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The Current Transcript for February 7, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

It was glorious.It just looked like a glorious black flag and like, finally, I can live under the banner of 'tawheed'.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: That's a former member of ISIS, a Canadian, who when he returned home told the New York Times just how excited he'd been to get to Syria and join the organization notorious for its brutality. Now there is the dilemma over what to do about other Canadians who are chose to travel to the so called Caliphate and were captured in the route of ISIS. And they include an estimated four men and three women along with seven children. The U.S., anxious to pull its troops, wants Canada to take its citizens back from the Kurds and deal with them here at home. Canada repatriates many citizens imprisoned elsewhere, sometimes. The question of whether it should be and if it could prosecute them when they are here seems up for debate. And you'll hear some of that in just a moment. And speaking of the potential for prosecutions the Democrats are true to their word in Washington. The new Democrat controlled House Intelligence Committee is about to embark on a sweeping investigation of President Trump that does not stop with Russia.

SOUNDCLIP

It’s called Presidential harassment and it's unfortunate and it really does hurt our country.

AMT: In half an hour, Washington Post national security correspondent Greg Miller takes us through what he's learning about Mr. Trump and the people surrounding him who will soon be talking on the record. And this is the day of The Current where we obviously can't get enough of controversy related to the rule of law which is why I'm talking to journalist Jonathan Mann for today. He sees the rift between Canada and China right now as an opportunity to hit the reset button because frankly, he says, they've been playing us.

SOUNDCLIP

The delusion that China is going to be like Canada or adopt our values any time soon. It is not.

AMT: Hear Jonathan Manthorpe upon Canada’s influence and what he calls the useful stream of idiots Canada keeps offering up, in an hour. I am Anna Maria Tremonti. this is The Current.

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ISIS fighters could return to Canada whether or not government intervenes, says expert

Guests: Phil Gurski, Christian Leuprecht

SOUNDCLIP

The big problem is they are Canadian but they are also enemies to Canada.

AMT: Canadians But also enemies of Canada. They are suspected members of ISIS jailed inside Syria and the exact number of them is unconfirmed. But conservative public safety critic Pierre Paul-Hus is talking about them this week because the U.S. has urged Canada and other countries to bring those suspected of being fighters and others who joined Isa's home to face justice. The U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions says Canada has a legal obligation to bring its own citizens back. But according to Mr. Paul-Hus that is complicated.

SOUNDCLIP

We won't be able to prosecute. So these guys will be free. I don't want to see one of them in Toronto, Montreal, somewhere else and Canada free because we are not able to prosecute.

AMT: The debate is even more challenging when we consider what to do about the Canadian women, now mothers, who traveled willingly into ISIS territory and the children who were born to them there. To help us sort through this dilemma, I'm joined by two guests. Phil Gurski is the president and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting. He's also a former strategic analyst with CSIS and he joins us from our wire studio. Christian Leuprecht is a professor at the Royal Military College and at Queen's University he's in our Victoria B.C. studio today. Hello to you both. Welcome.

PHIL GURSKI: Good morning.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Good morning.

AMT: Christian let me start with you. What's your reaction to what Mr. Paul-Hus has to say there?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Well this is an issue that people like myself and others have flag ever since the foreign terrorist travelers issue arose that some of the individuals are going to get killed, some of the individuals are going to go elsewhere and some of them will return and some of them will end up incarcerated somewhere. And are going to have to think about whether we bring them back and how we bring them back and what risks we're prepared to expose Canadian assets to in doing that. And we haven't thought about the legislative framework, even though we've had years to do it. And I think both sides of the aisle here in government are at fault for not having prepared us for this situation. And in typical Canadian fashion we put our head in the sand and we hope that the problem would just somehow go away or solve itself. And as I always say, hope is not a method.

AMT: Phil Gurski the government continues to say that the goal is to prosecute charging convict but it won't put Canadians at risk by bringing ISIS fighters home for trial. So if they're not repatriated what can be done with them?

PHIL GURSKI: Well, simply stated, while I don't disagree with what Christians said about the fact that we put our heads in the sand. In fact I even wrote a whole book on Western foreign fighters a couple of years ago. My position, Anna Maria, has been very clear from the get go. These people have committed offences in a foreign country and who are we, as Canadians, to say as much as the Iraqi or Syrian justice systems are abhorrent to us. I mean you talk about five minute trials followed by summary execution. We don't agree with that but the fact remains is that they're criminals in foreign lands and I don't know that we need to be in a rush to repatriate people without giving those other systems a chance to try them incarcerate them.

AMT: Christian, France has agreed to take 130 fighters held by Syrian Democratic Forces, mostly Kurdish forces controlling northern Syria, and to prosecute them. So others are prosecuting. So what should we do?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: So there's different strategies that countries have adopted. So at the European level the Parliamentary Assembly to the Council of Europe has deemed ISIS actions genocide and so as a result many of these members can be prosecuted for having been associated with a genocidal organisation. France has decided to prosecute systematically, so have the Netherlands and Belgium although the approach has been different. In the Netherlands there was a systematic reintegration approach. In Belgium it is largely just prosecution. Denmark has put much more emphasis on simply the reintegration part. In Germany you've seen selective prosecutions but Germany is particularly interesting because Germany has also opted to prosecute some of the women who have gone, who in some cases in Canada would be interrupted as largely having been victims of the system. Whereas Germany has said look if we have sufficient evidence- and we have to remember that in the Canadian case there has been, which is now open source acquired international evidence gathering effort from the beginning on the proposition that we will want to need to prosecute one day, and Canada has been part of that evidence gathering effort. So it is all the more puzzling that while we have the evidence and we've collected and we've paid for it and we have to send people to be part of those collection teams. Basically we are still not in a position legally or have the political will to apply that evidence in Canada and test it in court to see if we can actually achieve a prosecution.

AMT: Phil Gurski.

PHIL GURSKI: I am not sort of sure. I don't disagree with the question that we've been part of the effort that I simply wasn't aware of. But it really is difficult to gather evidence in a warzone. You have to gather it to a standard that will meet Canadian courts. And I think the government on two levels is reluctant to do this. First and foremost as the government does want to bring these people back, have them stand trial and have acquittals because the evidence isn't strong enough. And secondly, there is the court of public opinion. If you were to go the streets of Toronto or Victoria or Ottawa this morning and ask the average Canadians should we be putting out your herculean efforts to repatriate these terrorists, I'm pretty sure most Canadians would say. So the government's in a difficult position. And again I want to stress that you don't have that evidence to actually gain a conviction, then you're stuck with releasing them and then the burden falls to CSIS and the RCMP to investigate them. And they already have other priorities on their plate because these people do in fact pose a potential danger to Canadian society. Not all of them will come back as you know ruthful remorseful terrorists. Some will comeback still radicalized. They can radicalize other people to carry out attacks in Canada or elsewhere or they themselves can plan things.

AMT: We should point out to like the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurds are holding them. Is that government? Or are they just going to release them? Like if Canada doesn't bring them home is it a given that they stay incarcerated?

PHIL GURSKI: Well this's one of the problems as you say Anna Maria the STF is not a state, right. Whatever you think of the Kurds and their desire or the fact they should have a homeland there's a completely different issue, but they don't have the wherewithal to hold them. And from what I've heard they will in fact release them out of the Syrian custody, or simply let them go and that becomes problematic which I think in a large way led to the U.S. State Department call for Canada and other nations to repatriate. Because what they don't like to have happen is for these terrorists to be released and then blend back into the background and possibly commit other atrocities in Syria.

AMT: How much is this as cover for the U.S. just wants to get out?

PHIL GURSKI: I think it's a big part. You know I when I read that news the other day I must say I was a little bit bemused. Here are the Americans telling us what to do with our foreign policy. I'm not sure we want to go down that road these days under the Trump administration, but I do think it is a way to- They've decided they're going to take the forces out of Iraq and Syria. And therefore they don't want to leave any loose ends, shall we say. So I do think it's a big part of the American trying to cover their behind.

AMT: Christian Leuprecht, what about Canada's moral and ethical responsibility on this front?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: So I wouldn't advocate repatriating individuals because that inherently means expending Canadian taxpayer money and also Canadian assets, in particular our special forces, to do so. There is a trade-off here and I think based on Minister Goodale statements, the current government has decided that trade-off in terms of Canadian assets is not worth it. And we're not going to put Canadians at risk to do so. There is a reasonable chance that at least out of the 14 individuals who are currently in various forms of detention by the STF that some of them, at one point or another, may end up on Canadian shores or somewhere where they're going to make a claim that they have a legal right of return to Canada. So this is not just an existential issue. We need to think ahead about the fact that one day we may find ourselves having this conversation again about what do we then do with that particular situation and look. So leaving them, yes, they may end up incarcerated. They may end up being handed over to other state entities where they may be subjected to the sort of trial that Phil has laid out. But they might also eventually disperse elsewhere and continue to commit atrocities or simply make a claim for Canadian papers and to return to Canada. And so we simply can't pretend that these issues - although the numbers are relatively small in the Canadian case - will somehow, eventually resolve themselves.

AMT: We know that the men who are suspected of fighting for ISIS are being held separately from the women and the children. I have a clip I'd like you to hear. Jessica Davis is a consultant in intelligence and terrorism. She's a former analyst with CSIS. Listen to what she says about the women, the specific women who are now in detention.

SOUNDCLIP

The women who are currently being held are largely women who left Canada to join a terrorist organization. And they did so knowing so well that the Islamic State was a terrorist organization. There's a lot of assumptions about the roles that women have played in the Islamic State, that being just wives and mothers of children. But we know from the whole host of research that's been done on this subject that women have a played a variety of roles; form intelligence collector, conducting reconnaissance, doing weapon's training and enforcement of moral laws, which in and of itself also involved threat and violence against the population under the Islamic State territory. So in order to really assess the threat of women could cause on their return to Canada we need to know a lot about the kind of activity that they're engaged in, and not just make assumptions about the roles they would have been allocated under the Islamic State or what they said they might have done.

AMT: Christian Leuprecht, what do you think? Are we being too soft on the Canadian women who are in custody?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Look when Mosul fell, all the ISIS fighters that were taken into custody told us they were all cooks. So we knew that ISIS must have eaten fantastically well and apparently there was no one who was fighting. So obviously there is a wide variety of functions and tasks that people perform. But I have long advocated for the fact that let's try to get ourselves into the situation where we're trying to figure out what exactly people did. We have the option of for instance passing legislation, as Australia has done, that effectively prohibits people from travelling to certain regions without government authorisation and a legitimate reason to do so. So you can simply be prosecuted for travelling or for the attempt to travel to a region, which has a much lower burden of proof than having to demonstrate that somebody was a victim of the system or somebody was an instrument of the system.

AMT: But do we have that law now or will we have to change it and if we did, would that affect the people in custody today?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: It would. That would be a function of whether we will try to apply that law retroactively. There's a debate on this. There are legal experts who believe that it would be a violation of the mobility provisions within the charter. And there are people like myself who think such a law would easily be justifiable under the reasonable limits clause Section 1 of the charter. I think we just need to be a little bit bolder and a little bit more creative in Canada about how we can disincent these sorts of travel because it poses a problem for our foreign policy. I mean we only have one organisation that under Canadian law is authorised to apply the use of force abroad in the interests of Canada, that is the Canadian Armed Forces. So when we have people editorializing which violent organisation they decide to fight with, this runs counter to Canadian foreign policy interests. And when they know that they can do so with impunity and then return here, we're essentially enabling people to take up arms in ways that do not align with the way we want to serve Canadian interests. And so this seems to me a fundamental contradiction that we ultimately need to resolve and need to resolve by setting a clear legal framework.

AMT: Phil Gurski, what do we do about those kids?

PHIL GURSKI: Well it's a great question, Anna Maria. I've advocated that and I agree with Jessica Davis, who is a former colleague of mine, who has written a very good book on women in Jihad. I think that women do need to be charged because, as she said, they did willingly and knowingly join a terrorist group and I do find the Australian law fascinating. I'm not sure we could get that by here. As far as the kids are concerned, look, if the kids are young, they were born under the Caliphate, they're no more than five years of age. These are not terrorists. These are not radicalized toddlers. There is no agency in what they may or may not have done. I've said and I've said this publicly that those children should be brought back to Canada. And this may strike you as controversial, they should be put into some kind of child custody or child services, because these parents are clearly not fit parents to bring their children into a terrorist organization.

AMT: Some of them would have grandparents here.

PHIL GURSKI: That would be fine. Unless the grandparents were of the same ideology as their kids now. For the ones that are anywhere from...

AMT: That going to get tricky, but keep going.

PHIL GURSKI: If the ones that are sort of 8-9-10-11-12, The Islamic State did have a group called the Lion Cubs of the Caliphate. And these kids were trained in some cases in some basic military maneuvers. They are exposed to the brutal ideology. In some cases they're exposed to human rights atrocities. Those kids are a different issue because while they may not have agency they certainly have been radicalized to a certain extent. Those kids need help. Whether you call radicalization which I'm not a big fan of, not sure what it means, but you simply can't bring the ones that are a little older back and then hand them off to their grandparents or to the Children's Aid Society. So the younger ones we should bring back. The older ones bring back as well but it's a lot more complicated. But the other day, I think these parents have shown categorically that they're not fit to be parents.

AMT: I wonder as well, in the news just this week we know that there are some Yazidi women who are refugees here who are getting phone calls, no one knows from where, threatening them. After all of they've been through. They were taking prisoners and sexually used and abused by ISIS fighters. What about the victims who are now refugees here in Canada, who've been brutalized and terrorized by members of ISIS who might run into some of these people on the street one day?

PHIL GURSKI: I can imagine and you're absolutely right, Anna Maria. Islamic State treatment of Yazidis and other women was absolutely heinous, absolutely atrocious. So I can imagine if you're living in Toronto or Ottawa, and you're walking down the street one day and you happen to see one of these so-called repatriated foreign fighters who took part in your abuse, or was part of that group. I think this is a terrible situation. And again it speaks to the fact that we shouldn't be in a hurry to bring these people back because we do have victims here, and these people essentially left Canada to join a terrorist organization. And you know what, this is something the Foreign Enlistment of 1937 from the Spanish Civil War, that it's illegal to leave the country to engage in armed conflict of which can Canada is not a party.

AMT: Okay I want to talk about that in a second. But, Christian, do you want to weigh in on the rest of this, what Phil is just saying about running into people and people coming home?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: It's ultimately a contradiction that we're going to have to resolve. And I think it's disgraceful that as a country that has long invested itself in the rule of law, that we've not taken for instance the sort of steps that have been taken at the European level to attempt other means to prosecute people such as for genocide. And there's an inherent contradiction that we have, for instance, deported individuals from this country after long legal battles who have been associated with the genocide in Rwanda. And at the same time we find ourselves in a situation where we let people return to this country who have been associated with a genocidal organisation. I just think this is not a viable situation.

AMT: Another question. We started our program today with a voice from someone from the New York Times Podcast Caliphate who came back to Canada and then told the New York Times about his involvement with ISIS. And the follow up reporting on that showed that Canadian security officials phoned up and made an appointment for a couple of days later. So what is our security situation in Canada for people who might come back and for whom maybe the evidence is not so clear?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Look CSIS under reasonable suspicion can inherently get a warrant to monitor people from a judge and a ministerial warrant. The problem is that those warrants are usually for six months. So people know that if they lie low and they don't say much then when CSIS tries to apply to have that warrant renewed that the judge is ultimately going to see what evidence do you have to continue your minoring someone in our society. And when Caesar shows up and says, well, we haven't gotten anything then the judge will say, well, you're going to have to drop that surveillance. So most individuals are quite smart about how they have to conduct themselves to try to ultimately avoid surveillance and not get themselves in legal trouble back here in Canada. And we see that this sort of bravado that we have had from returnees in this country who clearly feel that they can boast about their activities overseas and not face any repercussions under the current Canadian legal regime, or apparently unwillingness by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to attempt to pursue charges.

AMT: We're almost out of time but Christian Leuprecht, what are the long term implications briefly for Canada if it chooses not to repatriate?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Well we're talking about the 14 individuals that are currently incarcerated but of course there are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of children that have never gone to school or have not gone to school in years, who've been socialized into this type of thinking, who as a result also hold deep grievances and who if we don't want help to rebuild the region. We're actually socializing and generating a whole new generation of potential jihadists who will be more hardened in their beliefs and potentially far more violent than the current generation. And so the difficult conversation to have is that Canada and other countries will ultimately have to invest in the region and in Syria in particular, because otherwise we're going to be replaying this movie in a much more violent fashion in a few years’ time.

AMT: Gentlemen we have to leave it there. Thanks for your opinions.

PHIL GURSKI: Thank you.

AMT: That's Phil Gurski president and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting. He's a former strategic analyst with CSIS. He was in our Ottawa studio. Christian Leuprecht is a professor at the Royal Military College and at Queens University. He was in our Victoria studio. Let us know what you think. Tweet us @TheCurrent.CBC Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. The CBC News is next and then we're going to hear from Greg Miller at the Washington Post and his work on Trump.

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Trump more concerned with money than leading the U.S., says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Guest: Greg Miller

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

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AMT: Still to come, Canada and China have had a rocky imagine their so-called special relationship. But according to Foreign Correspondent Jonathan Manthorpe that makes this the perfect time to ask some difficult questions about that relationship. We'll hear from him in about half an hour. But first, inside the Matryoshka doll of Donald Trump's alleged Russia ties.

SOUNDCLIP

I can fully understand why the president has gotten used to the idea that Congress doesn't do oversight, because for the last two years the Republican majority has essentially been missing in action when it comes to being a coequal branch of government. But that ended with the midterms. We're going to do our jobs. The president needs to do his. So we're going to do our work, that work began in earnest today.

AMT: Well that is Adam Schiff the California Democrat who chairs the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. He announced yesterday Democrats are indeed getting down to the work they have promised since winning control of the House of Representatives. They are embarking on a new and sweeping investigation of President Donald Trump, looking at the president's ties to Russia and beyond. This was President Trump's reaction later in the day.

SOUNDCLIP

He has no basis to do that. This is a political hack who tried to build a name for himself and I think that's why, because that's what they do. But there would be no reason to do that. No other politician has to go through that. It's called Presidential harassment and it's unfortunate that it really does hurt our country.

AMT: Well now that the new session of Congress is up and running we can expect to hear more about the Russia scandal and the different Russia investigations. I'm joined now by someone who has done a lot of work digging into this scandal. Greg Miller is the national security correspondent for The Washington Post. He's a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He's just released a new book called The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy. Greg Miller joins me from Washington D.C. Hi.

GREG MILLER: Hello. Good morning.

AMT: How significant is this move that Adam Schiff announced yesterday?

GREG MILLER: I think it's really significant because as we saw from Trump's reaction, it represents an expansion of the scrutiny that The President is under. I mean he has, for the first two years of his term, he's been really shielded by Republican control of both houses of Congress but has faced the investigation run by his Special Counsel Robert Muller. What Schiff has done is not only restarted the House Intelligence Committee's investigation of Russia's interference and any connections with Trump, but has broadened in scope, so it goes beyond Russia into other questions about whether the president's financial entanglements with other countries represent a national security problem or a threat to the country he's supposed to lead. So I just feel like you know he's expanded the field of investigation in a significant way.

AMT: And Mr. Trump has been tweeting this morning. A part of that tweet is "the Dems and their committees are going nuts" in quotes. "The Republicans never did this to President Obama. There would be no time left to run government. I hear other committee heads will do the same thing even stealing people who work at White House. A continuation of witch hunt". What did you think as you were reading those tweets today, Greg Miller?

GREG MILLER: I think a couple things. I mean Trump is, he's so revealing of his inner thoughts. He's so and capable of holding any kind of poker face. So this is something that clearly is bothering him. And when he's tweeting about it in this way that means it's in his head and he's worried about it. I also think that the fact is a number of people very close to him have already pleaded guilty or been indicted on felony charges related to the campaign and related to the Russian investigation. He has put himself in this position in large measure, and any kind of complaint at this stage about unfairness is really going to be very unpersuasive because the Obama administration endured countless investigations by Republicans. I mean that's what became a core Republican strategy for damaging Hillary Clinton leading up to the 2016 race.

AMT: The House Intelligence Committee also headed over 1000 pages of documents for special counsel Robert Muller's investigation. Was that something he asked for, or is that's something they're offering? Where did that come from?

GREG MILLER: So the House Intelligence Committee even though it was being run by a Trump loyalist, Devon Nunez, for the past two years did do interviews with a bunch of figures in the Trump Russia probe, including Trump's son Don Jr., including his son and Jared Kushner. So they are sitting on piles of transcripts from these sessions. When these witnesses were appearing before what they thought was a very friendly committee that was not going to be taking any advantage of misstatements or attempts to deceive. For me now that Democrats run this committee, they can use this material for their own purposes and as fodder for their investigation, but also have turned it over to Robert Mueller in the special counsel so that Mueller can look through these transcripts and see whether any of these witnesses lied to Congress, which would be a crime that he could bring in charge.

AMT: And tomorrow is another big day in the Mueller investigation. Matt Whitaker, the Trump appointed Acting Attorney General is testifying, what we'll be watching for with him?

GREG MILLER: Well I think he's going to face a ton of questions about his interactions with the president since taking office, any kind of assurances that he either gave or that the president's sought from him when he became the acting attorney general, in terms of containing, controlling, suppressing the Mueller investigation in a report. I mean he came into their office having said many things publicly on television very supportive of Trump and very dismissive of the investigation and its legitimacy. So that's a big big issue.

AMT: And attorney Michael Cohen will testify later this month. How dangerous could his knowledge of the Trump operations be to the president?

GREG MILLER: Cohen is such a wild card, because on the one hand he is so close to Trump and knows so much about all of The President, many of The President's secrets right. We already know from Cohen about payments to Stormy Daniels, this adult film star for example. So I mean he he was in position to know a lot about the president. But Cohen has serious credibility problems himself. I mean he is pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. So he's not the most credible witness. There have been lots of speculation recently about whether Trump ever directed Cohen to lie or mislead Congress which would really put The President in lots of trouble if that were true. It's just not clear that it is true.

AMT: So has the Mueller investigation precedes who is now in the most legal jeopardy in Trump's inner circle?

GREG MILLER: Well that's a really good question because every indication we get, and I have to preface this by saying that when we talk about what Mueller is going to do we have to be clear that we dont really know for sure what he's going to do. He has kept such a lid on his operations in his investigation that a lot of what you hear from even from the likes of me is just sort of either guesswork or semi-informed speculation. But every indication we get at this point is that he's done delivering indictments of other people in Trump's inner circle, separate from the report, so that his final order of business now is to finish and turn over this final report. And that is supposed to be about The President. The mission there, the objective there is to tell the Justice Department and presumably the American people whether the president had committed any crimes during the campaign, either in conspiracy with Russia or in obstructing the investigation afterward.

AMT: Remind us how many people the special counsel's office has indicted or received guilty pleas from since he was appointed?

GREG MILLER: So I mean it's to ways to look at. There's a large number, dozens and dozens when you count Russian officials and Russian intelligence operatives and individuals and entities that are likely never going to be in an American courtroom. So those are indictments that exist but are never likely to really be enforced. And then you have a growing list of members of Trump's inner circle that include Michael Cohen his lawyer, that includes Roger Stone his long time legal code long time political adviser, his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, to his foreign policy adviser and his campaign George Papadopoulos. It's a growing list.

AMT: Okay. And you broke a huge story about Mr. Trump and the lengths he went to keep his conversations with Vladimir Putin's secret. What did he do to make sure no one knew what they discussed?

AMT: Yes so this was really astonishing. I mean Trump has met with Vladimir Putin in five different places around the world since Trump took office. And we know almost nothing about what the two of them have said. And in one case, I mean this is sort of indicative of Trump's effort to keep those conversations secret after. Their very first formal meeting in Hamburg Germany in 2017, there was only- there was an interpreter in the room, an American interpreter as there often is. And Trump approached the interpreter after the encounter and instructed the interpreter not to tell anybody even in my administration about what transpired here and then took the interpreter's notes from him. I mean this is just so far outside of how presidents have carried out diplomacy with world leaders that has borders on unprecedented.

AMT: And so Russia knows what was discussed but The President's cabinet does not even know what's discussed.

GREG MILLER: The president puts his own administration in this really vulnerable position where Vladimir Putin clearly knows what he and Trump talked about. And Vladimir Putin has undoubtedly briefed others around him in the Kremlin. But Trump leaves his people almost completely in the dark. They're not allowed in the room. He doesn't give them a meaningful readout after word. His people do not know what was happening behind those closed doors.

AMT: I mean historically haven't- that kind of stuff has always gone on the record, has it not? And some of it like secret until like 25 years later or something but for the U.S. government, isn't that always on the record somewhere, normally?

GREG MILLER: Well presidents, in particular when they're meeting with a foreign adversary like a Russian leader, Obama did this, George W. Bush did this, I mean Bill Clinton. You can now read almost verbatim transcripts of every conversation that Bill Clinton had with Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s because Clinton had no takers in the room. Other officials, senior aides, who were there to witness, who were there to document. Trump doesn't do that and he's the only president in modern American history who has conducted diplomacy this way. It's really astonishing.

AMT: Well let's talk a little bit more about their relationship with Putin. Earlier this week I spoke to the former New Jersey governor and Trump confidante Chris Christie. And I asked him about the close relationship between Trump and Putin, or seemingly close. Listen to what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

CC: I think this is less about Vladimir Putin than it is about tough guys. I think if you look at yourself as a warm relationship President Xi. He's developing a warm relationship with Kim Jong Un. He has a good relationship with Erdogan Turkey. I think...

AMT: He said nice things about Duterte as well, has he not?

CC: And again, so I think this is about Russia people trying to make it about Russia. I don't think it is. If you will consistently, folks around the world, who are in leadership positions, but don't have a Congress to answer to, is someone that is particularly enamored with.

AMT: Greg Miller, what do you think of that analysis of why he's so friendly to the Russian president?

GREG MILLER: I think Christie is right to an extent but I think that the Trump's admiration of Putin goes beyond his admiration or affection for autocrats elsewhere in the world. I mean he's spent more time in his life pursuing meetings with Putin. In those other cases he has often been critical in said harsh things about other world leaders, including Kim Jong Un. He's never uttered a harsh word about Vladimir Putin. And finally, I would just say that you know the big difference of course is that none of those other leaders is accused of organizing an unprecedented effort of election interference to install Trump in office. So his behavior toward Putin, it is about Russia to a large extent because Russia regarded it as a state mission to try to help him win the 2016 election. And that's what I think Chris Christie is not acknowledging.

AMT: How much does all of this have to do with Donald Trump wanting to do business in Russia and his efforts to build the Trump Tower in Moscow?

GREG MILLER: It is a great question. You know I asked one of my colleagues the other day what do you think Trump would prefer if he could if given the choice between going down in history as well regarded president, or emerging from his presidency with a Trump Tower deal in Moscow ready to move? I mean I don't know what the answer. I suspect it would be the latter. I mean money is so important to him. It is he measures everything by these financial metrics and in wealth that I just think that is what he is all about. And it matters to him more than anything else and more than, more in some cases, than the fate of the country he's leading right now.

AMT: When did Donald Trump first get on to Russia's radar?

GREG MILLER: Well that's really a good question. I mean he has been talking about real estate deals in Russia for more than a decade. Many of his properties in the United States, you know condominium towers in Florida and other things, have large numbers of Russian buyers who have paid in some cases astronomical sums for those properties, well above their market value. And I think most intelligence officials that I talked to, most former CIA officials and others believe that Russia has been at least tracking him if not cultivating him for a decade or so. I mean Russia does this with anyone who is sort of a prominent American, who has an interest in Russia, who travels to Russia, that they think they can make inroads with. That means so Trump is not the only one but he does sort of fit the profile of an oligarch like figure in America that Vladimir Putin wouldn't want to have a relationship with, would see as someone who might be aligned with Russia's interests in worth cultivating.

AMT: Now, the Helsinki conference last year people were shocked when the president seemed to be taking the side of Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies and questions of Russian interference in the U.S. action. You were there, weren't you?

GREG MILLER: I was in the room yes.

AMT: What was it like to watch that?

GREG MILLER: You know I went there specifically for the book because you know my book traces the starts with the hack of the DNC and it traces Russia's interference and then the aftermath in the Trump administration, in terms of his relationship with Russia in the investigations. Helsinki to me, just as soon as that trip was put on the president's schedule, looked to me like it was going to be a really important moment for history. And I think that that's what it ended up being in many ways. I mean inside that room this is a palace in Helsinki, after his very first summit with Putin. He's had a private two hour conversation in a room where there are no reporters and we're all wading inside the palace in these waiting rooms for chance to get into the press area. I mean a second we were allowed in there as sort of electricity in the air because the stakes were so high, but also because I think we knew that these two leaders were going to be speaking side by side on a world stage. And it seemed almost inevitable that it was going to go off the rails. I mean it seemed like there was just so little chance that Trump was going to confront Putin or even stick to his talking points. And of course that's exactly what happened. It took only one question from a reporter to set Trump off. You're right, he launches into an attack on his own intelligence community. Hegel launches an attack on Robert Mueller and James Comey. He's talking about- I mean literally while I was sitting there, maybe eight rows back watching, I found myself watching Vladimir Putin's body language. And I saw Putin seemed to sort of step away from Trump as if he were uncomfortable with how out of control The President was, as if Putin who values control, who's always tries to be in control couldn't really understand what was happening, this spectacle unfolding right next door.

AMT: It's extraordinary, isn't it, that I mean if a former president had done something like this even once the world would be shocked? It just keeps happening with Mr. Trump.

GREG MILLER: That is such an important point and it's particularly important I think now as we head into the homestretch of the Mueller investigation. Because my guess is that the Mueller report, if and when we see it, is going to be a catalog of just astonishing conduct by a campaign and by a president. But in some ways I wonder whether the public has already factored in this dysfunction that it's no longer capable of being shock even by a document that breaks this down in frightening detail. In other words if Mueller doesn't have a smoking gun audiotape of Trump talking with Putin and agreeing to fix the 2016 race, how is the public going to react to that? It goes back to will the public see that as a disappointment or a misfire or not really delivering the evidence that everybody wants to see? And a lot of that speaks to what you were just talking about, just sort of how are expectations of The President, how we see The President has changed radically in the two years since Trump has been in office. Because in any other era, in any other administration almost any one of these single details would have been devastating if not fatal to a presidency.

AMT: What's the best evidence that members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to elect Donald Trump?

GREG MILLER: Well I think that the Trump Tower meeting still stands out as a remarkable evidence that the Trump team was eager to collaborate with Russia, even though it may have been disappointed with what that particular Russian offer included. I also just think that it's really the accumulation over all of these separate encounters, and the book that overridden traces all of these things: from Jared Kushner's proposal to use Russian communications from inside the Russian embassy in Washington to talk with the Kremlin, from Michael Flynn the national security adviser's secret communications with the Russian ambassador before Trump was sworn in. It is to me the fact that all of these individuals have lied about all of these contacts so repeatedly and so consistently that it's hard to imagine that they're not lying to hide something big.

AMT: And last night The New York Times broke the story that the FBI had opened a counter intelligence investigation into the possibility that President Trump was under the influence of Russia. From your research, is it possible that Donald Trump was, is, a witting or unwitting asset of Russia?

GREG MILLER: It's amazing to hear these words come out of my mouth but I guess I have to say that it is possible. I'm not saying that it's true or that I necessarily believe that to be the case at this point. I think that what we know so far suggests that Trump was, and the people around him, were certainly eager to have Russian help. But nothing that we've seen suggests that he is sort of an official Russian asset or that he's compromised in such a fatal way that he is under Putin's control. And logic sort of makes me think that as well. I mean if he really were under Putin's control, Putin would want him to behave very differently as President. Putin would not want Trump to be singing Vladimir Putin's praises all the time. He would rather have Trump say critical things about him so that he would have the political room to do things that Putin really would like to see done, including the lifting of sanctions. I mean Trump has been incapable, has rendered himself incapable of doing any favors to Vladimir Putin as president because of how he carries himself and because of his inability to seem independent from or to sort of lower the suspicion of his relationship with Putin. So I mean what Putin gets out of this in the end is not the removal of sanctions or things like that. It is just the great dysfunction that accompanies this Trump administration. A government at war with itself all the time. A president who attacks almost every institution of U.S. government on a daily basis. I mean that's what Putin ultimately gets from his investment in Trump as a candidate in 2016.

AMT: Before I let you go, there have been concerns raised that the American public might not get to see the finished Mueller Report, could that happen?

GREG MILLER: Yes. I mean I think that there are a number of figures in place here, including the the nominee to be attorney general, who have said things that make people nervous that there might be an effort to suppress this report and keep the public from seeing it or at least seeing most of it. I just feel like that would be untenable, untenable politically. I just can't imagine that the American public would go along with that very long. If the public knows that this report exists and the public wants answers to these questions, I mean the public pressure and political pressure is going to require that officials find a way to share it with American citizens.

AMT: Okay Greg Miller we have to leave it there. Thanks for your work on your insights.

GREG MILLER: Thank you.

AMT: That's Greg Miller national security correspondent for The Washington Post. He's the author of The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy. Greg Miller joined us from Washington D.C. Let us know what you think of what he's saying. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us. We're going to be talking about Canada's relationship with China next. This is The Current.

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Why an expert says it's time Canada confronts its values clash with China

Guest: Jonathan Manthorpe

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

So Trudeau's trip to China was a great personal success. He had several marks to his credit before he set foot in China, this time. He came from the land of Norman Bethune, a growing legend in China, the Gravenhurst Ontario's surgeon who was buried with other martyrs of the Chinese revolution. Trudeau's interest in China was already well known to its leaders. He struck them as a friend and of course he had led Canada into recognizing Peking before the global flood began. Understandably then, the mood was with both sides warming to each other. But Trudeau's advisers would argue they obtain far more than they came for including highly personal endorsement of Chairman Mao, who arouses almost religious feelings among the people of China.

AMT: Well that is journalist Ron Collister, then with the CBC, reporting on Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau's trip to China in 1973. It was a lavish affair complete with a personal meeting between the Canadian prime minister and Chairman Mao who, at age 79, rarely made public appearances. It came just three years after Canada had established diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China. It was an optimistic moment in Canada. A special relationship with China seemed to be blooming and it stands in stark contrast to the relationship between the two countries today. It's on the rocks. Since the December arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver and the detention of two Canadians in China in national security charges. According to my next guest it may just be what this country needs to shake up its perception of China and our relationship with it. Journalist Jonathan Manthorpe was a long time Canadian Foreign Correspondent. His post included Hong Kong where he covered Asia for the South newspaper chain from 1993 to 1998. He looks at the relationship between our two countries in his new book Claws of the Panda: Beijing's Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada. Jonathan Manthorpe joins us from Victoria, B.C. Hi.

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: What do you think when you hear that description of Prime Minister Trudeau's trip to China back in 1973?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well it's interesting, isn't it? Because it has in the seeds of it all those elements of self-delusion about dealing with the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, which we see to this day and which I've written about in the book which hopefully are now being overcome with the realization of the reality of the clash of values between Beijing and Ottawa.

AMT: So have you been surprised as you've watched the story of Huawei CFO among shows arrest unfold?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: No I haven't. I expected something like this at some point and it was inevitable because our values are so different. Canada of course has followed its obligations under an international treaty. It has followed the rule of law and its adherents or its belief in the importance of an independent judiciary. And China on the other hand has responded by kidnapping and taking hostages two Canadians. I mean this is a fundamental clash in how to deal with these kinds of situations and with other countries which we've really never had to confront before and we are having to confront now. And I think it's about time.

AMT: How do you see then, the Canadian government's handling of the Huawei affair?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: I think it hasn't been too bad in terms of that they have stuck to belief in the rule of law and an independent judiciary. We have obviously had the embarrassing questions of the Ambassador John McCallum and his firing that has not been a good incident, but I would actually argue that he should probably never have been appointed ambassador to Beijing in the first place. He was far too close to the Beijing authorities before he was appointed when he was both a cabinet minister and a backbencher in the opposition during the Harper government. That was the basic mistake was appointing McCallum ambassador but apart from that I think that they've played it pretty straight. And another I think important aspect is that Canada has won support from many other slow middle powers for the stand that we've taken on this. You know I think it's worth saying that this is not our situation to mend. It is Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party that has gone rogue on this. It is them who have taken hostages and it seems to me it is up to Beijing to try to restore our confidence in their reliability as partners.

AMT: How do you hope this prompts the Canadian government to change its attitude on China?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: I hope so. It makes them far more realistic about what is and what is impossible. I hope it makes them look at things like prospects of Free Trade Agreement or extradition treaties and really says well what can we expect. Often when one makes trade agreements with countries one looks also at their political systems, their judicial systems, their international diplomacies. And you couple with trade a broader relationship with those countries. If you look at the potential for our broader relationship with China, I don’t see that it's there while there is The Current regime in Beijing. And many people I know in Canada, retired diplomats and many others are of the same view that our relationship with this current regime in Beijing is limited in its scope and I think we need to address the future from with very much in mind.

AMT: So Jonathan, has Canada just been naive about China all this time?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well naïve and self-deluded I think. You know that clip that you played at the beginning shows some of the self-delusion. We had the belief then that Norman Bethune was somehow a sort of magic totem that would open all doors in China for Canadian business and diplomacy, and to a certain extent it did for a while. But from the Chinese end the Bethune magic and certainly from the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party. The Bethune magic died very soon. Bethune continued to be something of a hero amongst the Chinese people because they were taught his story in schools. But it was more I think from the aspect of the foreigners who love China, or the foreigners who came to the aid of China. And so it was a rather different perspective from the one that we have.

AMT: What historically has made us think that we have all these links, that have influence?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well I think that all those things that we've already talked about it, but it does go back to the Canadian missionaries who worked in China from the 1880s to the 1949, the end of the Civil War and the coming to power of the Chinese Communist Party. The Canadian missionaries, particularly from the United Church and particularly working in western China in Sichuan around Chengdu, were very important in the establishment of early relationships in the 1930s and 40s with the Chinese Communist Party. But also they and their children, the so-called 'Mish Kids', who were brought up in China often spoke Chinese, were very important in the formation of early art or were policies towards China. Just for example, the first three Canadian ambassadors to China to Beijing were so-called 'Mish Kids'. They were they were sons of missionaries who had been born in China, spoke Chinese, had great affinity and understanding of Chinese culture and they brought that kind of perspective to Canadian policy towards the people Republic of China.

AMT: So that's where our delusions, as you call them, began.

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Yes I think it's where it began. But I think that- there is, in my research for the book, I found a very interesting division between the sort of messages that have been coming to Ottawa from generations of Canadian diplomats working in Beijing and the sort of self-delusion at the Ottawa end, which is I think much more amongst the politicians than it is amongst Canadian officials who have experience of China.

AMT: So let me ask you, Canadian prime ministers and politicians have at times made a point of bringing up human rights in visits and trade talks. How much influence does Canada have on the conduct and values of the Chinese government?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: None, basically. It is a one party state. It is a government that spends a great deal of time in ensuring its own monopoly on power. And when and when you say Canadian prime ministers have brought up human rights with the Chinese government over the years, that's perfectly true. But they've always done it in a minimalist way. I mean I remember in 1994 the first team Canada trip to China, led by the then Prime Minister John Chretien. And I remember , at a press conferences I think it was in Shanghai him being asked whether he had brought up the questions of human rights. And remember this was very soon after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He said 'Well no, not really. Look,' he said, 'I can't even tell the premier of Saskatchewan what to do. Why should I try and tell the leaders of China what to do'. And I think that's been very much the attitude. Successive Canadian prime ministers that I've seen and heard have, when asked about this, have said 'yes well we did bring it up in private but we shouldn't allow it to interfere with trade'.

AMT: How has the Chinese government tried to influence how it's viewed in Canada?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well this has been a long and involved and very meticulous campaign. Part of it has of course has been holding out the promise to Canadians that there would be political reform, that there would be human rights reform. And a lot of Canadian politicians of both parties over many generations have bought into this. And again this is why I think that the hostage taking of the two Micheals, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, is important because it has forced the Canadian politicians who have continued to believe that reform might be possible in China. It has forced them to see that this is highly unlikely. And of course it comes out in the era of Xi Jinping, of president and party leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, and who has said repeatedly that he does not believe in political reform. He believes that China's current authoritarian state is the best one for the country and indeed he has said that it is a model for other developing countries.

AMT: You have so said that Canada has suffered up to the Chinese government, the Communist Party of China, a steady stream of useful idiots.

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well I think it has. The Communist Party or the Chinese government has put a lot of emphasis on courting Canadian politicians and putting its best face before them, charm offensive if you like. There have been many many visits, paid visits to China in which Canadian politicians are shown only what the communist party wants them to see. You know I mean one of my questions about the advisability of appointing John McCallum as ambassador was that when he was on the opposition benches during the Harper era, he took 70,000 dollars’ worth of airfares to and from China from the Chinese government. There is also there's been an equal charm offensive for Canadian businesspeople and also academics as well.

AMT: And you we're talking about a charm offensive. What other techniques has the Chinese Communist Party used in Canada to assert its influence?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well a lot of it of course is money. There have been favoured financial deals for business people who were also influential here. There have been access for academics who also have a voice here. I was confronted with the question of what is an agent of influence. And I think that an agent of influence for China here is someone whose career depends to a certain extent on favour from the Chinese Communist Party. And there's no doubt that there are several important people and maybe more than several in positions here. That certainly was the position that’s been taken by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

AMT: You are attacked by intimidation.

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Yes.

AMT: What are you talking about?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: This I think is perhaps one of the most dispiriting parts of what I found. We have a very very large population in Canada of people of, not only of Chinese heritage but from places like Tibet and Xinjiang that are occupied by China and from places like Taiwan which China claims to own. The Chinese Communist Party is very skeptical about these people. It wants to keep an eye on them. It believes that many of them are a political threat. Those in Canada who are politically active, it believes that they are a threat to the survival of the Chinese Communist Party's sole grip on power. And it has over decades and years worked to intimidate them here in Canada to ensure, try to ensure, they halt their political activism. And in the book I've cited many cases of this happening. It often involves, I'm afraid, the taking hostage of these people's family members in China and using those family members as levers to stop Canadians exercising their perfectly legitimate political rights. And I would like to have seen more efforts by the Canadian authorities to expose this activity. We've done it with other countries. We've done it with the Soviets and Russians. I don't see why we have not taken the same firm action against agents of the Chinese Ministry of State Security who come over here either as tourists or as part of business delegations or as academic exchange trips and work to intimidate Canadian citizens. I think that that's totally unacceptable and we should have been far more active in squashing it.

AMT: I want to play a clip for you. We spoke to Wenran Jiang an adjunct professor at the school of public policy and global affairs at UBC. He had this to say about what you have written about China's campaign of influence and intimidation.

SOUNDCLIP

This book is following a global trend from New Zealand, Australia and others seem somehow there is this global Chinese vast conspiracy to undermine Western democracies. This kind of approach has two problems. First, it over estimate the Chinese government's capabilities in terms of controlling or penetrating Western democracies such as Canada. The second problem is that that is vastly underestimate the independent thinking of the Chinese Canadians. Under this kind of critical assessment, these overseas Chinese are nothing but the tools or under coercion of the Chinese overseas embassy systems. That's simply not the case.

AMT: Jonathan Manthorpe, how do you respond to that?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well it's very interesting. You know, Wenran Jiang is an interesting chap because he's been - how can I put this politely - a reliable interpreter of Beijing's thoughts and feelings for many years. I think he did two things there. He points very properly to the fact that what has been happening here in Canada has also been happening in Australia New Zealand and the United States. And it's very well documented in all those countries that the campaigns of influence and indeed of intimidation have been very similar in all four countries. I think where he misrepresents my book is when he says that the Canadian Chinese population not biddable and is not managed by Beijing. I never said that. What I have said is just the opposite. What I have said is that the vast majority, of all but a tiny fraction, of the Canadians of Chinese heritage whether they've come here themselves or their families have generations ago, they're here because they don’t want to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. And they are not in any way biddable by Beijing.

AMT: China's ambassador to Canada Lu Shaye wrote an opinion piece in the Hill Times last month, saying that Western countries are using a double standard in comparing the detentions of Meng Wanzhou and the two Canadians in China and that this attempt - and I'm quoting here "western egotism and white supremacy". How effective is that kind of argument from China?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: It was I thought it was a very very strange statement because it's clearly not true. But there has been a tendency when any questions arise about China and China's relationship with Canada and the position of Canadians of Chinese heritage to raise the racism flag. It's happened over for example investments in real estate in Vancouver. And it doesn't surprise me at all that the Chinese ambassador would attempt to raise that issue in this regard. I think if you look at it historically the Chinese officials have found that Canadian revulsion at racism is a very reliable nerve end to tweak.

AMT: Wenran Jiang also spoke to us about how he sees the actions of the Chinese government in Canada. Listen to what he has to say.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm not sure the Chinese active involvement in Canada is any different from other foreign powers who lobby for their interests in a different country. We are having hundreds of millions of dollars coming in for example from The United States' foundations into our environmental laws meant to prevent us front getting the pipeline built to the west coast. In terms of a growing right now China as great power, we will see more of those Chinese lobbying coming in. But I'm not sure there is this systemic alien-like invasion, as described by the critics, that we're facing a kind of existential threat from the Chinese Communist Party.

AMT: Jonathan Manthorpe, are the Chinese government's attempts to influence Canadian policy through lobbying just like anybody else lobbying in Canada?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: No. I don't think they are. I think they're far more studied and far more persistent. And one must remember that none of all of them have been successful. They have been pretty successful in the political sphere. They've been successful in the business sphere. They've had some success in academic sphere. But for example and in some aspects of the media for example most of the Chinese language media in Canada now is influenced by Beijing. Either it is owned directly by Beijing or the people who own and operate Chinese language media outlets here are beholden to Beijing one way or another. You will find very very little coverage critical of Beijing in most of the Chinese language media, but they've been less successful in in other areas and I don't buy when Wenran's argument on that.

AMT: You point out they have been practically no Chinese espionage cases in Canadian courts over the last three decades, while the US has seen a steady stream, what's that about?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Yes, I wonder about this because you know we know for example that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has, in recent years, spent time following and looking at Chinese undercover activities here. Why have none of these resulted in any court cases where as you say they've been plentiful in the United States? I would like to know I mean there seems to me to have been on several occasions a distinct gap between what our security services are saying to the politicians, and what the politicians choose to believe or choose to act on. Now politicians, we elect them to look carefully at everything that they're told and make wise decisions. So there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. But the volume really makes one wonder whether the politicians have too often looked at what they see as the potential downside of embarrassing Beijing and decided not to pursue things. That is speculation on my part. But when you look at something that comes out of left field, like the Huawei Meng Wanzhou affair does encourage one to look back and say 'well why hasn't anything like this happened before'.

AMT: In your view then, in practical terms, what would it mean for Canada to take a tougher stance on China?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Well I think we begin by, for example, strengthening our associations with other Middle powers who share our values and that was one of the encouraging things I saw in the response to Beijing's reaction to the Huawei affair and I hope it carries on.

AMT: And you make the point that part of being tougher is just like lose the delusion.

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Yes. Very much so. You know lose the delusion that China is going to be like Canada or adopt our values any time soon. It is not. We know we can't abandon our relationship with China. We need a relationship with China simply because of its size and its importance in the world. But but it has to be based on realism not on delusion.

AMT: Why do we risk fair Canada with its politicians, but also the others you pointed the academics, the business people, don't do that?

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: I'm not sure we risk as much as we've sort of traditionally thought we would risk. If you look at our trade for example, we sell China about 20 billion dollars’ worth of goods a year but we buy 60 billion dollars’ worth or so. People say blandly or boldly that China is our second biggest trading partner. Well that's not quite true in the real sense. It is not a market for our goods to the extent that it should or could be. And that's because China will never allow that to happen, even with the free trade agreement. The history shows that China will use non-tariff barriers and such like to to ensure that elements of its economy that it considers vital will not be penetrated by foreigners. So I don't think the downside for Canada of a more realistic and tough minded relationship with China is anything like as bad as some people are inclined to suggest.

AMT: Jonathan Mann we have to leave it there. Thank you for sharing your ideas and your perspective with us.

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: Thank you Anna Maria, my pleasure.

AMT: Jonathan Manthorpe is a long time Canadian journalist and foreign correspondent. He's the author of Claws of the Panda: Beijing's Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada. And he joined us from Victoria. We did request a response from the Chinese embassy ain Ottawa and we have not heard back. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Sting on the show with Tom to talk about bringing his musical The Last Ship to Toronto. Now finally, in that report from Pierre Elliot Trudeau's 1973 visit to China, and in my conversation with Jonathan Manthorpe but we heard references to Norman Bethune. The Canadian doctor has loomed large in Canada-China relationship for decades. In 1977 Donald Sutherland portrayed Norman Bethune in a CBC television drama. From the CBC Archives, we're going to leave you with Donald Sutherland describing the real life of Norman Bethune. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

He was- I don't know how much you know about him. He was a Canadian doctor, Scott Canadian. He was born in Gravenhurst, who truly had a sense of predestination and a sense of destiny at the same time, a sense of inevitability. And that was when he was in China when he was-- He had discovered here, well not here, but in Montreal, that tuberculosis was in fact a social disease which was caused by our society and we could cure it if we spent money not on the actual physical act of curing the disease, but on preventing the causes of it which was social, social and economic. And he became a communist. Then he went to Spain and fought in the Spanish Civil War. He invented- He was in fact responsible for [unintelligible] in essence. He invented the blood transfusion service. And when he went to China later on he created field hospitals on the frontlines which had never been done before. He froze blood. He put in a refrigerator with sodium citrate and it kept for three or four days. And as a result he was able to bring blood to the front lines. He just was in that. He was an active bureaucrat. He was a wonderful man.

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