bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2022), pp. 20–25
ALLAN ROCK IS MANY THINGS: a former Canadian justice minister, a former Canadian health minister, a university president, a law professor, and a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations mission in New York City. Rock’s United Nations job meant that he was something else that in 2018 became extremely significant: he was Michael Kovrig’s former boss.
When Rock took over the UN mission from career diplomat Paul Heinbecker, he immediately noticed a low-level communications officer, Michael Kovrig. Rock found Kovrig to be extremely well-informed, “an interesting guy with a master’s degree from Columbia University in international affairs, possessed of a very active intellect, curious, and ambitious.” He quickly came to the conclusion that Kovrig was underemployed and began to use him for a variety of more challenging tasks at the mission. At one point, at the request of Canada’s ministry of foreign affairs, Rock went on a speaking tour of Canada to talk about Canada and the United Nations. He took Kovrig with him on this ten-day cross-country jaunt and developed a greater appreciation for his wry sense of humor and conversational skills.
When Rock left New York, the two men stayed in touch. Kovrig used Rock as a referee for a position with the International Crisis Group to which he had applied. Rock was happy to provide a very positive reference and was delighted when Kovrig landed the job.
With both a personal and professional interest in Kovrig’s welfare, Rock was anxious to do what he could to either have him released from Chinese prison or to have his living arrangements improved and, fortunately, he soon had an opportunity. In early November 2019, Rock led a delegation of former Canadian government officials, politicians, and academics to Chengdu, China for a below-the-radar meeting with Chinese officials. Ostensibly, the gathering was to discuss the future of Sino-Canadian relations, part of a polite, well-oiled “track two” dialogue that had been set in place prior to those bilateral relations breaking down in 2018. Rock felt strongly that he also had a chance to improve the fortunes of the Two Michaels.
The meeting had been organized by Gordon Houlden, head of the China Institute at the University of Alberta (CIUA). A soft-spoken, bespectacled former diplomat who speaks Mandarin, Houlden had spent much of his professional career working on China, including his efforts two decades earlier in organizing the first human rights dialogue between Ottawa and Beijing under the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien. He had held postings in both Hong Kong and Beijing, and also served as executive director (an ambassadorial-equivalent position) of the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei. Prior to joining the University of Alberta in 2008, Houlden was Director General of the East Asian Bureau, which was responsible for Canada’s relations with China and neighbouring countries, in what was then called the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, since renamed Global Affairs Canada.
As head of China Institute, Houlden has continued to promote Sino-Canadian relations. As he remarked on his retirement as director of the centre in 2021, “My goal, in line with the original mandate of the China Institute, has been to use the China Institute to increase Canadian understanding of China, and to build a think tank which would enhance better understanding of China, and what China will mean for Canada in this 21st century.”
The rest of the delegation was a who’s who of the Canadian foreign policy and political establishments, and one that straddled party lines. Apart from Rock, who had recently stepped down as president of the University of Ottawa, his job after serving as ambassador to the UN, it included the affable John Baird, who had held a variety of senior ministerial posts in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, including foreign minister; Ted Menzies, a former Conservative MP from Alberta who was Harper’s junior finance minister; Phil Calvert, a former diplomat who had also served in China and also for four years as Canada’s ambassador concurrently to Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos; Rob Wright, a former Canadian ambassador to China; Len Edwards, who had held three deputy ministerial posts (foreign affairs, international trade and agriculture) in the Canadian government and had also been Canada’s ambassador to South Korea and Japan; and Yves Tiberghien, a career academic and the former head of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. The members of the group unanimously saw merit in having an “informal dialogue” with the Chinese to advance the Canadian position on Meng and to address the situation of the Two Michaels. As Wright testified a few weeks later at the House of Commons special committee on Canada-China relations: “To the extent that we can influence the government of China on their form of detention, we [should] do so. What’s the best way to deal with this? My own view is that little is achieved by shouting publicly, loudly, at the Chinese on these issues.” Based on his own experience in China, Wright said, “headlines on the front pages of newspapers about Chinese actions and about the fact that Canadians were detained in Chinese prisons didn’t help resolve the issue. What helped was deliberate, ongoing, diplomatic contact with Chinese officials, working with them to ensure that Canadian citizens were treated fairly, that we had access to them, and that they were given a fair hearing under Chinese law to the extent possible.”
The Chinese government chose to host the meeting at the luxurious Six Senses resort near the city of Chengdu, coincidentally the birthplace of Meng Wanzhou, in Sichuan province. The resort advertises itself as a place where you can reconnect with your six senses because “in this world of disconnection, reconnection doesn’t happen on its own. You have to define how you want to connect.” It was an ironic piece of sloganeering, given the context of the meeting that was about to unfold. The hotel’s vast complex of villas, courtyards, gardens, and main facilities sits at the base of Qing Cheng Mountain and the nearby Dujiangyan irrigation system, which was built in the third-century BC and still controls the waters of the Minjiang River. The region is also famous for being the home of the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhang Ling, founder of Taoism, and for its hot and spicy food. If the Chinese government was sending some sort of signal with their choice of venues, it was lost on the Canadians, who were unaware of Meng’s association with Chengdu.
The members of the Canadian delegation took separate flights to Chengdu via Beijing. They met at a Chengdu hotel and had breakfast together in a private area off the hotel’s main dining room before boarding a bus for the two-hour ride to the Six Senses resort. They discussed for the first time what they regarded as their central purpose and the principal message they would convey to the Chinese. There was anything but unanimity about the way forward. Some members of the group felt that Canada had to cut Meng loose, otherwise there was no way to get the Two Michaels back. Others said wait a minute, you can’t give in to a bully, and you can’t set a precedent that would endanger the lives of Canadians around the world and give would-be hostage-takers the wrong message. The discussion continued on the bus ride.
After arriving at the resort around noon and checking into their comfortable accommodations, some members of the group spent the next several hours meandering along the mountain trails near the resort. Small temples were visible to them on the surrounding slopes and hills, which were shrouded in a cloudy mist.
At dinner, the group agreed to meet again, early in the morning. Over breakfast, it was agreed that Rock would serve as group leader and deliver the opening statement, which had been drafted and reviewed over breakfast. But as they were walking from the breakfast room to the meeting room, Rock turned to the group and said, “you know guys, I don’t think I can sit there and read this because it’s too formulaic. I will use this as a basis for speaking but won’t recite chapter and verse.” The group agreed. It was cool and wet outside as the Canadians made their way through the labyrinthian hotel complex to the meeting room.
The Chinese delegation was led by Wang Chao, president of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPFIA), and included a number of former military and diplomatic officials, notably Zhang Junsai, who had been China’s ambassador to Canada and had just retired from the prestigious job of director general of the administration of Diaoyutai State Guesthouse from 2014 to 2019, and Jiang Shan, who had been minister counsellor (economic) at the Chinese embassy in Ottawa from 2007 to 2013. The talkative Jiang was well-liked, and viewed as having done a superb job promoting economic ties between the two countries.
After their introductions, Wang got down to business. His main subject was Meng and the Two Michaels. He brought a chill to the room by blasting Canada for being a lackey of the United States. He said that Meng’s business interests were legitimate and that she’d done nothing wrong. Canada, he said, was unlawfully detaining Meng, the court process was unmeritorious, and she should be sent home immediately. How could Canada do such a thing to such a nice woman? he asked.
Wang stressed that there was no connection between Meng and the Two Michaels. As far as the Chinese were concerned, the Two Michaels had been engaged in espionage activities, which was why they were arrested. It was a refrain that other members of the Chinese delegation would repeat.
Edwards said it wasn’t easy listening to this half-hour lecture from the Chinese, given how the Canadian delegation felt. “We got the full force of the Chinese position,” he said. “The whole environment before Allan came in had turned extremely cold.”
Now it was Rock’s turn. Given how the meeting was unfolding, it was clear Rock was the right choice to take the lead. Anyone who had seen him in action knew that there would be nothing casual or off-the-cuff about his delivery. A skilled lawyer, Rock is a careful master of his brief and attentive to detail. He leaned in over the boardroom table and, though jetlagged, carefully set out for the stern-faced Chinese officials the Canadian government’s position. He explained that Canada’s actions were dictated by its obligations under international law. Canada was complying with a request from a treaty partner to extradite someone who had been charged under US law and that had triggered the judicial process, which was now underway. He pointed out that Meng was free on bail, living in comfortable accommodations, and enjoying access to highly sophisticated and experienced legal counsel. He said that she was appea an open courtroom, where she had the opportunity to make every representation available to her in Canadian law in full public view. Rock explained that an impartial independent judge would evaluate the merits of the case and that only if the statutory test was met would she be committed for extradition. After that, it was up to Canada’s minister of justice to determine in the ministerial phase of the process whether to surrender her for extradition. All of this, Rock underscored, was being done in accordance with the law.
Rock then pivoted to the situation of the Two Michaels. He reproached the Chinese for the inhumane conditions in which the Canadian detainees were being held, which stood in stark contrast to those of Meng. They were prisoners, he said, with no opportunity for bail or freedom pending the disposition of whatever complaint the Chinese had against them. He then politely but firmly reprimanded the Chinese for denying the Two Michaels proper legal counsel and for not informing them about the particulars of the Chinese government’s complaint and justification for holding them. Their detention was indeterminate, he underlined, and they had no idea if or when they would be allowed to leave or under what circumstances. Rock implored his Chinese hosts to bring to bear whatever influence they could, as distinguished current or former members of the Chinese government, to improve the living conditions of Canada’s detainees which, he emphasized, were unacceptable and “unworthy of the great people of this nation.” As for Canada, he concluded, it would pursue what the Canadian government believed were its legal obligations under the rule of law because Canada, he underlined, is a nation that abides the rule of law.
After Rock finished speaking, Baird passed him a handwritten note. While in politics, Baird presented as a partisan pit bull, but behind the scenes he worked hard to build consensus across party lines on sensitive international issues. This was hardly his first non-partisan international foray: he had taken NDP and Liberal critics with him to Iraq in 2014 and featured them prominently in talks with the Iraqis. He wanted to do the same when he visited Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2014, but Prime Minister Harper shot down the idea, not wanting the opposition to share the spotlight. Baird also travelled to Ethiopia in 2010 to lobby for an imprisoned constituent, so he was no stranger to fighting for political prisoners in tense international meetings. “Hell has frozen over. I agree with you entirely,” said the note. The gesture drew a quiet chuckle from Rock, a perfect illustration of the aphorism that “politics stops at the water’s edge.”
The Chinese were implacable in response to Rock’s presentation. They claimed that the Two Michaels were being held in the same conditions as all other prisoners, which Rock said amounted to “the same old bullshit.” But they had also done their legal homework on Canada’s extradition law. Rock had argued that when it came to the proceedings in the British Columbia Supreme Court, the government’s hands were tied, that Canada had a process and was following it in good faith under the rule of law. The Chinese hit back with section 23(3) of Canada’s Extradition Act, which gives the minister of justice the authority “at any time [to] withdraw the authority to proceed and, if the minister does so, the court shall discharge the person and set aside any order made respecting their judicial interim release or detention.” As Rock recalled, the Chinese in effect said, “the minister of justice can, at any time, pull the plug on this damn thing, so don’t try to tell us that you’re stuck pursuing this, unquestioningly, to the bitter end. We’re reading from your own legislation.”
The Canadians were ready for the Chinese to exploit that inherent loophole in the government’s argument. Rock parroted the line from the Department of Justice, that the section of the legislation the Chinese had cited was not necessarily intended for this kind of case. It would be an extremely rare circumstance in which the minister would prematurely halt any such proceeding.
As Rock confessed privately sometime later, it was “a non-satisfactory response” and “somewhat ironic.” In later months, he and former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour would adopt that argument themselves in an effort to free the Two Michaels. They put it to the federal government in no uncertain terms that although it could cite the rule of law to justify its unquestioning and unswerving decision to allow the continuation of the Meng proceeding, the rule of law also includes Section 23. “I spent twenty years arguing cases in court. And I certainly know that sometimes you argue cases you don’t believe in,” Rock says. “Sometimes you argue a case and put the best face you can on it, knowing that it’s got weaknesses, feeling your heart sink when the other side identifies those weaknesses, trying your best to respond. But knowing that they’ve got a very good point.” That was how he felt about Section 23.
The rest of the morning was spent alternating from one side to the other, allowing everyone an opportunity to offer views. Baird reinforced many of Rock’s arguments. Ted Menzies, whose principal preoccupation was trade relations, spoke forcefully, drawing on his experience in Asia and in government, talking about the considerations facing the government of Canada and how to manage them.
The two sides broke for lunch, and when they returned expanded the conversation to the broader aspects of the Sino-Canadian relationship, including economic relations, people-to-people ties, health, and human rights. Both sides expressed a desire to return to a position where there was a constructive relationship between the countries because both had much to gain. Edwards said the tone became noticeably warmer. He started noticing some positive signals during informal conversations with the Chinese delegation away from the formal talks. While the formal Chinese position was that Meng’s case was in no way connected with their prosecution of the Two Michaels, Edwards was beginning to get the impression that China saw a much closer connection between the cases. “We had not heard that before. And when we picked it up in the corridor and dinner discussions, despite what was being said, in a formal meeting, about no connection and so forth, the Chinese were ready to talk to us on the basis of a connection. They were ready to talk about the situation of the Michaels if we were prepared to drop our proceedings.”
Rock said the Chinese recognized the strength and potential political clout of the Canadian delegation. It had seasoned ex-diplomats who knew China, three former cabinet ministers from the country’s two main political parties. “We had people very knowledgeable about China. And so, I think they regarded us as a potential source of hope that there might be some influence brought to bear on the government of Canada to bring this episode to an end.”
The next day, the Chinese delegation played tour guide for their Canadian visitors. They visited panda bears at a local zoo and took a tour of a water conservation project. Edwards interpreted the hospitality and the new “friendliness” of the Chinese delegation as “part of the signaling that things could be put right” between the two countries.
Something very concrete was also “put right” that day: the Chinese lifted their ban on Canadian pork. Edwards couldn’t say for sure whether it had anything to do with how the previous day’s talks had gone. Was it a sign from the Chinese that progress was possible or was it simply a coincidence? Either way, it buoyed the spirits of the Canadian delegation as they departed Chengdu and made their way back to Beijing for the final leg of their journey. “We were anxious to take credit for the lifting of the pork embargo. But then we realized that, at that time, we were on the verge of the Chinese New Year,” Edwards recalls. That meant family get-togethers and festive dining. “Pork is so central to the Chinese diet,” Edwards said. “There was a shortage of domestic pork because of the disease that afflicted their herds.”
When the group returned to Beijing, it met with Lu Kang, the North American chief for the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs. The Canadians continued to communicate the message that the tit-for-tat reaction to detention of Meng Wanzhou was a miscalculation. As Houlden later remarked, they “did not see movement in the Chinese formal position,” but he hoped that his hosts came away from the meetings with “a better understanding of the Canadian position.”
When the group reassembled after meeting Lu at the Canadian embassy in Beijing, it came to the consensus that it was time to bring the Canadian legal proceedings to an end, not least because the Meng case had become so politicized with President Trump treating her as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations. Some members of the group felt that the Chinese were quietly signalling that they, too, would like to put the case behind them. The Canadians worked on a script that would be shared in a call with ambassador Dominic Barton, who was in Canada for consultations with his government and had no opportunity to meet directly in Beijing. Rock was tasked to make the call with Barton, which took place in the padded “secure” room in the bowels of the embassy, out of earshot of any hidden Chinese listening devices.
Praise for The Two Michaels
The Two Michaels is a timely and highly-readable book — a gripping human drama that also tells a bigger story about the fast-changing world of international diplomacy, superpower rivalry, and the struggle to secure the Internet.
— Madeleine Albright
former US Secretary of State
The Two Michaels reads like a gripping spy novel, but it’s a true story. This is a chilling and convincing
analysis of how two innocent Canadians became pawns of a bullying state that refuses to follow the rules essential for smaller countries like Canada.
— John English, OC, FRSC
biographer of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Lester B. Pearson, and former Liberal Member of Parliament
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2022), pp. 20–25. Read the rest of this issue →
