Irwin Cotler/National Post: First, the prime minister has embarked on a détente with China. While engaging with one of the world’s biggest economies certainly satisfies the pragmatic side of the equation, China is also one of the world’s foremost violators of the principles Carney listed at Davos, namely human rights — including the ongoing Uyghur genocide; domestic and transnational repression; arbitrary detention of political prisoners; and the violation of territorial integrity — and the occupation of Tibet, menacing of Taiwan, expansionism in the South China Sea, and repression of Hong Kong.
Carney should be wary not to replace the lesser evil of Donald Trump’s America, a democracy (albeit with growing authoritarian tendencies), with the greater evil of Xi Jinping’s China, one of the world’s most repressive autocracies…