China-Canada clash between Xi and Trudeau reminds autocrats what the free world is like
China-Canada clash between Xi and Trudeau reminds autocrats what the free world is like.
We have seen more than a few awkward moments lately for the world’s more ambitious autocrats. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared large swaths of Eastern Ukraine annexed during an elaborate ceremony in Moscow. Days later his troops were roundly routed and forced into a long retreat. The prime minister of Vietnam got comically caught on a live feed, provided by none other than the U.S. Department of State, making disparaging remarks about the American president and his team. Then there were the reported leaks about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau taking China’s President Xi Jinping to task for alleged malicious meddling in his country’s elections.
What these leaders most detest, as evidenced by Xi’s videotaped temper tantrum with Trudeau, is transparency. We should be working hard to ensure they have to publicly face more of those inconvenient truths.
That episode exploded into the public arena on Thursday when the media pool captured Xi upbraiding Trudeau at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia for allegedly leaking to the press details of that private exchange, held on Tuesday. “Everything we discussed has been leaked to the paper. That’s not appropriate,” a smiling Xi said through a translator, according to the footage. “And that’s not the way the conversation was conducted.”
To his credit, Trudeau responded: “In Canada, we believe in free and open and frank dialogue, and that is what we will continue to have. We will continue to look to work constructively together, but there will be things we will disagree on.” Indeed, it’s standard operating procedure for democratic leaders to leak elements favorable to themselves to the press after meeting with foreign government officials.
Stepping out of their tightly controlled environments can be tough for these leaders. They cannot simply toss the journalists in jail, and their threats against Western nations are looking even more pathetically pyrrhic than usual. Leaders like Xi and Putin are starting to realize their limits, along with the liabilities that come with surrounding themselves with sycophants. Welcome to the free world.
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