【加拿大《环球邮报》网站4月11日报道】题：对大使的选派标志着对华关系的解冻
消息人士说，保守派政府正准备任命一前高层游说人士作为其派驻北京的大使，该举动将标志着加拿大对华关系的一个突然转变，转而支持商业往来。
据加拿大驻京消息人士说，新任大使将是戴维•穆罗尼。此人现任政府驻阿富汗特遣部队的负责人，还是个中国通。在数年来两国关系冷淡、失去多个贸易机会之后，该举动似乎是渥太华重新加温对华关系的多种努力的一部分。
国际贸易部长斯托克韦尔•戴伊昨日抵达中国，展开了为期8天、途经7个城市的访问之旅，旨在改善两国商业关系。
尽管戴伊将在中国首都度过这个周日的复活节，但是极为虔诚的他却没有安排任何与此间宗教人士的会面。这是加拿大显而易见的新政策的另一个信号。这个新政策即是，轻轻地走近中华人民共和国，面对面接触。
不过，意义最重大的最新信号之一是任命穆罗尼。他是一名职业外交家，具有多年驻京和东亚的经历。他会说一口流利的普通话，在除了政府以外的地方供职的惟一经历是于1995年至1998年间，担任加中贸易理事会执行理事。穆罗尼还曾作为领事在上海待过3年，作为加拿大贸易办公处负责人驻台3年，实际上是加拿大驻台大使。
加中贸易理事会常务董事约翰•肖说：“我们需要一个非常了解中国、且与中国商界打交道非常有经验的人。穆罗尼将会对两国的建设性关系大有裨益。”肖还说，在中国因加拿大政府近年来的“某些姿态”而倍感受辱后，两国关系需要修复。
Selection of envoy signals thawing ties with China
MARK MACKINNON
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
April 11, 2009 at 12:56 AM EDT
BEIJING — The Conservative government is getting set to name a former top lobbyist as its next ambassador to Beijing, sources say, a move that would mark a sharp pro-business turn in Canada’s halting re-engagement with China.
According to Canadian sources in Beijing, the new ambassador will be David Mulroney, now head of the government’s Afghanistan task force and a veteran China hand. The move appears to be part of a multipronged effort by Ottawa to reheat relations with Beijing after years of frosty ties and lost trade opportunities.
Trade Minister Stockwell Day, long a critic of Beijing, and particularly its restrictions on religious freedom, arrived in China yesterday for an eight-day, seven-city tour aimed at invigorating a commercial relationship that has suffered while the two sides traded barbs over Chinese rights abuses and Canadian support for the Dalai Lama.
While in China, Mr. Day will mark the opening of five trade offices around the country. All are in cities where Canada already had trade missions before Ottawa shut them down as relations cooled after Mr. Harper took office in 2006.
Mr. Harper, whose failure to attend the opening ceremonies of the Summer Games raised eyebrows, is expected to visit China this year, as is Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.
And though he will be spending Easter Sunday in the Chinese capital, the deeply devout Mr. Day has no meetings scheduled with religious dissidents here and his staff would not divulge where he would attend Easter services, saying it was part of a “private program.” It’s another sign of Canada’s apparent new policy of walking softly vis-à-vis the People’s Republic.
The most significant of the latest signals, however, could be the appointment of Mr. Mulroney, a career diplomat and bureaucrat with years of experience in Beijing and East Asia. A fluent Mandarin speaker, his only experience outside government in recent years was a 1995 to 1998 stint he did as the executive director of the Canada-China Business Council, a body that has loudly criticized the Harper government’s China policies over the past three years. Mr. Mulroney also spent three years as Ottawa’s consul to Shanghai and three more as head of the Canadian Trade Office in Taiwan, Canada’s de facto embassy in Taipei.
The 54-year-old has also served as assistant deputy minister for Asia-Pacific and, until leaving to take up the Afghan position, was the Prime Minister’s adviser on foreign policy and defence.
Though Mr. Mulroney’s name has not yet been officially presented to the Chinese government – which has the right to reject his appointment – his nomination is expected to happen quickly. Canada’s current ambassador in Beijing, Robert Wright, is set to head home at the end of next month after nearly four years in the job. Sources in Ottawa and Beijing say Mr. Mulroney is expected to take up his post this summer.
For the record, the Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa remains discreet. “The announcement of the new ambassador will be made in due course,” spokesman Daniel Barbarie said.
In addition to being ambassador to China, the world’s fastest-growing economy and Canada’s second-biggest trading partner, Mr. Mulroney would also become Canada’s ambassador to Mongolia.
John Shou, managing director of the Canada-China Business Council’s office in Beijing, said he had heard Mr. Mulroney’s name rumoured as a potential successor to Mr. Wright and said he thought Mr. Mulroney would do an excellent job.
“We need someone who has good knowledge of China, and good experience in China with the business community. Mr. Mulroney used to be posted in China. He has a diversified – government, private sector, NGO – background. A person like him would very much contribute to a constructive relationship,” Mr. Shou said, adding the relationship needed repairing after China took insult at “certain gestures” by the Canadian government in recent years.
The CCBC has argued that because of the emphasis the Chinese place on personal relationships – affected by the sniping between Ottawa and Beijing – Canadian businesses are losing out on big contracts. For a decade now, China has also denied Canada “approved destination status” for Chinese travellers, a status it has given to more than 130 other countries. As a result, Canada is prevented from advertising itself as a tourist destination in China and Chinese tour groups are barred from going to Canada, at an estimated cost of hundreds of thousands of potential Chinese tourists a year.
“What we would like to see is consistency,” Mr. Shou said. “You don’t open [trade] offices one day, then close them down, then open them up. What kind of signal does that send?”
Such sentiments were echoed by many in the Canadian business community in Beijing. All took the time to praise the outgoing Mr. Wright, but he was an appointee of the previous Liberal government and was not seen as having much influence on the formation of Mr. Harper’s China policy. Ironically, by naming a pro-business representative, Mr. Harper appears to be signalling a move toward some of the policy positions that Mr. Wright is believed to have been privately arguing for.
“I think David would be fabulous. He’s a real believer in China. Rob Wright has been great as well,” said Fred Spoke, managing director of Canada Wood China, an umbrella group representing the Canadian forestry industry in China. “It’s very important we have some real champions for China here.”
Mr. Spoke, like Mr. Mulroney, once headed the Canada-China Business Council, a body that has been criticized for having too much influence on the Canada-China relationship. Founded by Power Corp. chairman Paul Desmarais, its current board of directors includes heavyweights such as former trade minister David Emerson; Sergio Marchi, another former trade minister, was its president until last year. Some of the sharpest critics of the CCBC’s influence over Canada’s old business-first China policy, particularly during the years Jean Chrétien was prime minister, have been members of the current government.
When Mr. Day travels to the southwestern city of Chengdu next week to unveil a plaque celebrating the opening of a Canadian Trade Office there, it will be another signal that the Conservative government has started to see things the CCBC’s way. The five “new” trade offices that Canada is opening around China are located in the cities where the CCBC and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade had joint offices until they were closed over concerns they were doing a better job representing the business lobby than the Canadian government.
While the Harper government’s recent moves to make nice with Beijing have inspired sighs of relief in the business community, they’ve left others – who thought they had an ally in the Canadian government – feeling abandoned. Tibetan exiles and Chinese human-rights activists had previously praised Mr. Harper and his government for their outspoken support of their causes.
Mr. Harper awarded the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual and political leader, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006. The Prime Minister repeatedly said that “important Canadian values” needed to take precedence over the “almighty dollar” in Canada’s dealings with China.
“It’s alarming for us the way that the Harper government has so quickly done an about-face on Tibet,” said Lhadon Tethong, the Canadian-born executive director of Students for a Free Tibet.
With reports from Carolynne Wheeler in Beijing and Campbell Clark in Ottawa
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090411.wchina11/BNStory/Business/
