, it's extremely frustrating because progress is so slow. But really, if we want to make a difference, if we want to see China become open to human rights, norms, and standards, what option is there except to engage in some way?

On the question of benchmarks, yes, they are absolutely critical. Clearly what we're all aiming for here is an improved strength in dialogue.