October 20, 2021
I just have to get this off my chest. In the recent federal election, in Canada, the conservatives lost three seats in predominantly Chinese communities. Altho the losing politicians did not blame it on the leader of the conservative party and his policies towards the Chinese government, many Chinese people blamed the leader, saying that he hated the Chinese. This is ridiculous. The party platform said clearly that the foreign policy of the conservatives was not against the people of China, but against the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP. But many Chinese people in Canada took the view the conservative leader is against the Chinese people. This view was aided largely by misinformation promulgated in the Chinese Canadian social media (WeChat) by the CCP.
There are many reasons Chinese President Xi’s policies could be the target of Canadian discontent by the government and the public. In Canada, Huawei networking products are allowed, while Canada’s allies ban them. Huawei is a Chinese government-sponsored networking company that could use its products for spying. What this means is that Canada’s partners would not share sensitive information on defense and other matters. As well, Canada accused China of hostage diplomacy relating to the two Michaels, kidnapped by the Chinese, for Canada having the temerity to arrest Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei, in Vancouver. The imprisonment of the two Michaels heeled the arrest of Wanzhou. Canada does not condone hostage diplomacy. Neither human rights violations by the Chinese towards the Uyghurs. But the Conservative Party said that it is not against the Chinese people but the CCP’s policies. Very clearly. There were many articles and opinions in the papers that the three electoral districts were lost for the conservatives because the official policy of the conservatives was anti-Chinese.
I disagree with the concept that anti-Chinese government policies are synonymous with anti-Chinese sentiment. China has a long and rich history and culture, and Canadian universities are full of courses relating to China and full of Chinese students. In a recent visit to the University of British Columbia, my alma mater, I was completely flabbergasted by the number of Chinese students on the campus; I estimated that half the student population was Chinese (altho many of them could be local people from the Vancouver area). Over five percent of the population of Canada is Chinese, perhaps the largest minority today in Canada, mostly living in the Vancouver and Toronto areas. I grew up in Vancouver and the Chinese have great accommodation with other people in the city. It is the government today in China that is the object of criticism, not the people. Understandably, the Chinese people in Canada are proud of their heritage. Some people merged the conservative policy platform on China with their attitude towards the Chinese people and decided that the conservatives are against the Chinese people and three conservative Chinese politicians lost in the recent election. But that is incorrect and inappropriate.
Let me explain. I came from Hungary to Canada in 1956 and was a refugee because of the government policies in the 1950s that were against my future. But I am still proud of my Hungarian heritage. Hungarians bred many brilliant musicians, such as Bartok, Liszt, and Kodaly. They also produced the best women chess players in the world, the Polgar sisters. And there were many world-famous scientists, contributing to the atom bomb at Los Alamos, the Manhattan Project, like Szilard and von Neumann. Houdini, Lugosi, and Falk have all had Hungarian backgrounds. Did you know that Tony Curtis spoke only Hungarian until he was six years old? And Andy Grove, a Hungarian immigrant, was the founder of Intel. Charles Simonyi developed the original Office platform for Microsoft. He came out of Hungary as a teenager and Katalin Kariko developed the mRNA vaccine for BioNTech, the key component of the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine. One can be proud of one’s country’s heritage and people and disagree with its government’s policies. Just my opinion.
andrasthehun.ca 