The Chinese government certainly moved quickly—a little more quickly than Ottawa—in announcing the expulsion of Canadian diplomat Jennifer Lalonde.
There are mixed signals—some reassuring, some potentially menacing—in this tightly calibrated set of tit-for-tat expulsions. The Chinese one followed hard on the heels of the Canadian Foreign Minister’s announcement of the expulsion of Chinese consular official, Zhao Wei, over concerns that he was engaged in a political interference operation, dating back to 2021, to intimidate Canadian Conservative M.P. Michael Chong by potentially threatening his family members based in Hong Kong.
The outcome gives no comfort to Ms. Lalonde of course, who has to pack up and leave Shanghai within 5 days. The temperature of an already frigid relationship that characterizes Canada-China political relations has dropped a degree or two. No springtime here.
But there is a seeming calculation to the Chinese decision to expel Ms. Lalonde. China has chosen to expel equal for equal. Mr. Zhao has a diplomatic title and role pretty equivalent to that of Ms. Lalonde. Both are consuls. Mr. Zhao is listed as head of the intergovernmental affairs and media office at the Chinese consulate in Toronto. Ms. Lalonde is consul in Canada’s Shanghai mission with responsibilities for political, economic and consular affairs. Their respective consular bosses were left in place. Higher still up the diplomatic totem pole, ambassadors were untouched.
Ms. Lalonde was not accused, in what can be the usual authoritarian regime playbook, of espionage or conspiracy or some other dark deed.
So, despite its threatening rhetoric, China, for now, did not engage in any major escalation of the row.
But there may be some symbolic menace in kicking a Canadian diplomat out of Shanghai, the epicentre of China’s global trade and finance. The hidden message might be—we can always take action against Canadian businesses in China and Canadian trade. That’s China’s big stick.
Hovering over Canadian officials’ concerns about Chinese reaction to the expulsion of one of their diplomats is the spectre of a repeat of the hostage diplomacy that left two Canadian citizens—the two Michaels—imprisoned in China for a long stretch between December 2018 and September 2021.
But there may be some hope for restraint on the part of China. China’s aggressive hostage diplomacy over the two Michaels brought it no gains and only helped to hasten a coalition of democratic western countries who increasingly perceive China as a potential adversary, Canada among them.
China has demonstrated a desire to play a leading role as a peacemaker with regard to the Russian war in Ukraine, for which it has a great interest. It does not want to see a key authoritarian ally, Russia, vastly diminished in strength and influence through defeat or near-defeat. It would like a return to pre-war conditions which saw Ukraine as a growing source of imports for the Chinese economy, not least in terms of agricultural products. To play a peace-maker role in the world’s most pressing conflict, it needs an ability to engage with key Western states that have backed Ukraine, including Canada. Somewhere in the background of the Chinese response may be this longer game.
But as the radio host for CBC Saskatchewan asked me—should canola producers be worried?—the answer can only be—wait and see. Wait and see whether restraint holds in Beijing. Wait and see whether yet another damaging revelation about Chinese interference operations splashes across the news, rocks the Canadian political scene, and forces more Canadian government action.