China has given the United States a choice, saying it can no longer have its cake and eat it too: If the US wants China's support on important issues, both domestic and international, then it needs to stop treating China as a presumptive or imaginary enemy. And if the US wants to treat China as a presumptive or imaginary enemy, it should not indulge in fantasies that China has a split personality that allows it to cooperate with the US as it sees fit while tolerating its whims.

Beijing has made it clear that it is not, and does not want to be, an enemy of Washington. But if the US wants to treat China as an enemy, China is fully prepared to deal with the US as it is, with all the consequences for both countries and for the world at large. The US can no longer expect to have the cake and eat it too. It has to pick and choose. China wants peace with the US, and abhors the twisted "destined for war" psyche in Washington.

Among other things, China wants Washington to remedy its mistakes. Specifically, Beijing has questioned Washington demanding the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, from Canada to the US. Up to now, China has mostly focused on Canada, demanding that the latter allow Meng to return home to China and stop serving as an accomplice of the US in the political persecution of Meng.

As a matter of fact, the US has thrown Canada under the bus in the so-called extradition case－and driven a wedge between China and Canada, turning both the countries into unwitting victims.

What Ottawa needs to be prepared for now that Beijing and Washington are better aware of each other's bottom lines is that they have greater incentive to talk with each other with greater realism and pragmatism. Neither side has any incentive to cross the red line of the other to trigger a great conflagration. Both sides have the incentive to identify in which fields they can trade with each other realistically, and where they need to demonstrate greater flexibility for mutual benefit.

The extradition of Meng to the US, whose strategic value for the US, if any, has long since evaporated, may become a bargaining chip for Washington which it is desperate to use in its overall dealings with China. This may leave Canada out in the cold, if not in deep freeze, even though fires are raging in many parts of western Canada.

The worst for Canada is to be exposed as lacking in independent thinking and being willingly or unwittingly used by the US as a foot soldier, wounded in all four limbs but abandoned when the US generals found it imperative to deal with the other large power directly for better deals.

Ever since December 2018, Canada has been talking about the rule of law in the Meng extradition case. However, in addition to the many loopholes in the case, the recent decision by Canada to deny admission of recently discovered evidence in legal proceedings involving HSBC－which would have significantly weakened if not destroyed the "financial fraud" claim in the US' extradition demand－is by now the only viable pillar upon which Canada is resting in continuing its legal proceedings on the forced extradition of Meng to the US.

While Canada is not the birthplace of boomerangs, it may suffer a direct hit by a legal one, as it now needs to defend why the legally discovered evidence is barred from Canada's extradition proceedings.

The rule of law? Or the rule of the law of political or geopolitical convenience? If Canada plays politics in its courts rather than genuinely adhering to the rule of law, other countries can reciprocate. And China and the US may decide to deal with each other directly in the Meng extradition case, leaving Canada in the cold with a big boomerang knot on its head.

The author is a chair professor at Soochow University, and vice-president of the Center for China and Globalization.

Source: chinausfocus.com

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