Organizations are calling for foreign policy toward China that will hold it accountable to the Uyghur genocide, hostage diplomacy and origin of the pandemic.

SAIGON, VIETNAM, September 8, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In an open letter to the Government of Canada, 114 organizations are calling for “a more coherent foreign policy” regarding China. In reference to events by the Chinese Communist Party in Xinjiang that many countries have deemed constituting a genocide, the letter asked that “the Canadian government abides by the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWCA).” CAHWCA, which implements Canada's obligations under the Rome Statute, was passed by the Parliament in 2000. Canada's House of Commons has voted unanimously to declare China's treatment of its Uyghur minority population a genocide. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet abstained from the vote.

Speaking for the majority in declining the same motion in the Senate, Senator Yuen Pau Woo stated, “The fact that China does not share our view of individual freedoms … is not a basis on which to lecture the Chinese on how they should govern themselves.” The signatory organizations contended that individual freedoms do not have unique Chinese versions and a predominant majority of Chinese, including the victims of human right violations, do not have a say on how they should be governed. Senator Woo, appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau to the Senate, called the motion “an exercise in labelling”. The Genocide Convention, first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, establishes on State Parties such as Canada the obligation to take measures to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide, including by enacting relevant legislation and punishing perpetrators, “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” (Article IV).

The open letter also addressed the Government’s refusal to ask for a change of venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics. “As the Canadian government secured the support of 57 other countries for a joint condemnation of hostage diplomacy," the letter wrote, "we respectfully ask that the Canadian government takes a resolute stance against the hostage takers.” The signatory organizations believed that, “as Canadian hostages are given death and long prison sentences, it does not make sense to the rest of the world that Canada would put its athletes in harm’s way by sending them to the Winter Olympics in Beijing.” The Olympics would happen near where Michael Kovrig and Michael Sparvor are arbitrarily imprisoned the last 1000 days.

Representatives of the organizations which constitute the Advocacy Coalition to Denounce the CCP also expressed concern about talks at the highest level of the Canadian Government validating China’s state legitimacy by calling its authoritarian dictatorship “output democracy”. Democracy, through popular vote, was labeled as “input democracy” and criticized that “democratic elections and changes in government over decades have not consistently produced better outcomes for citizens in many industrialized economies.” The signatory organizations, mostly Vietnamese under a totalitarian communist regime, took this as not just an excuse for an abhorrent system of oppression but also an attack on democracy and people’s rights to vote.

David Tran
Advocacy Coalition to Denounce the CCP
admin@endcommunism.net
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