Harper's China meeting back on

The Chinese government signalled at the eleventh hour that its president would meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, another pivot in the awkward tango between the two countries over setting up a tete-a-tete.

The news that President Hu Jintao was planning on a bilateral meeting reached Harper as he arrived Thursday evening in Hanoi with wife Laureen. His officials were caught off-guard by the overture — they had been told before leaving for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that China had declined to meet with Harper.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news conference today that Hu would meet Harper. But she added that China rejects any criticism of its human-rights situation.

"We oppose any country making irresponsible remarks on the internal affairs of China," Jiang said.

A spokesman for Harper said there had been no confirmation of the meeting, but that the Canadian government was "open to meeting with the Chinese government like we said in the beginning."

Chinese officials also denied that they had ever withdrawn an offer to meet with Harper. That version of events was at odds with what Harper himself recounted to reporters on his way to Hanoi. He said officials had been told that China had withdrawn an offer to meet with him, with no reasons given, although Harper suggested it was because he had made it clear that human rights would be on the table.

"I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide, and we do that, but I don't think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights," Harper said.

"They don't want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar," he said. "There's always a balance to these things."

Harper specifically wants to raise the case of Huseyincan Celil, a Chinese-Canadian sentenced to 15 years in prison on terror charges. China has not recognized his Canadian citizenship, and Celil's family says as a Muslim he is the victim of religious persecution.

The relationship between Harper's Conservative government and Beijing has so far been uneasy. Harper is not known for his subtlety on foreign policy matters, preferring a tell-it-like-it-is approach on everything from the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict to acknowledging the Armenian genocide.

Since the Tories took power, they have rubbed the Chinese the wrong way on a number of fronts, including the bestowal of honourary citizenship on Tibet's exiled Dalai Lama and public admonitions of Chinese commercial espionage in Canada.

China Declines APEC Meeting With Canada

Associated Press

Wed Nov 15

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