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The Current Transcript for February 28, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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Competition ready rifle features and 18 inch barrow, with 5R rifle, and a crisp two stage trigger for much greater accuracy

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: That is from a product video for the MSR 15 Valkerie. A new semi automatic rifle from the Savage Arms Company whose U.S. parent is Vista Outdoor. It is Vista's other outdoor equipment with no connection to guns that has put it in the sights of members of the Mountain Equipment Co-op with a petition urging it to drop Vista products. It's a move inspired by the U.S. anti-gun and anti NRA boycotts. In a moment we'll hear from the Canadian who has pulled that fight over the border as we ask how effective such actions can be. Also today: The very first a military operation approved by U.S. President Trump was a raid in a remote part of Yemen celebrated as a great success, but then reporter Iona Craig showed up at the scene.

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There were 26 people in that village who were killed. Many of those four women and children. The civilians that I spoke to when I went to their village had exactly that question: Why did the Trump administration choose to carry out this raids.

AMT: Disguised and traveling treacherous roads through volatile conflict zones on a found the story that Washington never wanted told. Now she's won an award for it. She joins me in half an hour. And China's president Xi Jinping manipulated the rules this week to get rid of term limits on his job essentially making him ruler for life. There's barely been a peep from western democracies.

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That's a decision for China to make about what's best for their country.

AMT: The Western whisper on change with such powerful implications might have to do with the fact that in a world of Trump and Brexit and Mideast wars and mounting numbers of refugees China seemingly autocratic move promises the kind of stability that some observers are convinced our Western leaders want. We will explore the implications of all of that, in an hour I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Can a boycott of Canadian companies actually hurt the NRA?

Guests: Avi Selk, Sarah Latha, A. J. Somerset

AMT: Well it's two weeks today since the Parkland, Florida school shooting left 17 teens and teachers dead. And today students Marjory Stoneman Douglas High start returning. Some of those students are the most vocal in the boycotts that have sprung up after the massacre, targeting gun makers and the gun lobby. Consumer pressure in the US has led to several major companies from Delta Airlines to MetLife insurance to distance themselves from the NRA - the National Rifle Association - ending discount programs for its members. The NRA with its massive lobby against stricter gun control laws is funded by gun manufacturers and is viewed by many as part of the problem behind mass shootings. In Canada the Mountain Equipment Co-Op or MEC as the outdoor retailer is known has come under scrutiny as well. MEC does not sell weapons but it does sell some products from bike helmets to water bottles and binoculars made by a company called Vista Outdoor. The Utah-based Vista is also the parent company of Savage Arms which makes semiautomatic weapons similar to the one used in the Parkland's school shooting. Now according to Vista's 2017 annual report shooting sports, guns, ammunition, rifle scopes, and reloading components accounted for 54 percent of Vista sales last year which came to a total of one point three billion dollars U.S. Shoppers at a Toronto MEC yesterday were divided on how that connects to MEC.

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VOICE 1: I kind of feel betrayed. I always thought it was a good brand, a good store. But I don't know how I feel about it anymore. I just bought something here; maybe I should have bought somewhere else.

VOICE 2: I don't really have a problem with that, to be honest with you. I think a little too much has been made. I mean a lot of people are using semiautomatic rifles for hunting and things like that.

VOICE 3: With the current climate and all the tragedies that have happened leave me with guns in places that we would expect to be safe, I think this should definitely review the relationship because the consumer product is never more important than someone's life.

AMT: Well an online petition against MEC has got the company's attention since it went up on a weekend. It was started by Sarah Latha and she is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

SARAH LATHA: Good morning.

AMT: Why did you want to start this petition?

SARAH LATHA: You know I think people want to have an impact. They want to be able to affect positive change. Certainly I am someone who wants to be able to affect positive change and the discovery that the water bottles in the sweet binoculars that I buy my children who are avid birders are connected to the makers of semiotic semi-automatic weapons is very disturbing. The information obviously is not new that there is this connection but following the recent mass murder in the U.S. it's receiving more profile and I came to know about it on the weekend. I think it also provides an opportunity for us. As disturbing as it is it's an opportunity for us to make a choice. I can make a choice to boycott these brands. But I can also make a choice to ask the organisation that I'm a member of, Mountain Equipment Co-O, to take a stand at the corporate level and to my mind you know that multiplies the impact of my actions. You know 10-fold. I think they have something like five million members.

AMT: So Tom when did you put the petition up?

SARAH LATHA: I created the petition on Sunday evening and it went live Monday morning.

AMT: How many people have signed up?

SARAH LATHA: Moments ago it was at thirty six thousand and climbing.

AMT: Are you surprised? How you react to that?

SARAH LATHA: I am pleased. I am not surprised. I think that people feel a real resonance in it's making a connection. I think that the Mountain Equipment Co-op membership are an informed and conscientious demographic. I think that people are aware of mountain equipment's values and their mission and their mandate as a different kind of business. You know Mountain Equipment is a very successful company and it's a very successful brand but it's an organisation that exists for the benefit of its members. You can't shop there unless you are a member.

AMT: So do you want them to drop these brands or what are you asking them to do? To not carry them anymore?

SARAH LATHA: Yes. We're looking for Mountain Equipment to end their relationship with Vista Outdoors and the Associated Brands so Camelback, Bushnell, Boley makes ski goggles. There are a number of others.

AMT: At the same time as we heard in that tape off the top. Not everyone has an issue with Maxony's products what do you say to that?

SARAH LATHA: I mean Mountain Equipment in their public updates on Twitter has made some issue of the fact that they've had feedback from people that purchasing decisions are up to individual customers and people are quite comfortable carrying these brands. You know I would disagree like while purchasing decisions are obviously individual product offering decisions or not. These are decisions made at the corporate level. This is not new for Mountain Equipment. They have had their values tested before. They have had to take a look at their supply chain and issues of fair trade in the garment sector. The values that underpin MEC's mandate are only made meaningful if tested end. This is a moment where they're being tested again.

AMT: Well we asked MEC to comment. The company said it wasn't doing any interviews at this time. It also said senior management is continuing to discuss what to do about Vista Outdoor brands it carries in its store. What would you think of that response at this point? Are you expecting more?

SARAH LATHA: I mean I'm encouraged that Mountain Equipment is listening. I don't think they have a choice given the public response. It's also in their mandate to listen. We are engaging MEC's governance structure. MEC is answerable to its members. At the same time I think there are a number of messages that are coming out of MEC that are confusing; talking about the hunting industry and sports shooting. For me the issues are very clear. This is about the connection to makers of semi-automatic weapons. These weapons are designed for combat and they're used in mass murders.

AMT: MEC is not the only retailer to sell the brands that you mentioned. There are other places in Canada are there not? What are they?

SARAH LATHA: Yeah these brands are available at Canadian Tire, at Walmart, at Bass Pro

AMT: So why go after MEC?

SARAH LATHA: Well I think you know I think that that is the key here. We aren't going after MEC. We're engaging Mack in a dialogue about the fact that they carry these brands that they had a relationship with prior to Vista Outdoors acquiring these brands. Now that this information has come to light MEC does not have a choice, I don't think, to act to remove these brands in order to abide by their values. If they don't remove the brands. I think MEC will have to face a massive reorganization where they reexamine their mandate entirely. I mean I just want to say like you know one of the things about being a democratically run business is that they are accountable to their members.

AMT: Okay. Well we will continue to try to hear from them. Thank you.

SARAH LATHA: Thank you.

AMT: Sarah Latha is a Toronto woman who started this online petition to pressure Mountain Equipment Co-Op to stop selling outdoor gear brands made by Vista Outdoor, the parent company of a major U.S. ammunition and gun manufacturer. She is in our Toronto studio. Now Mountain Equipment Co-Op did post a statement on Twitter responding to consumer concerns and said in part that the company was hearing "lots of diverse opinions on this topic". So for a different opinion, I'm joined by A.J. Somerset. He's a gun owner. He's the author of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun. A.J. Somerset is in our London, Ontario studio. Hello.

A.J. SOMERSET: Hello.

AMT: What do you think of the concerns raised by Ms. Latha and others who have signed this petition?

A.J. SOMERSET: Well I think people want to see change in the United States was a very clear problem with guns. But I am not convinced that this kind of action is really going to achieve anything of any practical effect.

AMT: Why not?

A.J. SOMERSET: Well in this particular case in going after Vista Outdoors, whether MEC chooses to sell Bushnell and Camelback will have no effect on the operations of Savage Arms or a federal ammunition. The only people this is going to affect really will end up being MEC itself, no matter what they do somebody is going to be annoyed with them. And also MEC's Canadian suppliers, the Canadian distributor for ah camelback and Bell helmets for example is a company whose core business is bicycle's they have nothing to do with guns, but they will be affected if America decides not to carry those brands.

AMT: Do you understand why some Canadians want to take some sort of action?

A.J. SOMERSET: Well absolutely. I think that everybody wants to see some action because the situation in the United States is quite ridiculous. But the problem in the United States has evolved in part because of a lack of commitment from Americans to do something over the years. When the Parkland kids came up and said 'you adults are terrible you haven't done anything', they were quite right. There has been a lack of commitment and what is really needed is for people to continue the pressure that's on now and show up at the ballot. And to contact their representatives and keep the pressure on. This has not happened in the past and that's why they're in a mess

AMT: And the idea that Canadians be involved in that because there is there is a money chain that goes back to the parent companies and it is the gun manufacturing companies that fund the lobby groups. You don't agree with that?

A.J. SOMERSET: Well yes I mean the gun manufacturers and ammunition manufacturers do fund the NRA which places somebody like me - as a gun owner but who doesn't like what's going on in the United States - in a difficult position because of course every time I buy amo I am indirectly funding the NRA. And that's just something I have to live with. I think the move that's being made here is sort of purely expressive. People are trying to express values through MEC by having MEC take some action for them and basically say we align with your values. But it's not really going to harm the NRA that much because there will always be gun makers no matter what the laws are. And those gun makers will always resist change because it's in their nature. Nobody succeeds in business by inviting somebody to come in and limit what they're allowed to sell. So the gun makers are really just responding to a market that's there and it's up to people to get laws passed that will control that market and limit what those gun makers are allowed to do it.

AMT: So you're a gun owner. You're not crazy about the NRA.

A.J. SOMERSET: I am to see I'm not crazy about the NRA would be a bit of an understatement. The Earth could open and swallow the NRA and I wouldn't mind at all.

AMT: Why?

A.J. SOMERSET: Well I think that the NRA has over the years has transformed itself into an organization that has become a key problem. As I was saying previously the problem in the United States has been that there is a lack of commitment from the pro control side, that people it's just not part of their everyday thinking. The NRA has managed to promote the idea of gun ownership as an identity so that people think of themselves as gun owners and people think of themselves as a sort of minority that's under threat from government regulation. And has managed to galvanize a reaction to any kind of proposed regulation that has taken on ridiculous proportions.

AMT: So what kind of action should Canadians who are concerned about gun violence be taking in stand you think?

A.J. SOMERSET: Well it's difficult for Canadians to take much effective action in a situation like this because as I said it's really a matter of people showing up to vote. I think that you know consumer Action like this one to me is not very effective because essentially we're seeing to a company not to do business with a company that's owned by a company that owns yet another company that we don't like. So this is quite different from the situation with say NRATV being carried by Amazon and Google. NRATV being carried by Amazon and Google that's a core operation of the NRA. That's the sort of thing that we could productively target because Google and Amazon are international. Other than that I think for Canadians who are concerned about guns I believe people should educate themselves about gun issues in Canada. There is a tendency for Canadians to react to what happens with guns in the United States but we have our own gun issues in Canada which the public tends not to be very familiar with. And there are different issues that require different responses. And people could familiarize themselves with that

AMT: A.J. Somerset, we have to leave it there but thank you for your thoughts today.

A.J. SOMERSET: Thank you.

A.J. SOMERSET: A.J. Somerset author of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun. He's in our London, Ontario studio. In the U.S. the number of big corporations cutting ties with the NRA has been described as unprecedented but whether it makes a dent in the gun business is an open question. Avi Selk has been covering this story for the Washington Post where he is a reporter. He's in our Washington studio. Hi.

AVI SELK: Hi

AMT: Do you see this wave of consumer advocacy aimed at the gun lobby and gun makers themselves, do you see this different in the wake of other mass shootings?

AVI SELK: It's different. There have been maybe three. This is maybe the third campaign since the 1990s that rose to this level of intensity. And they were all different. Some of them targeted the gun industry directly. This one is essentially at the moment trying to denormalized the NRA trying to turn it into a pariah publicly. That's why it's been focused on all these corporations that are cutting really sort of minor affiliations with the NRA. Like the airlines are cutting you know tiny little discounts that they would go to NRA members going to the convention but the effect of it. And probably the intent of a lot of people behind the boycott is to try to turn the NRA which was once a revered institution in the United States and is still incredibly powerful as a lobby into a pariah, into something toxic that normal corporations and businesses want to affiliate with.

AMT: And why do you think so many of these companies are responding as swiftly as they are now? What has changed?

AVI SELK: It's really hard to know why they do what they do. There seems to be some sort of coordination among the company. Like I notice when Delta Airlines announced that it would end its entry discounts with a tweet, United - two hours later - put out an almost identical tweet. So it's almost like they'd sort of consulted with each other on the language and made sure they were doing it together. I think they were forced to make a decision. This is kind of following some other viral and social media based boycott campaigns that we've seen during the Trump Administration. It reminds me a lot of the there was a white supremacist and other far right groups rallied in Charlottesville and a protest that was killed over the summer. There was a campaign similar then to force social media companies like Twitter and web companies to kick off these sort of Alt Right websites to shut them down. Whereas previously you know Twitter and Facebook and all these other companies have been entirely neutral and said you know as long as you're not breaking a law you can be on our services. That campaign succeeded in making the Alt Right toxic corporations.

AMT: Oh our last guest mentioned NRATV carried by Amazon on Google. There hasn't been much movement on that front, the carrying of television channel.

AVI SELK: No and I should say out front that I am a reporter for The Washington Post the man who owns the Washington Post also owns Amazon. So although the companies don't coordinate at all, we do have the same owner and Amazon is the subject of the boycotts. So basically what you're seeing Delta, United Airlines and MetLife and Avis all cut their discounts for the NRA. FedEx is the only one that didn't end its discount. So at the moment the boycott is now focused on trying to move it up a level. So they basically got other corporations to cut any overt connections to the NRA. The next step is getting corporations to stop hosting NRATV which is essentially the NRA's video streaming service and it's accused by a lot of people are being the NRA propaganda arm. There's a lot of sort of dark conspiratorial videos go up about how you know the world order, the liberals are trying to take away your guns and promote dictatorships. Stuff like that.

AMT: So what will you be watching to see if this has momentum that goes behind other efforts in the past?

AVI SELK: Well you know I've been watching to see if Apple or Amazon or Google respond to the boycott calls and they have not. It's been nearly a week. You know I have sent multiple inquiries to all those companies and got no reply, including Amazon. So they seem to be holding fast so they're probably making the calculation that if they start kicking off videos that aren't illegal in any way but are political, then they've essentially made a political decision about who can use their streaming services. And then you get into all kinds of thorny problems.

AMT: Avi Selk we have to leave it there but thank you for your insights into this.

AVI SELK: Thank you. Happy to be here.

AMT: Avi Selk, a reporter for The Washington Post. He is in our Washington studio. What do you think about this whole movement and whether it will be effective. Let us now. Tweet us. We are @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. The CBC News is next. Then I'm talking to the reporter who showed up at the scene of a U.S. military strike in Yemen and found a story different from the one the White House was telling. This is The Current.

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Journalist unmasks so-called 'successful' U.S. raid in Yemen with first-hand reporting

Guest: Iona Craig

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come there are fears of a creeping authoritarianism in China, after a constitutional amendment there abolished term limits for the president. It means that Xi Jinping could become leader for life. For some that is dredging up bad memories of Mao Zedong, for others, it's a complex situation. We'll get to it in about half an hour. But first getting to the heart of the story in the eye of a storm.

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[Sound: Gunshots]

AMT: The war in Yemen has been called the worst humanitarian disaster in decades. It has also been called 'the forgotten war' and 'the War the world ignores'. In January of last year what is happening in Yemen hit home even if briefly for Americans in the first military mission approved by the new Trump administration.

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VOICE 1: President Donald Trump ordered members of the Navy Seal Team 6 to carry out a daring raid into the center of Yemen near the town of Al Bida, in Al Qaeda stronghold.

VOICW 2: Tragically during this raid the life of a brave service member was taken and four were wounded.

VOICE 1: An MB22 Osprey made a hard landing during the mission and had to be destroyed on the ground. Three U.S. service members were injured during the crash according to officials.

AMT: Despite the loss of life and equipment President Trump stood by the mission's success.

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DONALD TRUMP: It was a very successful mission. They had are a lot of information a lot of - a lot of different things that they really wanted to get.

AMT: It would take an independent journalist to challenge the official narrative around what happened during that raid in Yemen and that journalist would be Iona Craig. While much of the world has paid little attention to the crisis in Yemen Iona Craig has been tirelessly reporting from the country. Her journalism from the scene of that U.S. raid was published by The Intercept. It has just been honored with a prestigious Polk Award for foreign reporting. Behind the story itself is the remarkable tale of how she got it. Iona Craig joins me from a studio in Gloucester, England. Hello.

IONA CRAIG: Hi there.

AMT: Well what do you think when you hear that statement from President Trump about the success of the mission back then?

IONA CRAIG: Well it was quite obvious, almost felt immediately that the mission was not successful. I was in Yemen at the time and it was quite quickly apparent with the messages that were going out on social media and the local media of mass civilian casualties. But also later on the so-called information that the U.S. military brought back that was then posted by them online trying to prove what they achieved in the mission, was a video of supposedly made by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula of bomb making. Well as it turned out that video had been widely available on the Internet for many years and actually predated the very existence of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or in Yemen. So even their own evidence undermined what President Trump and the White House and the military were saying

AMT: And you were there at the time because you were working on other Yemen stories.

IONA CRAIG: I was living in Yemen from 2010 until the beginning of 2015 and since then I've been going backwards and forwards a few times a year when I can get the money together and funding to do so. And I was there in January 2017 thanks to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting who had funded my trip that time to do various reports including for Harper's magazine, and I was just about to leave the country when when this raid happened.

AMT: So you saw the disconnect from what the Americans were saying and what you were hearing on the ground. What did you decide to do?

IONA CRAIG: Well I'd actually been in that area before back in 2013-2012. There had been several drone strikes in that area and one of them had hit a wedding convoy and killed numerous civilians and I'd been down into Al Bida from the capital Sana'a at that time and visited that area. So I called up some of those people that I still knew from that reporting trip a few years earlier and they confirmed that there had been mass civilian casualties, there have been children killed. And so I then realized the importance of actually getting there to try and both see what had gone on and also speak to witnesses and survivors. But I realized in the context of the civil war in Yemen that it was going to be quite an undertaking to actually get there in the first place.

AMT: Well tell me a little bit about what did go circuitous route but that's a simple way to say. It was it was quite the journey. What did you have to do?

IONA CRAIG: Well it was kind of three sides of a triangle really. So it involved around about a thousand mile journey. I was going what should have been in peace time would have been about eight hours from where I was starting in the south of the country took sort of four days really. I had to go east, north and then west and the last leg of the journey was the most difficult. And even when I drove in from the city of Marib those who I was travelling with who were local said it would take about three hours our last leg of the journey and we set off at about 05:30 in the morning on the last day and it in fact took us seven off road. So we set off at five thirty in the morning and didn't get back again until 01:30 the next morning the next day. Our vehicle broke down on the way because of that off-road driving. We were in an SUV but we bursted an oil pipe and were kind of stranded for a while a long way from any cellphone communication. I had a satellite phone and I had to call up the sheikh in the village of Al Ghayil where the raid took place. And they sent some one of them a group of their men out to come and pick us up off the side of the road. Well it wasn't a road - off the side of a dry river bed and took us in and a vehicle that had 30 bullet holes in the windscreen from the Navy Seal raid and that last bit of the journey was equally hair raising because the tribal driving is pretty scary. I can tell you when we were driving flat out down dry waterfalls and over mountain ridges on what can only be described as a donkey track.

AMT: You were going through really a patchwork quilt of territorial control too. How many different factions control areas in this part of Yemen?

IONA CRAIG: Right. Well the reason I'd had to take this very long journey - I'd like to say it was a scenic route but it wasn't - was to stay in the territory that was controlled or is still controlled by the Saudi led coalition and those forces loyal to the Yemeni government. But in doing so that also involves going through territory that is controlled by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and as Islamic State as well. So when we were stuck with our broken down vehicle my driver sort of gave out the local information which was that the mountain ridges above us was the fighting areas for Al Qaeda and Islamic State that were overlooking where we were. And that because those groups are involved in fighting the Yemeni Huthi rebels who they see as their enemy because Huthis are Shia'a Zaidi movement and of course the Sunni elements often use this as a religious motivation for fighting and certainly Al Qaeda - a Sunni Islamic extremist - sees the Huthis as very much as their enemy because of that. So for them it's a sectarian part of the conflict. So I was avoiding the Huthi territory to avoid being both arrested by them and detained for going into their territory without permission. But that forced me having to go into territory controlled by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and with an Islamic State presence.

AMT: And you actually reached out to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to let them know you were coming through. Why and how do you do that?

IONA CRAIG: Well I mean I've worked in Yemen for many years and through that work I've had communication with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And in fact as a reporter one of the few that has been covering the country solidly basically for nearly eight years now they pretty much came to me in the first place several years ago to communicate with me. And I have met with them when they controlled the city of Mukalla in southern Yemen in 2015 and 2016 I went to Mukalla and met them there. And I had the same tactic which is to inform them that I am wishing to travel to that area that is under their control but not telling them when I will be coming or how I'll be travelling. That's for my own security really. And even when I met them in Mukalla, of course they wanted to give me an armed escort which for obvious reason would make me a target if I am driving down the road with a with an armed convoy of Al Qaeda militants around me. So it's to avoid that kind of thing but at the same time it's to have permission if you like to be in areas that they control or influence. So if I do get picked up by them that message will go along the chain of command and they'll know who the foreigner is that is that is in their territory.

AMT: And you had to disguise yourself did you not?

IONA CRAIG: Yes it's a method I've come to use over many years in Yemen. And it's probably easier as a woman actually to do this kind of work because in Yemen women traditionally wear 'niqab', face veil, and 'abaya' the sort of long loose black dress because of the conservative culture. And as a woman I can travel that way. My eyes as some Yemenis pointed out were too green. Earlier in the war when some had volunteered to drive me around the country so I solved that problem. I wear contact lenses anyway and bought a pair of brown tinted contact lenses specifically for that use. But I've been travelling like this as much at ease for getting through checkpoints as well as security and just to be able to do my job for many years now in Yemen . It started really in 2012 when I was covering the war in Abyan in southern Yemen against Al Qaeda and I was looking for official permission from the security agencies to get to that area and I was refusing to budge out of the security officials office until they gave me permission. And in the end they just gave up and said put on a veil go on wear 'niqab' and just go. And so under their advice I did and I kept doing that ever since.

AMT: I guess we should underline for our listeners the risk of a Western woman who's in there reporting, if you have gone through all these security measures, along with the dangerous roads and going in and the factions, there is a risk of kidnapping as well.

IONA CRAIG: Yes I mean I went through all the measures you do when you’re working in a hostile environment as a journalist. So this journey was five days in the planning. I did risk assessments. I looked at various different options regarding routes. I spoke to people along those routes to see what was viable and what wasn't. I also have what we call proof of life questions that are handed over to my editors at The Intercept so that if I am kidnapped then any kind of negotiations can happen by proving that I am still alive with answers to those questions. So yes there are - you know there are measures. This is all risk mitigation if you like. I am trained in hostile environment training. I have trauma first aid training and I am always carrying a full trauma first aid kit as well because there's risk of IEDs, there's risk of small arms fire, there's risk of air strikes in all of that as well as the kidnap aspect.

AMT: So after all of that planning and all of that effort you did reach Al Ghayil what did you find?

IONA CRAIG: I think what hit me first just driving into the village all the reporting certainly I’d seen in the US media up to that time was about a training ground, a walled compound, pictures of sort of barbed wire fences and high walls and there was none of that. This was a very remote, very simple village of stone single story houses. There was no evidence of any sort of high walled compounds of any kind. The houses that had been the main target of the raid were newer houses on the outside of that village, cinder-block buildings again, just single story houses with tents outside. A lot of people living in tents who'd been displaced because of the conflict and the majority of those houses had been destroyed during the raid that I spoke to a lot of the women and children as well. One child a five year old boy, Sinan, who'd been shot at by helicopter gunship fire as he was trying to run away with his mother and his mother had been gunned down next to him. So yes while, as I wrote in my piece, there was apparent evidence of some low level Al Qaeda militants who were living in a house on the edge of the village a lot of the damage had been done to the main part of the village further up the hill. And that was because initially when the firefight started with the Navy Seals, the local tribesmen who were all armed - it's a civil war and it's Yemen - started fighting back because they thought it was the Huthis, their enemy in the civil war coming in to try and take their village because the village is right behind the front lines and there are many fighters living in that area. They've received incoming fire and rocket propelled grenades into their village in recent weeks. So they assumed they were under attack from the Huthis until obviously the helicopters and the drones moved in.

AMT: And then the United States was arguing that they were going after Al Qaeda there, that they had a target for Al Qaeda. What did you learn when you got there and started talking to people?

IONA CRAIG: Like I say there was one house that had been used if you like as a guest house, that was not inside the main part of the village. Al Qaeda guys had been seemingly staying there overnight then going out during the day to fight on the front lines. And when I say fight on the front lines, Al Qaeda, this is the same sign that the US is supporting in the war. So the U.S. is helping and supporting the Saudi coalition to carry out this war against the Huthis and Al Qaeda was on the same side of that coalition. So there was a presence of militants on the ground, low level guys who have been involved in the civil war. But certainly what I learnt on top of that that the US believed that Qasim Al Raymi who is the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was in the village at the time. I spoke to people about that in the village obviously you know they completely denied that Qasim Al Raymi put out an audio statement shortly after the raid, obviously mocking the U.S. effort and saying that he wasn't there. Everybody that I spoke to denied that he had been there, was there or had ever been there except for two people didn't say there had been a strange dark or black vehicle going in and out at the village that day, which may have possibly indicated that there was somebody coming into the village and going out again. But I had no more information than that to go on. But the individual's house who was targeted was a senior tribal leader who was very crucial to all of the tribal forces who are fighting the Huthis in the civil war. So the people on the ground there believe that the Americans have been fed perhaps deliberately mis-intelligence from their previous channels that they used from Sanaa within the intelligence agencies now under control of the Huthis, were perhaps deliberately fed mis-intelligence in order to target the most senior commander of the tribal forces who were fighting the Huthis. So this of course has increased anti-American sentiment in this area not only because they ended up killing large numbers of civilians and attacking villages there, but also because they were attacking their ability to be able to to fight the Huthis. So they're seeing the Americans then as taking sides in this civil war and it makes it and obviously drags the Americans into this very complex conflict.

AMT: We heard President Trump say that the raid yielded important information is that possible?

IONA CRAIG: Well certainly from what I saw and what the witnesses told me at that house that I mentioned that Al Qaeda was staying in was actually ended up being bombed because of the fire coming out of it towards the Navy Seals before they would have been able to get into and extract any information. There was another house that the tribal leader was in and that they may have been able to get access to. But as I mentioned that the video that was posted by the U.S. military as evidence if you like of the great intelligence that they received during the raid turned out to be a sort of instruction on bomb making that have been on the Internet for many years and predated even the existence of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. So if that was the best of the intelligence that they had or you know that they could produce, then that doesn't really say a great deal for what they did achieve out of this mission other than alienating a large population of tribesmen in Al Bida and creating a lot of anti-American sentiment in the process.

IONA CRAIG: And by going there, you spoke to women, as you point out you spoke to children. How willing were people to talk to you to let you know what happened to them?

IONA CRAIG: Actually they were very willing and amazingly welcoming. I mean the main reason when I turned up in Marib, the nearest city to them, and they knew I was coming and then I contacted them to say we'll be coming tomorrow. And they said 'no please wait a day' and the main reason they did that was because they wanted to get enough food in to give me and the people I was travelling a huge feast when we arrive because that's Yemeni tribal tradition. So they were extremely welcoming. And they were very happy to talk to me. I think also because I've worked so long in Yemen they were able to see the work that I'd previously done from the country and you know obviously they've done their own little bit of research if you like on me, the tribal leaders had any way. But Yemenis are traditionally very welcoming anyway and when I arrived they did their tribal chant that they do welcome visitors into their areas. So yes, I mean considering what had happened to them 10 days previously, for a foreigner to be welcomed in that way into their village is kind of remarkable really.

AMT: And you talked to children whose - you talked to a boy whose mother died. I mean this was all still very raw.

IONA CRAIG: Absolutely yes. And particularly I find in these kind of situations when you talk to the children it either comes out in two ways with the children who have experienced this kind of trauma. They are either so traumatized they're not able to speak and therefore you never push them on that, or they react by telling you their story in such a matter of fact way, it's almost like a story they tell of how they've been down to the corner shop and bought a board a pint of milk or something. It's so matter of fact. And then of course as an adult you are well aware that that kind of trauma will haunt them if you like for the rest of their lives. You know that this is going to come back in some way or shape or form to them when they realise what they have witnessed that's going to be with them for the rest of their lives. And yes the little boy that I mentioned, Sinan the five year old who seen his mother die. He was of the matter of fact matter of fact sort of version of telling the story. And actually as he was trying to tell me his aunts were in the room and they were trying to tell their story. And he got in trouble and they kicked him out of the room interrupting his elders you know. So it was- I mean it was yes. I mean it was very moving to listen, to hear what he'd experienced. And then he came back again later to bring me some soup and to finish off his story. He sat down in front of me and told me about it. But yes I think it's always the children that it hits you hardest as a reporter of hearing what they through because you know how it's going to affect them for the rest of their lives.

AMT: You are the first and only reporter who actually went and checked out on the ground what happened there and it contradicts what the Trump administration was saying revealed essentially that they lied about their first military operation. What's the follow up been?

IONA CRAIG: Well as a result of not just the work that I did - some Yemeni human rights workers went to the village as well- The American Civil Liberties Union put in Freedom of Information requests with the Trump administration with U.S. military with the State Department about trying to get information on the decision making process behind the raid and the legal basis that it was carried out. That hasn't been successful. They're now suing the administration for that - or government agencies - for that information. But of course if you go back through history I've covered similar kind of stories under the Obama administration trying to extract that information from the American government is pretty much impossible. There is very little if any transparency about how these operations are carried out in the sense of how the decision making process works and the legalities for it. But I think what it also revealed in my reporting was the change that had happened under the trumpet ministration quite quickly after Trump came into office about how operations were going to be carried out in places like like Yemen and shifting the legal basis for it. But certainly for the people [unintelligible] they still just want the answers to a lot of questions.

AMT: It really underlines the importance of on the ground reporting at a time when so few news organizations are willing to or able to send their journalists in there. And you're a freelancer, what’s the lesson about how we consume information on war as these things continue to unfold?

IONA CRAIG: Well I think as every freelancer knows now particularly with foreign reporting it's freelancers that are picking up the slack in the cutbacks and the reduced budgets of many news organizations. And of course it's often those freelancers that have the most experience in a lot of those areas. Someone like me I've been covering Yemen, you know pretty much exclusively now for eight years I haven't been doing anything else. That is my beat if you like. But then as freelancers we often have the least access to the kind of money that might be out there that media organizations have. And I think it's really important that maybe some of those big media organizations that some don't want to, either for security reasons or for financial reasons, go out to try and report on these stories is find the beat reporters who can do it and that maybe other foreign journalists like myself or it may be local reporters as well because they are able to go to those areas like that that are more safely.

AMT: Well again your work underlines the importance of us really knowing what is happening and I want to thank you for your work. Congratulations on the award but more importantly thank you for your work.

IONA CRAIG: Thank you. Good to talk to you. Thanks for having me.

AMT: Iona Craig is a freelance journalist. She's been living and reporting in Yemen for eight years. She was just given the Polk Award for foreign reporting. She joined us from Gloucester, England. Let us know what you think of our conversation. You can tweet us @TheCurentCBC, find us on Facebook or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the Contact link and stay with us. In our next half hour, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping has gone from poverty to the pinnacle of power in his country. Any could be in for yet another promotion: President for life. We'll have more on that after the 90 second break and we are looking at the implications for the Western world on that one. I am Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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The end of term limits for Chinese president has some experts hearing echoes of Mao

Guests: Gregory Chin, Yang Jianli, Kerry Brown

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current

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AMT: The sound of jubilant delegates popping under the music as Chinese President Xi Jinping open last fall's Communist Party congress. There is little doubt that Mr. Xi is the most powerful Chinese leader in decades but thanks to a new constitutional amendment he may become more powerful yet. President Xi could be on his way to being Chinese president for life. On Monday Sarah Huckabee Sanders the US presidential spokesperson gave the White House response to China's move.

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REPORTER: China has moved to eliminate term limits which allows President Xi to stay in office indefinitely. What's the White House reaction to that

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: Probably that is a decision for China to make about what's best for their country. But as you know the president has talked about term limits in a number of capacities during the campaign. It is something that he supports here in the United States. But that's a decision that would be up to China. Thanks so much guys. Maybe we will be a little longer tomorrow…

AMT: Okay well. She got that one short. The idea of a Chinese leader for life has some political pundits comparing President Xi to Chairman Mao Zedong who died in power in 1976. Kerry Brown has studied the life and career of President Xi. He is a professor of Chinese studies. He's director of the Lao China Institute at King's College London. He's also the author of CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping. Next month his second book on the Chinese leader will be out. It is called The World According to Xi: Everything you need to Know about the New China. Kerry Brown joins me from London, England hello.

KERRY BROWN: Hi hello.

AMT: What did you think when you heard that term limits were being eliminated for the president of China?

KERRY BROWN: Well it's surprising and not surprising. So we know that we're dealing with a very ambitious leader. So the presidency isn't in fact the most important position, that's the head of the party and that doesn't have any time limits. So that's why it's a bit surprising because it's quite early to announce this kind of change. He's got another four years until you know the kind of next party congress when this sort of thing could have been announced. But also because the position itself is not really that powerful, it seems to be sort of accruing something that's mostly symbolic rather than having real political significance. But it underlines this idea that he's extremely ambitious and wants to stay there for the long term not just to limits that you know most people are expecting.

AMT: And what's the most important thing a world leader should know about him?

KERRY BROWN: That his vision is for a China which is going to restore its place to the center of the world or at least to the center of the region that he sort of really represents this moment of China finally after a very tough modern history, of a century of humiliation as they call it, colonization and all these issues is sort of on top again and it is the kind of winner. So he's really promoting the idea of China as the winner not the victim, the winner. And I think that's where he's important.

AMT: Tell us about his background.

KERRY BROWN: So he is the son of another famous leader Xi Zhongxun, born in 1953. He was fairly badly treated in the Cultural Revolution from 1966, he was under house arrest for a number of years. He didn't really see him. He himself was as they say sent down to the countryside in central China. It is a pretty tough life in a rural area, returned to Beijing in the mid-70s as most of the people from that time did who had been sent down from Beijing. And then sort of worked his way through right from the lower sort of rung of the government up to the position he is in now. So he's been the head of China, the head of the Communist Party since 2012. And It's striking because of the enormous confidence that he has and the country's had over the last few years he's developed his program.

AMT: Because of what happened to his father he was essentially a peasant, right. He was doing manual labor as a teen.

KERRY BROWN: Yes so the Cultural Revolution was really sort of rusticate people and to make members of the elite - Xi Jinping was regarded before 1966 [unintelligible] the experience of a real life. So there were rumours about him being a pig farmer about working and living in caves and it certainly wouldn't have had an easy time it was a tough time. He applied in 1973 to join the Communist Party 10 times and finally got in on the tenth attempt. So some people like Lee Kuan Yew the former leader of Singapore called Xi Jinping the Nelson Mandela of Asia. I think that's not entirely accurate. I mean but he certainly did not have an easy route to be where he is today.

AMT: And what have his most important policies during this term?

KERRY BROWN: Well he's basically focused much more on the politics and the economics are, the anti-corruption, cleans up the party. You know even leaders who are basically using the big economic opportunities to look after their own networks and so he's really cleaned up that side of things. But mostly he's been trying to sort of really promote this idea of a new normal to China which is not just manufacturing and it's more about service sector and creating a new middle class in the cities. So he's really been the president of a sort of urbanizing China developing you know sort of a urban economy and a service sector economy and finally he's been very closely associated with continuing this sort of reform of China. But may [unintelligible] to kind of make the Communist Party itself sustainable to make one party rule sustainable. Saying in one word what are you trying to do, or one sentence what he's trying to do: making one party rule in China sustainable.

AMT: And you've made the point that in some ways he's the right guy at the right time. The heavy lifting and the positioning for these changes in China he inherited from previous leaders.

KERRY BROWN: So he is a lucky leader in some ways. I mean the real kind of big strategic choice was made by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 after the death of Mao to use capitalist methods but within a socialist kind of you know political framework. And then Jiang Zemin, his predecessor in the 90s basically reformed the state enterprises got China into the World Trade Organisation you know internationalize the economy. And then from the 2000s media predecessor Hu Jintao just developed the Chinese economy. So it quadrupled in size and debt in a decade. And so Xi Jinping has arrived after a lot of the sort of really really kind of tough work was done and he's been there you know kind of harvesting that. This was to say that he's in an easy position, China still got a lot of domestic challenges and you know it's a huge huge game of high stakes but he's certainly been given a very very solid base, from which to try and make China once more very central powerful strong and wealthy country.

AMT: How popular is he inside?

KERRY BROWN: So this message of being a nationalist leader who's presenting a strong powerful China, I think is very popular. I mean Chinese people on the whole are very proud of their country. They're proud of the achievements of the last few decades and he really speaks to that and his language is very very confident the way in which he sort of addresses the public is very direct. He's creating a kind of emotional link with the public in a way. There is apparently you know news of some opposition to this constitutional change. A lot of censorship trying to clamp down on you know the idea of the Emperor. Some people have called him in China and words like two terms have been censored in the last few days. So there is clearly there are people who are not too happy with this very very kind of autocratic style of leadership. It's too early to say whether he really is an autocrat China or today's not like the China of Mao Zedong 50-40 years ago, that China was quite isolated and quite kind of - you know sort of the economy was not that big. It was nowhere near as complicated as the China that exists today. And so Xi Jinping is certainly a sort of centralizing and powerful leader but over a country which is probably not that easy to centralize and not that easy to control in many areas.

AMT: How has the presidency's of Donald Trump affected President Xi's global political calculations?

KERRY BROWN: So they don't really I mean clearly having a sort of confused and inward looking and United States in some ways suits China, because it gives it more opportunity more strategic space and America looks in some ways like it's in decline. But on the other hand China is just not ready for a global role and may not ever want to be ready for a global. It doesn't want to duplicate the sort of global policeman role of the United States in its pomp. It doesn't want that. And I think in many ways they have been as worried by the kind of distracted and very fractious nature of domestic politics in America as everyone else and still want an America which is a stakeholder maybe not as pushy maybe not as kind of you know dominant but certainly an America which is a security guarantor, and are worried and concerned about the ways in which Trump seems to be contesting and pulling back from that. So they work hard to have a good relationship with him. Trump went to China last year, a very successful visit. They like the transactional style of politics that he undertakes but they're not too happy with an America which is sort of like just disappearing in many areas or seems to be.

AMT: You heard that clip from the White House spokesperson Ms. Huckabee Sanders. We haven't heard much pushback on this idea that he could become president for life from Western democracies. Why is that?

KERRY BROWN: I think the response is probably fair enough. It's a domestic issue. I mean a constitutional change is something for a country to fight for itself. All of the other many of very big problems that countries have got you know, America with gun control, domestic divisions, you know sort of these trade deals is trying to do economic issues, constitutional change in China is not really something that would be a priority to talk about. In the long term though clearly having Xi Jinping staying perpetually in place which is a possibility now is partly creating stability but also creating instability, because the bottom line is that one person is not going to be able to you know kind of run this country in an autocratic style. It's too complicated. It is too big and there is a real possibility of an over centralized leadership creating a sort of country which is unstable and becomes increasingly unstable. So, at the moment it looks like it's creating stability but it could go badly wrong.

AMT: Kerry Brown. Thank you for your insights.

KERRY BROWN: Thank you very much.

AMT: Kerry Brown professor of Chinese studies and director of the Lao China Institute at King's College London. He has another book on this. The book is called The World According To Xi: Everything you Need to Know about the New China, coming out soon. Kerry Brown joined us from London, England. Chinese dissidents have been watching President Xi's power plays with interest and concern. Yang Jianli has seen a lot of Chinese history in his life. He's a former member of the Chinese Communist Party. After leaving the party he became a human rights activist and took part in the Tianmanan Square protests. That was of course in 1989. Those demonstrations ended in the killing of thousands of civilians by the People's Liberation Army. In 2002 he was arrested by the Chinese government, that led to worldwide protests for his release. He was eventually freed but it took five years. He is now the founder and president of the human rights organization Initiatives for China and Yang Jianli Lee joins me from Washington D.C. Hello.

YANG JIANLI: Hello.

AMT: What did you think when you heard about the elimination of these term limits for the Chinese president?

YANG JIANLI: It was not entirely surprising to me. I had been talking about this topic and predicting he would do it sooner or later. But when that really happened it was some kind of a shock. But it's not entirely surprising.

AMT: And why have you been predicting it?

YANG JIANLI: Ever since he assumed the presidency five years ago he has shown this ambition to be a big dictator, trying to do everything to put himself apart with China's leader Mao Zedong. He has been successfully establishing himself as a big dictator, actively engaging, building [unintelligible] personality around himself. So he has some a actively ran a campaign against the corruption but that actually is a cover for him to perch the powerful rivals. So actually it is not secret at all. He has such an ambition he want to go beyond the two term limit. So everybody knew and everybody has been talking about that. As I said when it really happened it did come as a shock.

AMT: So what will the opponents of the president need to do to challenge his power? Can they?

YANG JIANLI: So I have been in touch with many people back in China including those officials inside the government and of course there are a lot of other independent scholars. And my feeling is that he's recent move trying to remove the term limit, to make himself China's president for life, shocked his comrade within the party especially on the top level more than anybody else. Because by doing so he further alienated his comrade, those who tried to share power with him. And all the younger generation comrades who try to succeed the power because they used to have a hope because there were term limits. So sooner or later they will succeed the power. Succession of a power is a issue that can [unintelligible] any dictatorship. That's the major issue that any dictatorship have tried to resolve. And none in the history actually have very good way to resolve this issue. I mean dictatorship.

AMT: So when you hear that some people argue that the elimination of these term limits increases stability for China and for Western democracies that can be seen as a good thing. How do you react?

YANG JIANLI: Well no that's a wrong prediction, a wrong assessment. History repeated to tell us that absolute had dictatorship fails not only that showed by Mao's example but many many others, Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin for example. Xi Jinping has for five years [unintelligible] himself from authoritarian dictator to absolute dictator. In doing so he concentrates all the power in his hands. And at the same time he order to control the whole society, to control the protest from society from within the party. He has to engage in roles of human rights violations, tightening control with civil society. So in the past five years China has seen the crackdown on civil society in the scale I see in two decades at least. And so by all doing this he accumulates the problem, accumulates the contradictions. And you know he just accumulate a crisis and the crisis will break out sooner or later and even bigger when it breaks our. So stability is just for a brief short time and when it breaks it can topple the regime and plant the whole country in chaos.

AMT: So what looks like stability may be anything but. We heard from our last guest that some the real power resides in whoever is running the Communist Party. How do you see that playing out then with the two of them?

YANG JIANLI: For that position, the general secretary of the party has no term limit but the presidency for the for the country has term limit. Obviously what Xi Jinping is trying to do to put the two positions together to build a consistency because he envision that he will be in the two positions at the same time for lifetime. So he has still to do that but this is just the first step for him to find a new mandate. Because if you want to go beyond the two terms that was in practice for three decades and in China he has to find a new mandate. So removing the term limit is just the first step he's taken. The question remains, how that president, you know future president, will produce. He could not put his name in constitution to designate himself as the next president. He just cannot simply do that. So the question remains how president would be produced, whether it is term limited or not, number one. Number two, any other candidate who will be allowed. So I think in the years to come he will do lots of things to make sure he will be the secretary of the party forever and he will be the president of China for life.

AMT: Okay well, Yang Jiangli thank you for your insights and your predictions on that one. Thank you for talking to me today.

YANG JIANLI: Thank you.

YANG JIANLI: That is Yang Jianli founder and president of Initiatives for China. He joined us from Washington, D.C. So the move to abolish presidential term limits is described as a power grab, a sign of increasing authoritarianism in China. My next guest believes it may not be even that simple - if that sounds simple to you. Gregory Chin is an associate professor of political science at Toronto's York University. He served as a diplomat in Canada's embassy in Beijing. He's in Caledon, Ontario hello.

GREGORY CHIN: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: So what do you think of what you're hearing from my last two guests about the positioning of President Xi?

GREGORY CHIN: Well I think Kerry Brown did a very nice job of outlining some of the main elements of what may be going on. And I think your second speaker was a good reflection of some of the concerns coming from the advocacy rights community both outside of China and potentially inside.

AMT: What do you make of what's coming out of Western governments on this?

GREGORY CHIN: Well I think what's interesting is the Western governments - as your intro showed from their statements in the White House - it's been a fairly muted response to these proposed changes and I think one of the interesting questions is to ask why. And Kerry Brown touched on some of those some of the reasons. I think part of it is Western governments- It's not clear exactly what will happen in the future. These proposed changes they open the door potentially to Xi Jinping staying. We don't know for sure whether he will stay beyond two terms but the possibility appears that you know it opens the way to the possibility. So it's not clear exactly what the implications are of these changes at this time. So for governments to make a statement in response to this, it's a bit of a moving target. And even if they won it if say something on this, what would they say? Would they say 'Well we're concerned China is making moves towards autocracy'? Well how do we know that for sure based on this move? We could say we want China to continue to move in the direction of institutionalized power? And what would be the gain in making that type of statement. So I think it's a bit challenging even if Western governments wanted to say something for them to say something.

AMT: I'm wondering if there are some benefits to some longevity with him given for example what's going on with nice carry United States.

GREGORY CHIN: Absolutely. I think implicitly government leaders in Canada, United States, Europe or elsewhere probably look out into a world of growing uncertainty. We don't really know what the United States role they want to play in the world moving forward. It appears to be the role of the leader of the liberal international order as we've understood it over the many decades. And then you look at Brexit and we look at rising nationalism and populism in Europe and elsewhere, a world of non-traditional security threats, religious extremism linked to violence. And so implicitly the question might be do we want a situation where if the constitutional changes are about ensuring stability as China moves forward with its reforms. It is a kind of constructive view to have take of this. Then that type of stability might actually be somewhat attractive to Western governments at this time of growing global uncertainty.

AMT: We also see China behind the scenes flexing some power or at least some different moves quietly at big organizations like the World Trade Organization. Its presence is more prominent than say the U.S. right now.

GREGORY CHIN: That's right. So we it's also the United Nations, in the World Bank, in the IMF. So across the political sides called the existing architecture of global governance or the international organizations that hub kind of govern the world, we do see China's growing role. In the past China focused more on the kind of learning the rules of the game, learning the norms, being socialized to the existing order. And I think we're now seeing China which is also wanting to kind of sit at the head table and to begin shaping or even recasting some of those norms and rules.

AMT: Is that because of President Xi's calculations or is that because Donald Trump has pulled away from those things and created a new space?

GREGORY CHIN: It's a combination of both. But it actually precedes both of them. So we already to see China, especially coming out of the global financial crisis, it became 2008-2009 it became more obvious from that period onwards, even under the previous Hu Jintao when China always being called upon to step up to play more of a role in helping to stabilize the world economy and China did that. Xi Jinping though definitely from the beginning we have known that he is a more - if you want to call it - a bold and ambitious leader and we've seen this now in the number of new global and international moves that he's made. At the same time United States in its troubles - if you want to cause challenges - with dealing with the world, we already saw under President George W. Bush, President Obama and Donald Trump is the kind of intensification perhaps of those trends.

AMT: And so before I let you go, how should shut Canada be responding to this move?

GREGORY CHIN: Why we need to watch very carefully. I think we need to because leaders matter enormously in China, whether it's Xi Jinping or another leader under the current system of governance in China. So I think it's really important for China to track this closely, to watch, to see what this means and to try to think through what are the potential implications for China, for Canada, for the world. And I think Canada right now is in a very key moment in world history where we are seeing a shift in global power between our neighbours in the south as the paramount power in the world- and they will continue to be. The United States will continue to be very powerful moving forward but we also have this rising China. And I think Canadians have to really think through and Canada needs to think through how do we respond and adjust to this global power shift.

AMT: Gregory Chin we have to leave it there. Thanks for your time.

GREGORY CHIN: Thank you.

AMT: That is Gregory Chin associate professor of political science at Toronto's York University. We reached him in Caledon, Ontario today. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio 1 for Q. Tom Power is joined by Canadian comedian Debra DiGiovanni. A reminder you can always take The Current with you to go the CBC Radio app. Browse through past episodes of our programs start listening in just a few seconds. Listen in all the time zones all free from the App Store or Google Play. Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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