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POLITICALLY SMART, MORALLY SOUND
Monday, February 12, 2007
POLITICALLY SMART, MORALLY SOUND
As you may recall one of my favorite books is former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten's East and West. Patten was not a welcome guest in Beijing during his years in Asia and the reason was quite simply that he managed to stand up to Beijing, regardless of the consequences: Patten's most provocative chapter is on China. He contends that the West should treat it like any other country and refuse to kowtow to a regime that is ''at the end of an era.'' There is no correlation between bending to Beijing and benefiting economically, he says.It is a lesson that is hardly ever practiced, so deep is the fear to miss out on the economic frenzy that is China. Yet, in breaking with his predecessor's record of leaving Canadian citizens to their own devices in foreign prisons and in taking Patten's clear advice to heart, Stephen Harper has created another unusual benchmark. And note that Harper is pursuing the human rights of someone that can hardly be classified as an average Canadian: Huseyin Celi holds dual citizenship and is, according to the Chinese, a terror suspect. 
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