Juggling with genes PAGE 6
$6.50 Vol. 21, No. 3 April 2013
Paul Evans Dancing with the Dragon As China surges to new heights, can Canada keep step?
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
Kate Taylor Identity crisis at the museum
Wesley Wark Treason for cheap
John Burns, Ikechi Mgbeoji and more Writing aboriginal peoples back into Canada
PLUS: non-fiction Michael Valpy on the spectre of grassroots racism + Ramsay Cook on Maclean’s and the imperial dream + Terry Fenge on Arctic sovereignty and the Nunavut agreement + Robin Fisher on Canadian anthropology’s New Zealand godfather + Douglas Wright on a post- WWI mathematical peacemaker + Florin Diacu on measuring the heavens fiction Merilyn Simonds reviews Blood Secrets by Nadine McInnis + David Penhale reviews
Publications Mail Agreement #40032362 Husk by Corey Redekop Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. poetry Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson + Robin Richardson + Alice Major + Denise Desautels + PO Box 8, Station K Toronto, ON M4P 2G1 Leslie Timmins + Anne Swannell + Seymour Mayne + Dave Margoshes + Allan Peterkin Literary Review of Canada 170 Bloor St West, Suite 710 Toronto ON M5S 1T9 email: [email protected] reviewcanada.ca T: 416-531-1483 • F: 416-531-1612 Charitable number: 848431490RR0001 Vol. 21, No. 3 • April 2013 To donate, visit reviewcanada.ca/support
EDITOR Bronwyn Drainie 3 Dancing with the 14 Early Illiteracy 20 Beverley Baxter in [email protected] Dragon A poem Empireland CONTRIBUTING EDITORS An essay Robin Richardson A review of Canada and the Mark Lovewell, Molly Peacock, Anthony Westell Paul Evans 14 What I have become End of the Imperial Dream: Beverley Baxter’s Reports ASSOCIATE EDITOR 6 Genes That Never through grief Robin Roger from London through War A poem Fade and Peace, 1936–1960, by POETRY EDITOR Alice Major Moira MacDougall A review of The Juggler’s Neville Thompson COPY EDITOR Children: A Journey into Ramsay Cook 14 Madeline Koch Family, Legend and the Genes A poem 22 The Nobel of ONLINE EDITORS that Bind Us, by Carolyn Denise Desautels, trans- Abraham Numbers Diana Kuprel, Jack Mitchell, lated by Norman Cornett Donald Rickerd, C.M. Susan Crean A review of Turbulent Times PROOFREADERS 15 Triolet for in Mathematics: The Life of 7 Home Invasion Rebecca Borkowsky, Beth MacKinnon, Afghanistan J.C. Fields and the History A review of The Inconvenient Amanda Miller, Heather Schultz, Robert A poem of the Fields Medal, by Simone, Rob Tilley Indian: A Curious Account Leslie Timmins Elaine McKinnon Riehm and of Native People in North RESEARCH Frances Hoffman Rob Tilley America, by Thomas King 15 April Surprise Douglas Wright EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS John Burns A poem Luca Da Franco, Prerana Das Anne Swannell 24 Magic Spheres 9 Pioneering DESIGN A review of Heavenly 15 Gravity James Harbeck Anthropology Mathematics: The A review of In Twilight and A poem ADVERTISING/SALES Forgotten Art of Spherical Michael Wile in Dawn: A Biography of Seymour Mayne Trigonometry, by Glen Van [email protected] Diamond Jenness, by Barnett 15 Multimedia Brummelen DIRECTOR, SPECIAL PROJECTS Richling A poem Florin Diacu Michael Booth Robin Fisher Dave Margoshes 25 Ideas under Glass PUBLISHERS 10 Northwest Passage Alastair Cheng 15 Ditty An essay [email protected] Hold ’Em A poem Kate Taylor Helen Walsh An essay [email protected] Allan Peterkin 28 Does Good Policy Terry Fenge BOARD OF DIRECTORS 16 When People Seem Make Good 12 Tobacco Blowback John Honderich, C.M., Most Alive Neighbours? J. Alexander Houston, Frances Lankin, A review of Smoke A review of Blood Secrets: A review of Everyday Law on Jack Mintz, Trina McQueen Signals: The Native Takeback Stories, by Nadine McInnis the Street: City Governance ADVISORY COUNCIL of North America’s Tobacco Michael Adams, Ronald G. Atkey, P.C., Merilyn Simonds in an Age of Diversity, by Industry, by Jim Poling Sr. Q.C., Alan Broadbent, C.M., Chris Ellis, Mariana Valverde Ikechi Mgbeoji 17 It’s Not Easy Being Drew Fagan, James Gillies, C.M., Undead Michael Valpy Carol Hansell, Donald Macdonald, 14 Space Is Not Equal to P.C., C.C., Susan Reisler, Grant Reuber, A review of Husk, by Corey 30 Letters and Responses Y or X O.C., Don Rickerd, C.M., Rana Sarkar, Redekop David Orrell, Wendy Mark Sarner, Bernard Schiff, A poem David Penhale Cukier, Nicholas Tracy, Reed Scowen Caitlin Elizabeth Justin Podur POETRY SUBMISSIONS Thomson 18 “Spy, Russians, For poetry submission guidelines, please see Secrets, Sold”
April 2013 reviewcanada.ca 1 ESSAY Dancing with the Dragon As China surges to new heights, can Canada keep step? Paul Evans
n the spring of 2008 an academic colleague biggest owner of U.S. treasuries. China remains the the late 1940s, the immigrants to Canada from bemoaned to me the absence of materials on largest destination for foreign direct investment greater China starting in the 1980s, the huge stu- ICanada-China relations that she could use in and is moving into the top ranks of outward invest- dent flow to Canada (some 68,000 are now -regis her teaching. There were a handful of books on the ors. One of its state-owned companies recently pur- tered in Canadian post-secondary institutions) and history of the relationship, occasional academic chased Calgary-based Nexen for $15.1 billion, the the occasional reverse flow of Canadian citizens to essays and think tank reports (mainly by the Asia biggest single investment ever made by a Chinese China and its periphery with our young people in Pacific Foundation of Canada), and a steady flow of firm. China was one of the last into and first out small but increasing numbers studying in China or, media and other punditry, but dry the desert was. of the financial crash of 2008, now accounting for in larger numbers, teaching English in China and What a change in five years. Academic books, about 40 percent of world growth. around East Asia. There is a pantheon of Canadian mainly in the form of edited collections, are flow- In diplomatic terms, China has emerged as a heroes in the relationship—Bethune and Dashan ing: we have memoirs by Canadians, including serious player in virtually every major international (aka Mark Rowswell, the television personality who Paul Lin and Brian Evans, on has become Canada’s cultural the front line of Sino-Canadian What should be our strategic response ambassador to China) among relations; virtually every major them—with significant fan clubs think tank across the country (the to global China? Should China be among sinophiles in Canada and Canadian International Council, far larger ones in China. the Canada West Foundation, the approached as a friend, strategic partner, Commercially, the eternal Conference Board of Canada, the lure of the Chinese market for Fraser Institute, to name just a ally, competitor, adversary or enemy? Canadian commodities and prod- few) has published one or more ucts has now morphed into some- reports focused on China�’s rise and its implicaimplica-- institution, sometimes a leader. It is difficult to think thing bigger and more complex: integration with tions for Canada with a heavy concentration on of a global issue ranging from global warming and China into global supply chains, China as a major economics and trade. Opinion pieces about China communicable diseases to trans-boundary water source of investment, tourists, labour, and techno- and Canada-China relations are ubiquitous, with management, cyber security and non-proliferation logical innovation and exchange. economics, democracy and human rights as their where the road to a solution does not now run Diplomatically, China has rarely been a top principal concerns. Even Norman Bethune has through Beijing. priority, except during occasional moments of made a comeback, compliments of a biography by The outpouring of words about global China Canadian engagement in Asian wars, as a recur- a former governor general. is not unique to Canada. In most countries China rent Cold War problem focused on recognition How much of this outpouring has literary is top of mind for politicians, publics and authors. and China’s admission into the United Nations. Yet merit is questionable. But measured by bulk alone For Canadians, China is no longer “over there”; now, with the exception of Canada’s relations with China is very much on Canadian minds. it is right here on our doorsteps. We feel and see it the United States, no other relationship is as com- And why not? In the past decade China has gone when we walk the streets of our major cities, visit a plex, pressing and multidimensional at the levels global in the blink of a geopolitical eye. The factoids shopping mall, think about our jobs and economic of policy and management as China. Global China are dizzying. China now is the world’s second lar- future, or take out a mortgage. The choices of the affects Canada in virtually every policy domain ran- gest economy and on a likely path to be the largest Chinese government, Chinese business leaders ging from security and diplomacy through to First within a decade. It is the world’s largest trader and and Chinese consumers have impacts virtually Nations affairs, fisheries and the Arctic. the largest trading partner of Japan, Korea, India everywhere. When I was a child in the 1950s, our Few doubt that Canada’s livelihood and pros- and virtually every other country in Asia. It is the dinner table discussion was about eating everything perity, role in global and regional institutions, and second largest trading partner of both Canada and on our plate while remembering starving children exercise of leadership in the world will increas- the United States, and is on pace soon to surpass in China, as if this would make a real difference ingly depend on getting China and China policy Canada’s two-way trade with the United States. to them. Thirty years earlier Pierre Trudeau’s first right. What should be our strategic response to Over the past eight years it has been Canada’s fast- memory of China was putting nickels into a collec- global China? Should China be approached as a est rising trade partner, growing ten times faster tion plate to save the souls of little Chinese children friend, strategic partner, ally, competitor, adver- than Canadian trade with the rest of the world. being supported by the St. Enfance movement. sary or enemy? Can China become a responsible China is the largest consumer of steel and the lar- Today that dinner table discussion is about the stakeholder in the liberal international order of gest producer of carbon dioxide emissions. It holds competitive pressures and opportunities that China market capitalism, democratic institutions and more than $3 trillion in foreign reserves and is the opens for our children’s future. human rights that Canadians hold dear and that Despite vast differences in size, language, cul- they have expended so much blood and treasure to Paul Evans is a professor of Asian international ture, tradition, civilization, history, and political, underwrite? affairs at the Institute of Asian Research and the Liu social and economic institutions, China has had For almost all of the period since Pierre Trudeau Institute for Global Issues at the University of British special purchase on the Canadian imaginary from established diplomatic relations with the People’s Columbia. He is currently a visiting professor at the time of Confederation. The biggest and most Republic of China in 1970, the high-policy answer the University of Hong Kong, where he is finishing important dimension has been the human flows to these questions has been engagement. Its under- a book titled Engaging China: Myth, Aspiration that started with the labourers coming to Canada pinnings have been a calculation that engagement and Strategy in Canadian Policy from Trudeau to to work on the railroad, the Canadian missionaries is preferable to containment, isolation or confron- Harper. who flooded to China between the late 1870s and tation; a belief that Canada has both an opportunity
April 2013 reviewcanada.ca 3 and a comparative advantage in bringing ing the relationship from the ground up China into the international system; and through a series of bilateral agreements a wager that opening China economic- on trade offices, foreign investment ally would eventually induce political promotion and protection, approved liberalization. destination status and an economic com- The special burden placed on engage- plementarities study that have provided a ment is that it was not only expected to new substructure to the relationship. produce commercial advantages and In many respects Canadian policy in diplomatic leverage, but also that it was 2013 is where we were in ambition and part of a moral enterprise to change means at the time that Paul Martin and China, to make China “more normal,” as Chinese president Hu Jintao declared was once described to me by a woman in the strategic partnership between the a Tim Hortons line. This was the aim of two countries in September 2005. While our missionary movement a century ago, the phrase is still used in Ottawa, the and so it remains for many Canadians current version of the strategic partner- who view human rights and democracy ship rests on different foundations. Some as the embodiment of universal values of the differences are particular to the and institutions to which China should Conservatives themselves. The ideology aspire and adapt. of anti-communism, universalist abso- Pierre Trudeau casts a long shadow. lutism and the division of friends from He gave Canada the foundations of an enemies based on types of political sys- engagement strategy for dealing with tem are deeply ingrained in the Reform/ communist China that held sway with his Alliance wing of the party. The philosophy Liberal and Progressive Conservative of small government infuses a govern- successors and became something of mental interest in promoting transactions a Canadian brand. But he also gave rather than building relationships. There Canadians a charter of rights and have been no major investments in new freedoms. programs for substantive policy dia- China policy was bound to be vexed. logue, capacity building, or promotion of Particularly since Tiananmen Square human rights and other Canadian values in June 1989, media debate has been in China. The bilateral aid program for obsessed with a distinction between China is being phased out, with no govgov-- pursuing commercial and diplomatic ernment-sponsored successor focused on opportunities with China versus promot- policy programs announced. ing human rights. Other w��������������estern������������� democ- Reflecting the style of a prime minister racies have wrestled with a similar issue, with remarkable control over the making but it is difficult to think of a country of policy, China policy is about individual where the tradeoffs have been so starkly framed China for human rights violations. He received the activities, most of them commercial, rather than in teeter-totter–like fashion, where the debate Dalai Lama in his office in the Centre Block with a grand strategic plans or pronouncements. In the has raged for so long and where it has produced Tibetan flag prominently displayed on his desk. words of one advisor to the PM, “watch what we more complications for diplomats and politicians The approach produced a near diplomatic do rather than what we say and the pattern will entrusted with managing the relationship. And far disaster. Official Chinese responses varied from become clear.” The strategic partnership is in fact from disappearing at a moment when China’s eco- puzzlement to anger. While several human an a-strategic partnership, very heavily focused on nomic leverage is in a completely different league rights non-governmental organizations and anti- economic issues and without sustained attention to than Canada’s, when the prospect of economic communist groups supported the new approach, the major power shifts underway or the changing sanctions or punishment of China through trade business leaders, academics and officials were function and roles of regional and global institu- instruments is unimaginable without horrific costs, nearly unanimous in condemnation. At precisely tions of which China is a part. our domestic debate still rotates around whether the moment that governments around the world At the same time, wider public and intellectual we should be having economic relations with a were ramping up their connections with the PRC at support for the key premises of engagement is erod- country run by a communist party. all levels, Canada was in a class of one in reversing ing. Polls conducted by the Asia Pacific Foundation Stephen Harper’s Conservatives came to power an engagement policy and depleting a reservoir of and other organizations since 2008 reveal two main in February 2006 with a very different approach to goodwill in Beijing built up over 35 years. trends. First, Canadians think China is big, import- China in mind. In a period of “cool politics, warm By early 2009 it was evident that the government ant and getting more so. Almost two thirds now economics,” the Harper government moved to was quietly and quickly reversing policy. The new believe that Chinese influence in the world will sur- expand commercial relations with China through line, remarkably similar to the approach of previous pass American within a decade. They consistently keeping the door open to Chinese imports, encour- governments, was visible when Harper made his overestimate existing trade with China and Asia, aging Chinese investment and investing in the Asia first trip to China in December of that year after a frequently by a factor of two or three. A little more Pacific Gateway project to boost transportation series of ministerial visits that the Chinese insisted than half now see it as an economic opportunity infrastructure capacity for trans-Pacific supply were necessary to build confidence in the relation- rather than an economic threat. Almost half favour chains. ship. Ottawa took great pains to reiterate its “One a free trade agreement with China. Cool politics came in several forms. Various China” policy. Harper raised human rights in his Second, they are worried about what a ris- Cabinet ministers and ministers of Parliament speeches but reverted to the established practice of ing China portends. The sense of opportunity is described China as “a godless totalitarian country dealing with individual cases in private. Words such leavened by a blend of uncertainty, anxiety and with nuclear weapons aimed at us.” The govern- as “friendship,” “engagement” and “strategic partpart-- fear. Twice as many Canadians now have a cold ment immediately announced a principled foreign nership,” banned from the official lexicon for three or unfavourable view of China as compared to a policy in which freedom, democracy, human years, reappeared in the speeches of the prime warm or favourable one. China is consistently seen rights and the rule of law would be the guiding minister and senior ministers. In perhaps the most by a significant number of Canadians as corrupt, concepts. Advisors spoke openly of shifting prior- symbolic move of all, the government provided sig- authoritarian and threatening and less than half ity from communist China to democratic India. It nificant funding for the upgrading of the Norman think the human rights situation is improving. took months for Chinese diplomats to meet with Bethune House in Gravenhurst, touting him as an Concern about China’s growing military power is ministers. The first comments about China by the exemplar of humanism and entrepreneurship. rising, and fewer than one in five favour a state- new foreign minister focused on espionage. The The remarkable policy reversal has never been controlled company from China buying a control- prime minister became personally involved in the acknowledged, much less explained. Former offi - - ling stake in a major Canadian company. case of a Canadian citizen of Uighur descent who cials have argued that this was less a reversal than The recent controversy over the sale of Nexen was imprisoned in China and openly criticized a new course, part of a coherent strategy of rebuild- to the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company
4 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada revealed just how much of an exposed raw nerve Most of the recent writing by our China special- that relations with China have become. Some ists is rather more upbeat. Study after study talk of the criticisms of the sale grew out of a free about the growing importance and influence of market ideology averse to state-owned enter- China in a full panoply of areas. They emphasize THE SECRET OF prises combined with nationalist concerns about the pace and scale of change inside China, the THE BLUE TRUNK domestic control of natural resources. The major- prospects for collaboration in fields ranging from ity, however, focused on negativity about China environmental management to rules for limiting by Lise Dion itself. Mainstream and social media across the the weaponization of space, and the possibility of country, as well as voices within the Conservative convergence on rules and institutions based on A bestseller caucus and Cabinet, opposed the deal because of shared and common interests. A trip to the Central in Quebec; to CNOOC’s alleged connections to Chinese intelli- Party School is more like a visit to an executive be made into a gence, espionage and the military. Critics brought MBA program than a Marxist indoctrination cen- movie. into play arguments about China’s assertiveness tre. In many areas, including property rights, laws in the South China Sea, its policies toward Tibet have been rewritten, judiciaries and legal systems and Falun Gong, the vagaries of the Chinese improved, and in some instances rights respected In 1940 Armande Martel, a young justice system, trafficking in animal parts, the in Chinese law upheld and enforced. China’s inte- nun from Quebec, is arrested by environmental dangers of shark fin soup and gration into the global economy is leading it, step the Germans at her religious order the health hazards of Chinese products. A popu- by step, into “playing our game.” lar narrative unfolded that doing business with The hard nut remains the system of govern- in Brittany. This is the true story Chinese SOEs meant dealing with the Chinese ment. Even as the Party transforms itself and the of how a young Québécoise nun state, that the Chinese state was controlled by the domain of personal freedoms expands, funda- ended up a prisoner of war in Chinese Communist Party and that the Chinese mental transformation of the political system Buchenwald and how her daughter Communist Party oppressed its people and vio- through electoral mechanisms has stalled. China discovered her secrets. lated their basic human rights. The cumulative fear may no longer be totalitarian, but it remains of a rising China risks becoming greater than the authoritarian and is unlikely soon to evolve in the sum of individual concerns. direction of western-style multi-party democracy. By the author The approval of the sale by the Harper- gov Our missionary impulse to change China con- of Pilgrim in ernment on December 7, 2012, was a triumph tinues to run deep. It now encounters a China the Palace of clever politics and tactical compromise. But it that is more wealthy, more powerful, more open of Words. did not lay the foundation for the energy dimen- and more outward looking than could have been sion of the next phase of the strategic partnership imagined in 1970. Paradoxically, current expecta- TRIPPING or directly address the growing negativity about tions are much greater and more exacting than THE WORLD China. they were in the Mao period. For democratic FANTASTIC Behind the negativity is a growing fear that a fundamentalists, China is not a legitimate form of A Journey Through rising China poses a profound challenge to values government, whatever the views of the majority the Music of Our and institutions that Canadians hold dear. Preston of Chinese citizens. Planet Manning framed the sale as part of a “deadly ser- The intellectual issue ahead of us is how to by Glenn Dixon ious political competition with China” that “pits understand China’s response to the encyclopedia the well-developed Chinese Communist ideology of acute domestic problems it is facing and its A fascinating journey through the of state-controlled capitalism and state-directed evolving global role. The great strategic issue of our world’s musical cultures. Through ‘democracy’ against the older Western ideology times is not just China’s rising power but whether his adventures, author Glenn Dixon of market-driven capitalism and citizen-directed its world view and applied theory will reproduce, uncovers the real reasons why music democracy. This competition is especially keen in converge with or take a separate path from the has such a powerful hold on us. developing countries where the West and China world order and ideas produced in the era of trans- compete for resources.” The West, he added, Atlantic dominance. “appears to be losing the competition.” This calls for a 21st-century reprise of Canada’s A few months earlier, Michael Ignatieff spoke middle power role. The policy challenge, beyond THE WHISPER OF in Riga about the “decisive encounter” of liberal managing a myriad of pressing bilateral issues, LEGENDS democracies with post-communist oligarchies in is to facilitate a great power transition and fos- An Inspector Green Russia and China “that have no ideology other ter rules, norms and institutions that allow an Mystery, Book 9 than enrichment and are recalcitrant to global ascending China and an established America to order,” that are “predatory on their own societies” traverse a diagonal rather than enter into direct by Barbara Fradkin and that are “attempting to demonstrate a novel confrontation. Earlier this involved getting China proposition: that economic freedoms can be sev- to as many tables as possible. Now it means By the Arthur Ellis Award winning ered from political and civil freedom, and that extensive dialogues at the official, track-two and author of Fifth Son freedom is divisible.” As “Mao continues to glower academic levels and exchanges at as many levels and Honour down over Tiananmen Square,” commerce and as possible. Among Men capitalism, contracts and economic relationships The political issue is how a Conservative- gov have not dented China’s political system. He called ernment that is ideologically anti-communist and When his teenage daughter goes for a “defiant stance toward the new tyrannies in philosophically ill disposed to strong national missing on a summer wilderness China and Russia,” and approaching them as “the leadership can ramp up a relationship that will canoe trip to the Nahanni River in chief strategic threat to the moral and political need imagination, clear articulation of goals the Northwest Territories, Inspector commitments of liberal democracies.” But rather and new resources. China needs explaining and Green is forced into unfamiliar than seeing conflict as inevitable and eternal, he Conservative Ottawa needs to make a case for why territory just as dangerous as the advocated responding with both curiosity and and how the strategic engagement of China needs back streets of Ottawa. tolerance, avoiding the fixed categories of “us” to be played on a field much larger than commer- and “them,” “[learning] from beliefs we cannot cial interests. share,” and treating China as an opponent, not It will take wisdom, knowledge and political an enemy while practising politics, not war or courage to update the strategic partnership and religion. recast the Canada-China narrative. It will mean /dundurnpress | @dundurnpress | dundurn.com Neither Manning’s nor Ignatieff’s approach eschewing absolutes and being cosmopolitan in closes the door on an engagement strategy, but opening values and institutions, including our both place limits and frame the encounter as an own, to constant interrogation and the search for epic competition rather than an opportunity for common ground in a messy multi-centric world deep collaboration. order shifting before our very eyes.
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