Canada's opposition leader recently said the country needs to rethink its relationship with #China. So how are China-Canada relations and what's the significance during the #pandemic?
In the early morning of Oct. 8, 1970, as China’s #Communist leader Mao Zedong learned that China and Canada were establishing diplomatic relations, he reportedly laughed and said, “we now have a friend in America’s backyard!” In the decades that followed, Canada helped China secure a seat on the United Nations General Assembly and become a member of the WTO.
It also gave tens of millions of dollars in aid to China and sold it nuclear reactors. Canada invested 250 million canadian dollars ($181 million) into the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), an institute launched by China to raise funds for its global expansion campaign, the Belt and Road initiative.
But as the #CCP virus emerged from China in late 2019, the regime's Canadian “friend” was kept in the dark just like every other country. Ottawa refused to restrict travel from China until March, even though over 50 countries implemented some restrictions at their borders in early February. Ottawa’s move was praised by Beijing.
In February, #Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam, an adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO), argued against blocking travel from China, citing guidelines by the WHO. “The reason the World Health Organization doesn't recommend something like this is that, in general, it may do more harm than good.", Tam said at a parliament hearing. "Having measures that very negatively affect a certain country that's trying very hard to do its best can impede whether this country in the future will ever share anything transparently with others.
China posted the virus genome very fast. What are they getting out of it? I think the idea is to support China." Canadian physician and #WHO adviser Bruce Aylward repeatedly praised China’s response to the outbreak, but refused to recognize Taiwan’s efforts, despite the island's few cases given its proximity to China.
