bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2022), pp. 38–39
BY FEN OSLER HAMPSON AND
MIKE BLANCHFIELD
SUTHERLAND HOUSE, 2021, 275
pp, $25
ISBN 1989555543
WHAT HAPPENED IN FRONT OF CAMERAS, in courtrooms, behind closed doors and behind bars during the extradition hearings of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, British Columbia, is part of a vast story of geopolitical proportions. Most history books might not put two non-celebrities at the centre of its re-telling. Yet hostage diplomacy makes the geopolitical personal. With The Two Michaels: Innocent Canadian captives and high stakes espionage in the US-China cyber war, authors Mike Blanchfield and Fen Osler Hampson have written an important new book about two human beings — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — who suffered the misfortune of getting stomped on by giants, and about the many individuals who were determined to help them.
Longtime international affairs correspondent for Canadian Press Mike Blanchfield and academic and President of the World Refugee & Migration Council Fen Osler Hampson co-authored the slim volume of 259 pages published by Sutherland Press (Toronto) in 2021. Blanchfield benefited from the support of The Donner Foundation, which allowed him to devote himself to a project that the authors call their “letter” to the Michaels, a book the authors hope will provide the former prisoners with “insight into the broad geopolitical reasons behind their imprisonment and learn what so many were doing to win their freedom.”
Pulling together clearheaded descriptions of those many quests, of the daunting security, and equally sobering trade realities in which their actions played out, the finer points of complex high technologies and case law as well as ceaseless PR spin, The Two Michaels is a fast-paced yet thorough rendition of the events and personalities. It adds a solid layer to the Canadian historical record about an ongoing tale of international espionage and global high tech competition. If you want to know what happened, this fast-paced book will tell you and will let you make up your own mind about whether the parties involved behaved correctly.
Canadian citizens Kovrig and Spavor were imprisoned in China (and later charged with espionage) in December 2018, days after the arrest of Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver by Canada at the request of the United States. Accusing Meng of fraud and of doing business for Huawei in Iran against US sanctions, the USA asked Canada to arrest Meng under a bilateral extradition treaty. They expected Meng to be moved down South to stand trial. Instead, the BC Court’s extradition hearings, normally a quick process allowing a judge to okay or deny extradition, dragged on for years, while “rightly or wrongly, lawyers on the opposing sides of Courtroom 55 frequently created the impression that they were fighting criminal charges against Meng and Huawei in British Columbia courts …”
All three remained in custody over more than 1,000 days, though under wildly different conditions, which the authors describe in careful detail. Guess who got the ankle bracelet and the mansion; guess whose toilet was a hole in the floor.
Denying that the cases were linked, Canada and China were at loggerheads, each insisting on the release of their citizens. Meanwhile, the USA continued to pressure other countries to exclude Huawei from the development of their 5G networks, while China negotiated trade deals with numerous countries, including in telecommunications, where Huawei is a global leader.
During the course of the Meng hearings much trust was lost, east-west relations strained, plans for cooperation in any number of areas were trashed while other deals hung in the balance, as one by one dozens of countries were pulled into the orbit of what Blanchfield and Hampson call the “new Cold War rivalry between the United States and China.” And an ugly layer of COVID-19 lay stickily over everything.
I am making complex topics simple in a manner never employed by these two deft authors who do an outstanding job of illustrating the unique pressures and precedents that weighed on individuals. Prime Minister Trudeau, shadowed by the SNC Lavalin affair, for one. Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s memories of the Cold War for another. Just some of many examples of Blanchfield and Hampson’s highly-compelling and well-rounded personality profiles that rely on hundreds of news reports as well as their own new interviews with high level officials, politicians, and other heavy hitters, bringing to vivid life in a few short paragraphs these many Canadian and American actors.
The depth of portraiture ends at the West, perhaps predictably. The authors take great effort to provide readers with detailed understanding of Chinese perspectives and strategies, yet the personalities themselves remain as if through a veil. Meng’s own personality is described as “quiet and modest” in a bland affidavit by a Vancouver neighbour in a chapter called “Who is Meng Wanzhou?”, to which are added her family lineage, CV items and awards, and an exhaustive listing of her electronics, clothing, and water bottle colour choices. I missed explanations for this, as well as to why neither of the Michaels were interviewed or why statements about Chinese government actions and views are at times footnoted with Western news sources.
An updated version of this book could benefit from an introductory chapter explaining the authors’ methodologies and the challenges to their research, along with more time spent elaborating their views of the entire affair. The narrative winds up quickly and with the cautionary note that, [w]hatever path the Trudeau government takes, it will have to tread carefully and look out for Canada’s national interests while avoiding another turn as a pawn in the struggle for geopolitical supremacy between China and the United States. That is the crucial lesson of the saga of the Two Michaels.
I closed The Two Michaels thoroughly informed about not only the events and the actors involved during the imprisonment of Kovrig and Spavor, but also of the many interests and values at play in telecommunications trade- and security-related relations as well. As a Foreign Service Officer, it was particularly expanding to read about a number of new-to-me ways to approach complex bilateral confrontations.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2022), pp. 38–39. Read the rest of this issue →
