By BRIAN LAGHI
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
China has delivered a diplomatic snub to the Canadian government by rejecting a meeting between its president and Prime Minister Stephen Harper as relations between the two countries continue to sour.
Harper and Chinese President Hu Jintao had tried to set up a meeting just before the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference that opens in Hanoi this week.
It would have been the first major get-together between the two men, although they spoke briefly last summer at a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries.
However, the Prime Minister's spokesperson, Sandra Buckler, said Tuesday the Chinese have decided not to pursue the meeting. She said China had requested the meeting, and Harper agreed.
"They've now declined that offer," said Buckler. "But, look, if they want to meet in the future, we'd be happy to do so."
Buckler wouldn't say whether Canada considers the rejection an insult and did not say why the Chinese said no. Chinese Embassy officials were not available for comment.
Experts say the decision is a significant rebuff.
"It's more than a snub," said Fen Hampson, head of Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. "It's a very direct 'We don't have time for you at this moment.' "
Hampson said he was particularly surprised that the Chinese backed out, given it was they who had requested the meeting.
"To me it would suggest that they are not happy with the tenor of the relationship," he said.
China's decision comes amid a cooling in the bilateral relationship as Canada takes an increasingly harder line on China's human rights record.
Over the past few months, the Harper government has delivered a number of controversial messages to the Chinese, among them a decision by the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary, Jason Kenney, to meet with the Dalai Lama, and a delay in talks over a strategic partnership to which the two countries have agreed. Canada has also complained of Chinese espionage and delayed a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and the Chinese ambassador.
Buckler said President Hu and Prime Minister Harper could still have an informal chat at the APEC meetings. However, any significant meeting between the two men would have to include a discussion about human rights that encompasses Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen jailed in China and denied access to consular officials.
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