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The Canadian federal election is underway. The Chinese immigrant Xiao A reposted a self-media article in a local WeChat group in Toronto. The article emphasized that Conservative Party leader O’Toole “threaked about fighting China if he was elected.” Xiao A said that because the leader of the Conservative Party was anti-China, she decided to vote for the Liberal Party in the federal election.
The article reposted by Xiao A was published by the WeChat public account of “Canada York Forum”, without the specific author’s name. Usually the headline article of this official account has only a few thousand reads and few comments, but this article quickly surpassed 30,000 reads after it was published, and there were dozens of comments.
Among Chinese voters, especially the first generation of mainland immigrants, China-related issues seem to be one of the election topics that arouse the most attention and discussion. In the Chinese self-media world, “anti-China” has become a great weapon to arouse the emotions of netizens. Many WeChat groups have people like A, claiming that they will decide whether the party or the party leader is “anti-China” as the determinant of the vote. Some even directly call the Conservative Party an “anti-Chinese party” and call it a “traitor”. Chinese who support the Conservative Party.
However, Canada in WeChat and Canada in reality seem to be two very different worlds. Like last year’s U.S. election, Canadian voters are concerned about domestic policies, especially those related to domestic economy, people’s livelihood, and the environment. China policy or foreign policy has never been the focus of most voters.
According to the results of a poll conducted by Marugroup in mid-August this year, the major issues affecting Canadians’ voting decisions are “reducing the cost of living and improving affordability, protecting the environment, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reversing climate change, and cutting federal government spending to prevent The fiscal deficit is rising, as well as job creation and economic development.”
For this reason, Canada’s three major parties: the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, and the New Democratic Party have all regarded restraining housing prices and improving housing affordability as important elements of the general election program. The Liberal Party, which has always been known for being more tolerant of immigrants and investment, has also issued a “prescription” that prohibits foreigners from buying houses for two years, which is jokingly called copying the Conservative Party’s work. This is not a good sign for the Chinese who love to buy houses and have a reputation. However, there are few discussions about these policies in the local WeChat group in Canada. “Anti-China” is a hot topic.
What’s interesting is that although the comments on the above official account show that people who believe in the “anti-China” of the Conservative Party and will vote for the Liberal Party account for an overwhelming majority, the Canadian York Forum’s own website has been polled by Internet users as of September 4. The results show that 46% of those who plan to vote for the Conservative Party are slightly higher than the 43% who plan to vote for the Liberal Party. This ratio is also very close to the current survey results of some major Canadian polling agencies on the support rates of various political parties, that is, the Conservative Party. The approval rating is slightly ahead of the Liberal Party.
In order to understand the main factors affecting Chinese voting in reality, the author interviewed three Chinese voters with different backgrounds.
Ms. D from Mainland China is currently working in a municipal government in Ontario. Ms. D revealed that although most of her voted for the Liberal Party in the past few elections, she struggled every time she made a decision. There are many factors that affect her vote. The policies or attitudes of various political parties toward China are indeed an important factor, but she will also consider their other policies, and even the ability of candidates in her electoral district and the closeness of interaction with the community. Affected her voting decision.
Ms. D said: “If politicians emphasize their differences and confrontation with China too much, they will inevitably intensify the social rejection of the Chinese. Most ordinary people will not carefully distinguish the representatives of the Chinese government, the Chinese people, and those who have become Canadians. Chinese, so this will definitely be detrimental to the situation of the Chinese.” She said, for example, that the indiscriminate calling of the new crown virus “Chinese virus” like Trump did has contributed to the hatred of Asians in North American society. .
Ms. D also said that in the case of disputes between the two governments, she hopes that politicians can at least emphasize to the people that this has nothing to do with Chinese residents in Canada, so as to avoid or alleviate possible conflicts between ethnic groups.
C Chen is engaged in Chinese medicine-related industries in most areas. He immigrated to Canada from Taiwan with his parents when he was young, but he still speaks fluent Mandarin. Chen said that he might vote for a “bad vote” this time (meaning to vote for someone who is not on the list of candidates or who is completely unlikely to be elected), because his most concern is how to deal with the epidemic and restore the economy as soon as possible. However, the policies put forward by the major political parties in this regard are far from satisfactory.
As for the policies of various political parties toward China, Chen said that it had limited influence on his voting decisions. He also pointed out that among the three major political parties’ platforms, only the Conservative Party specifically listed specific foreign policies. The Liberal Party’s expressions in this regard Very general, with only some “beautiful big talk”, but lack of specific strategies for some important current issues. This is also one of the reasons why he feels that the programs of each party have their own strengths but are generally dissatisfied. Chen believes that while the Canadian government is tough on the Chinese government, it is entirely possible to have a friendly and welcoming attitude towards Chinese people, including new immigrants from mainland China. The two are not contradictory.
When asked if he hoped that the Canadian ruling party would develop closer relations with Taiwan, Chen said: “If Canada has to choose between Taiwan and China, it is completely understandable for Canada to choose China. The influence and status in the world are not as important as that of mainland China.” In short, he is more concerned about whether the ruling party’s decision is in the interests of Canada. “After all, we are here (Canada),” Chen said.
Like Ms. D, Xiao H is also a generation of immigrants from mainland China. She is a staunch supporter of the Conservative Party, because the economic policy of the Conservative Party is more in line with her ideas. Xiao H does not agree with the Conservative Party’s anti-China statement. She pointed out that Harper of the Conservative Party reached an agreement with China to issue multiple visas for ten years during his administration, giving nationals of both sides, especially Chinese Canadians and their relatives in China, exchange visits This is a huge convenience; and Trudeau of the Liberal Party has been in power for six years. Not only did he fail to reach any cooperation agreement with China that brought convenience to the two peoples, but the relationship between Canada and China fell to a freezing point during his tenure.
Xiao H said: “I don’t care how tough or good the politicians are against China. I only look at the tangible results.” Xiao H, a licensed immigration consultant, has a first-hand experience of this. Although the Trudeau government has shown that it particularly welcomes refugees and immigrants, it lacks foresight and overall planning in the formulation and implementation of specific policies. Moreover, the federal government has a huge civil service system, low efficiency, and various problems. Many promises are ultimately Become a bad check and waste taxes in vain.
In 2018, Trudeau’s hasty remarks led to a large number of refugees crossing the U.S.-Canada border illegally, causing the collapse of the Canadian refugee reception and resettlement system. Since the beginning of the new crown epidemic, the speed of processing applications by the Immigration Department has become extremely slow. The situation in Afghanistan has recently undergone a sudden change, and many visa cases have encountered long delays.
This year, the visa of a client of Xiao H has been approved, but the student visa letter has not been received for a long time. When sending a letter to the Ministry of Immigration, the response is that unless the applicant is in a critical situation similar to Afghanistan or is in some other special circumstances, other inquiries will not be answered. “Visas have been approved, how much work does it take to send a letter of study visa?” Xiao H is very puzzled by the immigration department’s approach. She also shared information on exchanges with other ethnic colleagues including an Afghan immigration consultant .
The Afghan immigration consultant wrote in the email: “For a developed country like Canada, how difficult is it to process the applications of 3,000 Afghan refugees? The Canadian government has not made many special arrangements for Afghans at all, (Afghan situation) It’s just an excuse they made for their inefficiency.”
Although “pro-China” and “anti-China” are hot topics in many local Chinese media and WeChat official accounts in Canada, a fact that is rarely mentioned in these platforms is that the Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center) in recent years The results of public polls released show that 12 Western countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia, as well as people in Japan and South Korea, have repeatedly set new historical highs in their negative views of China. Last year, the proportion of people in the United States and Canada who had a negative view of China reached 73%.
This also explains why even though foreign policy or China policy is not on the list of general election issues that the Americans and Canadians are concerned about, candidates from Trump to O’Toole still use China to attract voters’ attention. Under such circumstances, it is unrealistic for the Chinese to expect a certain party to be “pro-China”, and it is even more naive to use “pro-China” and “anti-China” to simply distinguish between parties. For any party that wants to gain a ruling position, 73% is a figure of public opinion that cannot be ignored. The reality after the U.S. election also proves that although the Biden administration is not as keen to fight with China as Trump, it has completely continued the direction of the Trump administration’s confrontation and competition with China in terms of its specific China policy. Even more strategic.
In addition, according to people familiar with the matter, the reason why the Trudeau government has not followed other Five Eyes countries to officially announce that Huawei is banned from participating in 5G construction is not because many people think that the Liberal Party is “pro-China”, but because Harper in 2012 The government and China signed the “Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.” Subject to the agreement, if the federal government publicly bans Huawei, it will face huge legal risks.
However, a fact that may be a little gratifying to Chinese Canadians is that although the political relationship between Canada and China has fallen into a deep valley, economic and trade exchanges have shown an unstoppable development trend. A research report released by the Chinese Research Institute of the University of Alberta earlier this year showed that in 2020, in the context of a decline in Canadian global trade due to the epidemic, exports to China have bucked the trend and increased by 8.1%, and imports have also risen. 1.9%. In the future, economic and trade exchanges between the two countries may still be affected by political relations and fluctuate, but decoupling is not the only possibility and inevitable result.
In the self-media article mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are actually a lot of misinformation caused by random translation. For example, “stand up to China” in O’Toole’s original words is translated as “committed to confrontation with China.” There is a big difference in connotation between the resistance or counterattack that organizations stand up to defend their own interests when they are treated unfairly. Such a mistranslation is not helpful for easing the relations between the two countries, and will only incite hostility. The author does not intend to defend O’Toole’s attitude towards China. I just want to point out that for Chinese voters, regardless of whether they have a strong China complex or not, it is important to make a voting decision that suits their own interests based on accurate and reliable information, not Voting impulsively under the misleading of some articles aimed at blogging.
(Note: This article only represents the author’s personal views. Editor-in-charge email [email protected])