On consistency

Word comes out this morning that Paul Martin spent time this weekend pitching exports to China:

Mr. Martin made his pitch to sell more softwood in China during weekend talks in Vancouver with Mr. Hu, who was finishing a 10-day visit to North America.

There was talk of improving human rights in China during the visit, but also a deep focus on increasing trade with the most populous country in the world.

“We discussed softwood lumber, in terms of the ability for Canada to increase its exports of softwood lumber to China,” Mr. Martin said after the meeting.“We obviously discussed the strategic partnership which the Chinese announced that they wanted to have with us in a wide range of areas, from higher technologies to natural resources.”

All this is well and good, not to mention long overdue. But the interesting part to me is the reaction from the Cons:

The Conservative Party welcomed the government's efforts to help open the Chinese market to more softwood, saying that Opposition Leader Stephen Harper called last month for that exact approach.

But then, let's look at what Conservatives have done with regard to China over the last year. They've demanded an end to Canadian aid, on the basis that China's regime is "corrupt and abusive". They've also put forward a bill to grant greater recognition to Taiwan. And they've even tried to get Martin to cancel a planned trip to Beijing. Does anybody think that China would have been looking to make Canada a "strategic partner" if those views were seen as representing Canadian policy?

In fairness, NDP members have also taken a harder line than necessary at times, and that's an area where the party needs to make some choices as to whether it wants to take an internationalist focus. But at least the NDP isn't now trying to take credit for the idea of increasing trade with an obvious trade partner.

It's a plus that the Cons are on side in terms of trade with China. But it's tough to take the current claims seriously when they seem to run directly opposite to the party's usual position. And it'll take a lot more diplomacy, and a lot less anti-China rhetoric than usually displayed by the Cons, for trade with China to meaningfully reduce our dependency on our neighbours to the south.