As we
practice self-isolation and social distancing in Canada and around the world,
let us not forget diplomat-on-leave Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael
Spavor, who have been detained in a tit-for-tat move by China for the past 16 months, the last 3 of
which without consular access
allegedly because of the Covid-19 pandemic: no visitors allowed. Wrongful imprisonment at the hands of
Communist authorities, with the prison lights on in their cells for 24 hours a
day, accompanied by daily interrogations, may be hard to fathom, especially
when Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei CFO, traipses around her Vancouver mansion
encumbered only by an ankle bracelet.
However, ‘the
two Michaels’ are not the only Canadians ever to run afoul of China’s so-called
“rule of law”, where the Communist Party is accountable to no one. We also have the example of Kevin and Julia
Garratt, two missionaries who ran a coffee shop on China’s border with North
Korea at the Yalu River in Dandong. They
‘disappeared’ - she for 6 months, he for 775 days – in a chess game of sorts,
after Canada accused the Chinese of hacking the National Research Council, and
following the arrest of a Chinese spy by Canada at the behest of the United
States.[1]
The ordeal and suffering of ‘the two
Garratts’ – and their devastating sense of isolation – is recounted in Two Tears on the Window, a book I
recommend for anyone who wants a compelling description of psychological
struggle at the hands of China’s Ministry of State Security.
The
Garratts endured because of their evident faith and because of their love – and
because they had each other: in their first six months, for example, when both
were in isolation at the same facility, they would sometimes have the
opportunity to leave messages in the snow in their all too brief outdoor
exercise sessions. But after she was
released Julia remained isolated in her apartment, and Kevin continued to
suffer mentally and deteriorate physically, always reinventing hope in his
“black prison” – a for-profit venture, where relatives were expected to pay for
inmate food expenses, none of it nutritious or palatable. Despite the grim storyline, there are
generous streaks of humour to the narrative, for instance Kevin’s exuberance
upon eating the best meal of his life – airplane food – during the flight home
to Canada.
If Two Tears on the Window were the only
book about Canada-China relations one ever read, it would come as a surprise to
learn that Chinese security forces operate in Canada, too. A necessary corrective is Jonathan Manthorpe’s
Claws of the Panda ominously
subtitled: Bejing’s Campaign of Influence
and Intimidation in Canada.
Manthorpe offers an historical perspective of our ‘missionary’ approach
to China – after Canada opened up relations, for example, the first three
Ambassadors to Beijing were “Mish Kids”, or the children of missionaries.[2] Manthorpe also details how the federal Liberal
Party especially is now imbedded with China interests, in multiple – and deeply
concerning ways - following Pierre Trudeau’s opening of the doors (for which he
was well primed) in 1972. Later Jean Chretien, who in 1994 led Team Canada to
Beijing, brought China out of international purgatory following the Tiananmen
Massacre of 1989. In return Canada has
received no particular favour from China as the Garratt case - and our current imbroglio
- indicate.
Claws of the Panda puts an end to any romantic notions one might
have had of China, as does Two Tears on
the Window, though Kevin and Julian Garratt continue to think wistfully of
their time there, outside of prison.
Manthorpe underscores how naïve Canadian thinking is with regards to
China, and the Garretts – the endearing missionary couple who provided aid to
North Korea - serve as an example of this, at least in their early years. The Garratts began their careers in China in
1984 teaching English at its National University of Defence Technology, which
does not come across as the most innocuous of institutions. At the time they joked that they were picked
because of their youth, and because they were “least likely to be spies”.[3] After spending upwards of 30 years in the
country, most-likely observed, they were in the end falsely accused of spying,
a bitter irony. In Two Tears, moreover,
the Tiananmen events are summed up in a single short paragraph thereby
minimizing the degree of shock it induced – in China, and, of course, beyond.[4]
Despite
these minor flaws, Two Tears on the
Window, published in 2019, is perfect for our times because it’s a book
about enforced isolation – in the most populous land in the world. In short, it’s an intimate look at differing degrees of torture, and how one couple coped. It comes as a something of a surprise that
local lending libraries do not have copies available for the public. The copiously detailed Claws of the Panda, also published in 2019, is flawed only because
it stops too early. It mentions the
Garratt family twice, but there is no mention of ‘the two Michaels’; this would
have resulted in a much longer book, given that current events were unfolding
as writing was finishing. Furthermore,
it was published well before the current Covid-19 pandemic about which the
best-selling Manthorpe must have volumes to say.
Manthorpe
does bring to the reader’s attention, for instance, the criticism of Beijing’s official
silence during the early stages of the SARS outbreak in March and April
2003. A similar silence occurred in
early 2020, with the unfortunate ophthalmologist, Dr. Li Wenliang, who was
forced to confess to spreading rumours, and who later died from the coronavirus. This time, however, there was no criticism by
the World Health Organization, which also recommended that international
borders remain open, thus apparently following China’s lead, something Donald Trump
rejected, his only good move – driven by populist preoccupation with
contamination, however - when dealing with the pandemic. A study by the University of Southampton
indicates that China could have prevented the spread of Covid-19 by 95 percent -
a kind of magic number when it comes to statistics - had it acted three weeks
earlier than it did, that is, around the time when Dr. Li sounded the alarm.[5]
“Check your
sources” - these are remarks that frequent any number of student papers as they
are graded if they present dubious arguments or infelicitous writing. The WHO failed properly to consider its
sources, otherwise known as the Chinese Communist Party, never known for
transparency. Ancient China is famous
for its development of silk, tea, and gunpowder, among quite a number of other
inventions; the CCP’s gift to the world is Covid-19. By the time this global
pandemic becomes a spent force, President Xi could be in the positon to have outdone himself – and Mao, given the international scale of this disaster.
But as
irony would have it, Trump, who is more dictatorial than democratic by instinct,
also resembles Mao, particularly in his callous disregard for life, given the
former’s decision to withhold funding to the WHO during a pandemic thereby valuing money over humanity.[6]
Like Trump, Mao was unmethodical in his
speeches, preoccupied with his position in history, taking offence at any slight,
and prone to browbeating. So by
quirk of history, as Trump engages in China-bashing with hopes of winning a
second term, he is in effect battling an alter ego, that other Chairman - Mao. Sometimes self-isolation can clear the
mind.
[1] Julia
and Kevin Garratt, Two Tears on the
Window: A True Story (Victoria, BC: First Choice Books, 2019), p. 189.
[2] Jonathan Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of
Influence and Intimidation in Canada (Toronto: Cormorant Book, 2019), p.
58.
[4]
Consider instead Jan Wang’s captivating memoir Out
of the Blue: My Long March from Mao to Now (1996) which provides a gripping
first-hand account of the Tiananmen Massacre.
[5] See,
for example: “Hold China to
account on COVID-19: Cotler”, The Globe
and Mail, Thursday, April 16, 2020, p. A1.
[6] See
Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, The
History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 (New York:
Bloomsbury, 2017), p. xv. First published in 2010.
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