Nr. 14
EESTI ELU neljapäeval, 9. aprillil 2020 — Thursday, April 9, 2020
7
Opinion
How China weaponized its supply chain When the coronavirus emergency transitions to a post-COVID-19 economic order, securing the critical needs of Canadians, and the supply chains that meet them, will be an essential and historic undertaking operation that underpins them. China, for example, has steadily climbed the medical device In homes and hospitals across GVC as a result of their Madethe country, Canadians are in-China 2025 policy. One of now directly encountering the China’s goals is to transition existential threat that authori from being on the low-valuetarian forces pose to their added end to the high-valuelives. As leaders navigate pub added end of the GVC in 10 lic health and economic crises manufacturing sectors, includ caused by COVID-19, our ing medical devices. foreign policy establishment As a result, when faced with has opportunity to dispense such an immediate crisis, with ideological fantasies of Canada’s own supply chain was post-nationalism, and em disrupted by China’s shutdown, brace the reality that nations with grave consequences today are comprised of citizens, for our frontline health care borders and interests. workers. Damningly, while Pre Instead of pursuing genuine sident Xi Jinping tried to sup cooperation when confronted by press the pandemic brewing in the virus, authoritarian regimes Wuhan, his senior advisors con in Beijing, Tehran and Moscow spired to weaponize China’s facilitated its transmission by medical supply chain by drain concealing their failures, pro ing high-quality medical sup liferating disinformation about plies from Western sources, its source, and expending im flooding desperate ones with mense resources exploiting this bad equipment, and controlling crisis for their exclusive a global position in pharma economic advantage. They are ceutical manufacturing. This weaponizing medicine to ad represents a whole new uni vance their standing in the maginable concept for Canadian world order. foreign policy to contend with: The implications of this sub weaponized medicine. version of Canadian interests Dependence on China’s are immense, and place two supply chains extend beyond crucial objectives before our medical supply to several pro leaders. First, Canada must ducts integral to our survival. ensure that our vital supply With “China and India provid chains are not at the mercy of ing an estimated 80 per cent of non-democratic adversaries; and raw ingredients of the world’s second, we must deepen re drugs,” a full review is needed silience and cooperation among around the complex risks other democracies. China’s state-run economy poses, alongside mitigation At the very intersection of the present debate between glo measures to reorder these vital balization and nationalism, fea economic supply chains. There turing economic dislocation and will be opportunities for eco global disruption, are questions nomic self-reliance, in how around the critical supply much Canadians can produce chains that cross sovereign bor and manufacture alone. There ders. For decades, dictatorships will also remain the need for in China, Russia and Iran have secure supply chains, and those manipulated uncritical assess will need to preference the ments of their true nature, gain world’s democracies. ing leverage over nations made Tools are indeed available to vulnerable by the seduction of protect the Canadian market economic supply. Across the economy against those that seek free world, Holland, Spain, to upend it, including the Italy, Australia and others now Investment Canada Act. Matters contend with the threat of junk of critical infrastructure, both supplies masquerading as “aid” physical and digital, are mani from China, while public health fest in the national debate over systems are strained or over Huawei’s role in Canada’s 5G run. Canadians are contending network because of that Act, with precisely these same chal and establish important hurdles lenges. enshrined in law to secure the This pandemic is forcing our interests of Canadians. The leaders to prioritize the medical same needs to be applied when security of Canadians, compet it comes to the security of our ing for supplies with even our drugs and medical supplies. closest ally, the United States. As long as the critical needs When the immediate emergency of Canadians are dependent on transitions to a post-COVID-19 authoritarians, we remain at the economic order, understanding mercy of such regimes’ incom and securing the critical needs petence or, worse, malevolence. of Canadians, and the supply Difficult days are ahead as we chains that meet them, will be seek to understand the new an essential and historic under economic realities of the posttaking. COVID-19 world. Canadian national interests demand eco The coronavirus has high lighted the vulnerability that nomic independence from au global value chains (GVCs) thoritarians. Authoritarians have become present when non-democracies masters at subverting the post exploit the rule-of-law co
Marcus Kolga, Maclean’s, April 2020
war democratic order, while democracies have confused pluralism with moral relativism and equivocation. Canada should now take the lead in promoting a democratic national interest that boldly strengthens the bonds between new and estab lished democracies, and that builds resilience in vulnerable democracies. The Chinese government’s failures were aided by uncritical foils in Western media and apologists in international orga nizations. Chinese officials con tinue to aggressively promote false narratives about its ori gins, ridiculously propagating the myth that COVID-19 is an American biological weapon. Iran’s regime, too, played a role in the growth of the epidemic in Canada. After Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei directed the Iranian regime to cover up the outbreak for domestic political reasons and refused to quaran tine the population, COVID-19positive Iranians began to arrive in Canada in late February. And earlier this month, the European Union warned that Russian dis information about COVID-19 was putting lives at risk, while accusing Vladimir Putin’s regime of “playing with people’s lives.” In addition to sup pressing information about the virus’s spread in Russia, state media platform Sputnik also promoted false narratives about the origins of coronavirus, speciously suggesting that it originated in Latvia, where Canada is leading NATO’s En hanced Forward Presence. These regimes reject respon sibility for their role in the global spread of the virus, unencumbered by domestic ac countability and obsessed with repression and lifetime rule. Rather, they have resorted to igniting obvious disinformation and misinformation about the pandemic, contributing to what can only be called an “info demic.” And now they seek to capitalize on the global chaos they have principally en gendered. China has been particularly brazen, using this opportunity to deepen its control and ma terial influence across UN agen cies, including the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and INTERPOL. The Iranian re gime, too, is taking advantage of this international emergency. Despite refusing medical help from Doctors Without Borders and the United States, it conti nues to pressure the international community for sanctions relief in the form of cash. If the past is any indication, it could use that relief to fund terrorist adventures abroad. Russia is e xploiting the pandemic and energy price war to further erode EU and NATO cohesion
Workers sort out all the personal protective equipment (PPE) received from China at a warehouse in Valencia, Spain, on Mar. 25 2020. A total of 3,800,000 masks, 5,000 protective suits and 2,000,000 gloves arrived to Valencia region to equip hospitals and elderly homes. Photo: Juan Carlos Cardenas/EPA/CP
on sanctions levied against Putin regime officials and klep tocrats. Russia’s recent “aid” delivery to Italy – of which 80 per cent was discovered to be “useless” according to a recent report – was clearly part of what the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell identified as a “struggle for influence through spinning and the politics of generosity.” For all their machinations, these authoritarian regimes have a clear mission: disrupt demo cracies and disrupt their co operation. It is noteworthy that some of the democracies whose security is most imperilled by neighbouring authoritarianism (Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan) have been especially adept at delivering for their citizens unsentimental safety alongside successful democracy. Fortunately, established de mocracies have significant in stitutional resilience in the face of crises, balancing tensions between security and liberty. Even in Canada, this precarious balance demands vigilance. Where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed, Hungary’s Vik tor Orban succeeded, both pur suing a naked power grab in the midst of this crisis. This is of course not to say that democracies have acted perfectly in the face of the coro navirus pandemic. One need only look at Italy or the United States to realize that is not the case. However, our democratic allies have, in large part, been transparent about their chal lenges and have cooperated with Canada to limit the impact.
Conversely, our adversaries have been anything but helpful.
Nearly three quarters of reviewed teachers fail Estonian language exam
Keila and Pärnu and 38 kinder garten teachers in Tallinn, Maardu, Kallaste, Tartu, Must vee, Valga and Kolkja, it appears from Language Inspectorate data.
ERR, March 2020
The results of the initial re view revealed that of the 203 teachers, 143 did not meet the required level of Estonian language skills.
Last year, the Language Inspectorate reviewed the Estonian language skills of 203 teachers, 143, or 70 per cent, of whom did not have a sufficient command of the Estonian language. The inspectorate reviewed the language skills of 59 schoolteachers in Tallinn, Tartu, Kohtla-Järve, Jõhvi, Narva, Sillamäe, Paldiski, Kiviõli,
The lesson we should draw from this experience is that deepening democratic resilience, and forging stronger bonds with democratic allies, ought to be come central goals of our foreign policy. This cannot be accomplished by diminishing Canadian demo cratic convictions in pursuit of a seat at the UN Security Council (UNSC), a project which has occupied an outsized obsession of the foreign policy estab lishment. Simply put, there can be no consequential Canadian leader ship in such a role, es pecially in the aftermath of China’s farcical UNSC presi dency. For all the investment, expertise and diplomacy that has captivated Canadian leader ship around this project, it has distracted the country from guarding against the threat of emboldened authoritarians, and undermined our ability to ad vance the national interests of Canadians. As we rebuild, Canadians will rightly insist that a demo cratic and economic logic in form our interests in a world order where medicine is now weaponized. They would rightly insist that the supply chain decisions on essential matters provide for an independent Canada. And they would be right to insist that our leaders show resolve in standing with democratic allies against the world’s principal despots whose interests are so clearly in oppo sition to our own.
Language inspectors also checked on 605 school and kindergarten teachers who had already been ordered to take an Estonian language exam. Only 21 schoolteachers and 30 kin dergarten teachers had fulfilled the inspectorate’s orders.
