Writings on the Wall

The People’s Republic of China has an image problem. Skim the world’s headlines for the last few years, and you may well be overwhelmed with reports of the regime’s aggressive diplomacy, its interference in the domestic affairs of other nations, its use of arbitrary detention to achieve political goals, or its abuse of human rights in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. The litany of its alleged offences is long.

All this bad news has had a major impact on how the country is perceived abroad. According to surveys released by the Pew Research Center last summer, 79 percent of Canadians hold unfavourable views of China — a ratio that has been growing for six straight years from a relative low of 40 percent in 2017. Worse, distrust of the leadership extends to the very top: the same percentage of Canadians have little to no confidence in the ability of Xi Jinping, China’s president since 2012, “to do the right thing regarding world affairs.” Such views are widely shared...