US, Canada will cooperate to ‘better compete’ with China, Joe Biden says after first bilateral meeting

Neighbours will work to counter threats to ‘interests and values’, US president says as he pursues multilateral means to hold Beijing accountable
Biden vows to help free Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, detained by China, saying ‘human beings are not bartering chips’

Joe Biden

Owen Churchillin United States

Published: 11:32am, 24 Feb 2021

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The United States and Canada will work together to “better compete” with China and counter threats to the two countries’ “interests and values”, US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, following a virtual meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Biden White House’s first bilateral meeting with a foreign leader, Tuesday’s conference took place amid efforts by the new administration to rally a multilateral pressure campaign against Beijing, and an ongoing dispute between Ottawa and Beijing over the fate of two detained Canadians arrested in China more than two years ago.

“It was an opportunity for Prime Minister Trudeau and I to explore our bilateral partnership to reinforce and help drive issues of concern in our hemisphere and globally,” Biden said of the meeting. “That includes coordinating our approaches to better compete with China and to counter threats to our interests and values.”

Biden also called for the release of the two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who have been detained since December 2018 and denied access to their families and consular support for much of that time.

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Kovrig and Spavor, who have yet to face trial for charges of endangering national security, were arrested just days after Meng Wanzhou, an executive of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Co., was held by Canadian authorities at the request of the US.

“Human beings are not bartering chips,” Biden said of Spavor and Kovrig. “We’re going to work together until we get their safe return.”

Speaking in French, Trudeau thanked Biden for his support in seeking an end to the pair’s “arbitrary detention”.

In the wake of a Wall Street Journal report that Trump’s justice department had considered an agreement in which Meng would be allowed to return to China in exchange for admitting wrongdoing, the Biden administration has faced questions as to whether it would pursue a similar deal.

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Politico on Tuesday quoted an unnamed administration official as saying: “One of the things that has changed significantly since January 20 is the White House is not going to be meddling in justice department matters.”

Tuesday’s meeting was held at a time of mounting international scrutiny of the Chinese government’s actions and policies in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and pledges by the Biden administration to hold Beijing accountable by banding together with like-minded nations.

The US and Canada would “stand together against the abuse of universal rights and democratic freedoms”, Biden said, without naming Xinjiang.

Yet Tuesday’s meeting came a day after Trudeau and his cabinet abstained from a House of Commons vote to declare China’s actions in Xinjiang genocide. Trudeau had last week called “genocide” an “extremely loaded” word and said that the government needed to “ensure that all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed before a determination like that is made”.

In contrast, the Biden administration has embraced an official determination made by the Trump state department in January that the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang constituted genocide and “crimes against humanity”.

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Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden’s newly confirmed ambassador to the United Nations, told senators last month that the Trump administration’s determination was under a procedural review but that she agreed with it in substance. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also expressed agreement with the designation.

Asked of any plans the Biden administration had to achieve alignment between Washington and Ottawa on the genocide determination, state department spokesman Ned Price said earlier on Tuesday that there were “different processes within different capitals”, declining to weigh in on any other government’s efforts “to define or even evaluate what has gone on [in Xinjiang]”.

But Price added that the US administration would seek to challenge Beijing on its human rights record in coordination with allies, rather than doing so unilaterally, a defining tenet of the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

“I’m sure we’ll be speaking a lot more about the ways in which we will seek to bring those partners along, not only to highlight the abuses and the outrages that have taken place in places like Xinjiang, but … to seek to change behaviour on the part of Beijing,” Price said at a state department briefing.

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Beijing has rejected any international criticism of its actions and policies in Xinjiang, where, according to United Nations estimates, up to 1 million Uygurs and members of other ethnic minority groups have been forcibly detained and subject to political indoctrination.

Addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “sensational claims” of genocide, forced labour and religious oppression were “rooted in ignorance, prejudice and purely slanderous political hype”.

Additional reporting by Robert Delaney