Friday, July 22, 2005

Foreign policy contradictions

Via Rabble, This Magazine has a rundown of Canada's allegedly two-faced foreign policy:
Situation: Vietnam War
What we said: Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson publicly called for a pause in bombing and a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam War.
What we did: The Canadian military participated in the conflict and also profited by supplying US forces with a range of lethal and non-lethal supplies, from boots and bombs to berets and Agent Orange.

The analysis is simplistic (as would tend to be the case given a ratio of two sentences per foreign policy issue), but the concept is one worth considering in more detail.

The most significant problem with the article is that it makes no distinction between government policy and private actors. In some cases such as Vietnam and Iraq, the hypocrisy was genuinely within the government itself; the same is probably true for South Africa where the calls for a boycott weren't backed by policy.

That said, there's no inherent contradiction in seeking to change a state's human rights record while at the same time allowing (or even encouraging) trade - particularly where the effect of that trade is to open up the society to at least some degree, which is a possibility in at least some circumstances.

Of course we shouldn't be looking to boost trade where the effect will be to prop up apartheid-type regimes or to fuel a civil war - and the article is able to mention a few such cases. But we should be aware of the potential for freer trade to bring with it a freer flow of ideas, and seek out opportunities to encourage both, through both our government and our private sector.

No comments:

Post a Comment