Procession of liberal democrats to Taiwan defies China’s Wolf Warriors

China diplomacy backfires in Canada: members of the Trudeau government to recommend Ottawa join the Quad and AUKUS.

Scooters hit the road during peak hour in Taipei on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

China’s Wolf Warrior diplomacy has “spectacularly backfired” in Canada, prompting members of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party to recommend that Ottawa join the Quad and AUKUS security pacts.

John McKay, the leader of a Canadian parliamentary delegation to Taipei, told The Australian there had also been a “substantial change” in how Canadian parliamentarians think about Taiwan.

“Canadian attitudes have moved much closer to the Taiwanese reality,” said Mr McKay, in an interview in Taiwan, as he led a week-long delegation that included all of Canada’s major political parties.

The Liberal MP said China’s hostage-taking in 2018 of the “Two Michaels” – Canadians ­Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were imprisoned by Beijing for more than 1000 days after a top Huawei executive was detained in Vancouver – had transformed the two countries’ relationship.

“If this was Wolf Warrior diplomacy, it spectacularly backfired in Canada.”

In the coming months, the Trudeau government will respond to a parliamentary report on Canada’s relationship with Taiwan. The report recommends the Trudeau government “make efforts” to join the Quad and AUKUS security pact “to bolster Canada’s presence in the Indo-Pacific region to counter the People’s Republic of China’s threats to the region”.

The report also recommends prioritising Taipei’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), urges Canada’s Minister of International Trade to “strongly consider” visiting the island and calls for Ottawa to make explicit that the future of Taiwan should be determined by Taiwan’s 23 million people – not by China’s People’s Liberation Army.

The national flag is lowered on Taipei’s Liberty Square this week. Picture: AFP

A copy of the report was given to Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen by another member of the Canadian delegation, Ken Hardie, who chairs the Canada-China committee and is also a member a Liberal MP.

Recent revelations about Beijing’s attempts to interfere in Canadian politics have hit a relationship already stuck at its lowest point since it officially began in 1970 when Mr Trudeau’s father Pierre was prime minister.

The Trudeau government is under public and parliamentary pressure to continue to firm its stance on China and expand relations with Taiwan.

“The people of Canada have come a long way. I would say parliament has come a long way. I’d say even our non-cabinet members of the government caucus have come a long way,” said McKay, chair of the Canadian parliament’s committee on national defence. “And so it does come down to what the government – read the cabinet – feels that it can do within the various constraints that it has.”

John McKay meeting Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei.

The visiting Canadians are one of a flurry of parliamentary delegations visiting Taiwan in an attempt to counter China’s attempts to isolate the self-ruled ­island, which Beijing claims.

A delegation from the French National Assembly on Tuesday met with Taiwanese Vice-President William Lai to personally deliver a “special” message from France’s President Emmanuel Macron to “renew his friendship with Taiwanese people” and reaffirm support for the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait.

The public reassurance came a week after Mr Macron set off a diplomatic storm when he said that Europe should avoid being dragged into a crisis between the US and China over Taiwan.

Australian politicians are more cautious than many of their liberal democratic peers when ­visiting Taiwan, with which Canberra only has unofficial relations. A delegation of Australian politicians late last year was conducted without any photographs with Taiwan’s leaders, in contrast to the Canadians and most other parliamentary visitors. Mr McKay said the visiting Canadians had never thought to follow the discreet manner of the Australian delegation.

He said it was “nonsense” for China to oppose the trip. “This is a government that is kidnapping our citizens, is stealing our trade secrets, is interfering and trying to influence our elections, and generally trying to bully everyone in the nation and turn us into a vassal state.

“And you’re asking me to be sensitive to the views of the Chinese government? Please, give me a break.”