Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s brother, Alexandre Trudeau, who is due to testify in Ottawa today on foreign interference and the Trudeau Foundation, is a great admirer of modern-day China, to which he has made many journeys.
• Also read: Trudeau Foundation: Justin Trudeau’s brother will testify on Wednesday
In addition to his positions at the Trudeau Foundation, Alexandre Trudeau published a book (published in French under the title Un barbare en Chine nouvelle) in 2016 chronicling some of his experiences in China.
The book was reprinted in 2020 under the title In China.
Alexandre Trudeau paints an admiring portrait of China in more ways than one.
- Benoit Dutrizac and Mario Dumont discuss Trudeau’s interest in China in their meeting via QUB radio :
“What I’m pretty sure is that stupidly copying another country’s political regime wouldn’t do any better,” he wrote, specifically of the existing regime and in response to his Chinese translator, who tells him that he and despises fears the Communist Party.
The fact that the Hong Kong-based daily South China Morning Post is less and less critical of Beijing’s power doesn’t seem to bother him.
He pays tribute to the famous artist Ai Weiwei, but argues that China has never known democracy or individual rights. “I urge him to moderate his criticism of Chinese reality and consider results rather than principles,” he wrote.
“The CCP remains solid despite its shortcomings. There will be no revolution. Just a slow transformation,” he continues.
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Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s former ambassador to China, has read the book and finds it superficial in many ways.
According to the expert, one can ask oneself whether Alexandre Trudeau was instrumentalized by China.
“The Chinese have mastered the art of influencing people. […] Alexandre Trudeau was treated well when he went to China. […] I put that in the category of useful idiots,” he says.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had contact with the Chinese consulate. Especially after he wrote a book, the Chinese must want to praise him,” he explains.
- Hear crime and society chronicled with Félix Séguin, Journalist from the Quebecor Bureau of Investigation at the microphone by Richard Martineau via QUB radio :
Links between the Trudeau family and Chinese power go back a long way, according to the former ambassador. Pierre Elliott Trudeau is credited with enabling the country to restore international relations. He himself published a book with Senator Jacques Hébert about his trip to China at the time of Mao.
Alexandre Trudeau says he first visited China with his brother and father in 1990, just months after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
While his father had reservations, he could have convinced him himself.
AMAZING PASSAGES
“I still sometimes defend the party [communiste chinois]. I don’t think China would have come this far and so quickly without the unity and organizational power that was imposed on it.”
“Unbridled religious fervor has set fire to China and led to bloodshed on more than one occasion. The party’s strictness towards organized religion is therefore not exceptional.
“Basically, all states tend towards corporatism. Even democratic states make the political power of the individual increasingly illusory.
“I like to think that if I were Chinese, I would have demonstrated in public places and faced armored vehicles to defend my freedom. Still, I see the benefits that stability has brought to China since Tian’anmen.”
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