Falungong and Canada’s China policy | Asia Pacific Dispute Resolution

ID:	HARP-139
Title:	Falungong and Canada’s China policy
Source:	International Journal, v.56(2) Spr’01 pg 183-204.
Parties:
Dispute Resolution Organ:
Year:	2001
Pages:	0
Author(s):
Keywords:	Canada, China/Chinese, human rights, non-discrimination, political economy, Falungong, foreign policy, diplomacy, civil and political rights, security, self-determination, liberty, assembly and association, freedom of thought
Abstract:	ZHANG KUNLUN, A FORMER MCGILL UNIVERSITY visiting professor who holds both Canadian and Chinese passports, returned to China on his Chinese passport in 1996 to take care of his ailing mother-in-law. In July 2000, he was detained for one month for performing Falungong exercises in a public park. He was detained again in October, and, in November, he was arrested and sentenced to three years in a labour camp. Luckily for Zhang, family and friends in Canada mobilized, among others, Irwin Cotler, a member of parliament and human rights activist, to lobby Ottawa on Zhang’s behalf. Their efforts, and the fact that Team Canada was headed for China in the near future, prompted Ottawa to put pressure on Beijing. Zhang was released, and he returned to Canada in January 2001. His wife, also a Falungong practitioner, who has only landed-immigrant status in Canada, was later permitted to leave China and rejoin her husband in Ottawa. Zhang’s case had a happy ending. Nonetheless, it poses thorny problems for Canadian diplomats and foreign policy makers. Back in Canada, Zhang spoke of the torture and the death threats he had endured in the labour camp, and his case is far from unique. Human rights organizations have unanimously condemned China’s brutal campaign against the Falungong, and many governments around the world, including Canada’s, have expressed their concern.(f.1) Given the number of Chinese-Canadian Falungong practitioners in Canada, there are surely many similar cases among their relatives and friends, particularly if the criteria are enlarged, as in the case of Zhang’s wife, to include landed immigrants. More pointedly, many Canadians are uncomfortable with limiting the expression of human rights concerns solely to cases involving Canadian citizens or landed immigrants. If a cause is just, logic suggests, it is surely just for all. But, what if the Falungong is a `destructive cult,’ as Chinese authorities so stridently insist?(f.2) A justifiable concern to see basic principles of human rights respected throughout the world might well be modified were the Falungong found to be guilty of the abuses associated with such groups as the Solar Temple. Doubts about the nature of Falungong allow China’s undeniable geopolitical and economic importance to come into play. If the campaign against Falungong occurred in a country of little economic interest to Canada, Canadians could give free rein to their ethical principles without undue concern for the country’s commercial fortunes. In the case of China, the unspoken question remains: is defence of Falungong worth the risk of offending China and missing out on the most important market of the next fifty years?
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