Our Prime Minister had no difficulty applying the word genocide after the MMIW report, but now he's apparently unclear on the concept.
-k
If the conditional nature of Trudeau's application is out of concern for the two Michaels and other Canadians in China that could be held hostage he should be honest and say so. Basing cabinet abstinence on doubts about the legality of the term genocide appears to be in line with Canada not mentioning China in our initiative to end hostage diplomacy on the international stage. I get the desire of cabinet to approach this delicately and that dealing with China is extremely complicated by deep cultural issues with face
https://www.china-mike.com/chinese-culture/cult-of-face/ that both precede and still dominate China's dictators even more than it does China's society. Lets face it, a bruised ego is as bad a condition for politicians in our political system to deal with as it is in China's. All of them bend and contort themselves into similar pretzels.
Apparently there's some need to leave China's rulers a way out of the corner the term genocide puts them into and I think using our powerlessness as a middle power in the face of super-power authoritarianism might be the key to getting more allies and fostering more awareness of what's really going on. We have no trouble encouraging people we've committed genocide against to be honest about how it feels and that talking about it openly and honestly is key to reconciliation.
Perhaps there's as much or more a place for weakness and helplessness in the scheme of things. We know from experience that estrangement and isolation don't work but then neither will pretending the contentiousness of a term's legal definition is more important than the reason for applying it or not. It was this sort of quibbling that kept Canada from addressing the genocide we committed.