Justin Trudeau is ramping up Canada’s confrontational posture with China. In following Washington’s lead he’s once again playing a part in a script written by those who want to maintain a US empire that dominates the planet.
Recently CTV reported that “on numerous occasions” Chinese aircraft have intercepted a Canadian CP-140 Aurora patrolling near its territory. The long-range patrol plane was likely spying on China. When a similar incident was announced six months ago CBC reported, “Trudeau condemned the actions of China toward Canadian planes that were taking part in a multilateral UN mission over the Pacific Ocean to enforce sanctions against North Korea.”
Trudeau has repeatedly inferred that Canadian aircraft and naval vessels operating near China are part of a UN mission. Two weeks ago, Global News reported, “Trudeau also said that Canada will continue its role in a United Nations mission, called Operation Neon, to monitor sanctions on North Korea.”
But the UN has not approved a mission to enforce sanctions on North Korea. Beginning in 2006 the UN Security Council adopted sanctions on North Korea but never authorized any country to carry out military patrols in the region. Washington has claimed the responsibility to legitimize its vast military presence in South East Asia and Trudeau is misleading by suggesting that Canada’s contribution to the provocative efforts are part of a UN mission.
According to the military’s official description, “Operation NEON is Canada’s contribution to a coordinated multinational effort to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed against North Korea. The series of UN sanctions, imposed between 2006 and 2017, aim to pressure North Korea to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs and respond to North Korean nuclear weapon tests and ballistic missile launches.” Tellingly, Operation Neon began 13 years after the initial sanctions were adopted.
Canadian Forces part of Operation Neon operate out of the US base in Okinawa. As John Price and Satoko Oka Norimatsu noted in “Canada joins US in militarizing the Pacific”, the base is unpopular with locals and has contributed to dispossessing the indigenous Uchinanchu.
Operation NEON is mentioned twice in the government’s recently released Indo-Pacific Strategy. The policy paper calls China “an increasingly disruptive global power” engaged in “foreign interference and increasingly coercive treatment of other countries.” To counter China the Indo-Pacific Strategy says Canada will “augment its naval presence, including by increasing the number of frigates deployed on to the region where it will conduct forward naval presence operations.” In the strategy paper, half a billion dollars is allocated to bolstering Canada’s military and spy network in the region.
In a sign the military is preparing for conflict, two months ago the head of the Canadian military told Parliament China and Russia viewed themselves as at war with Canada. “Russia and China are not just looking at regime survival but regime expansion. They consider themselves to be at war with the West”, explained Wayne Eyre. Two weeks later Eyre suggested those countries might challenge Canada’s “tenuous” control over Inuit territory in the north. “In the decades to come, that threat, that tenuous hold that we have on our sovereignty, at the extremities of this nation, is going to come under increasing challenge.”
Of course, this is complete fiction. Russia seems barely capable of holding Ukrainian territory near its border. The notion that China could invade Canada is equally far-fetched. The USA and its allies have military bases encircling both China and Russia. Neither of those countries have bases encircling, or even near, us.
The Trudeau government is succumbing to pressures of the military and intelligence agencies, closely allied with their US counterparts, seeking conflict with China. In following Washington’s lead Prime Minister Trudeau is deceiving Canadians about the nature of this country’s provocative military operations.
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