TORIES RED BAIT TRUDEAU (WHOSE PARTY COLOUR IS RED)
Trudeaus agreed to father's book being published by Chinese Communist-run company in 2005
FIDEL CASTRO WAS A PALLBERARER AT HIS FUNERAL
Tom Blackwell 4 days ago
It turns out a 2016 edition of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s memoirs was not his family’s first foray into Chinese state-run book publishing.
It turns out a 2016 edition of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s memoirs was not his family’s first foray into Chinese state-run book publishing.
© Provided by National Post Pierre Trudeau and Jacques Hebert salute a monk in Buddhist fashion in China. From the book Two Innocents in Red China by Pierre Trudeau and Jacques Hebert.
In 2005, a Communist Party-affiliated company won the family’s approval — and a preface from brother Sacha Trudeau — for a Chinese-language edition of a book their father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, co-authored in the 1960s.
China experts differed Wednesday on why a publisher there would be interested in Two Innocents in Red China 50 years after the fact, suggesting it was either out of admiration for Pierre Trudeau — or to curry favour with his prominent sons.
Either way, said one scholar, it was likely subject to significant censorship.
Neither offspring had entered politics by 2005, but speculation had been bubbling since Pierre Trudeau’s death in 2000 that one of them would make the plunge. Justin Trudeau did three years later.
The offer to re-release the Two Innocents book by Pierre Trudeau and journalist-friend Jacques Hébert was likely an attempt to flatter two influential figures in Canadian affairs — an “insurance policy” in case one of them ran for office, says Guy Saint-Jacques, a former ambassador to Beijing.
“The approach is always the same: you make people feel special, you tell them they understand China and you pretend to give them special access,” he said. “Publishing books falls into that category because it gives face to the authors even if they cannot know for sure how many books are really sold.”
But a leading China specialist at the University of British Columbia said it’s doubtful the offer to translate and publish Pierre Trudeau’s 1960s book had anything to do with trying to influence the Trudeau sons.
It was more likely part of a common Chinese practice to issue versions of books on world leaders considered important or “empathetic” to China, said UBC Prof. Paul Evans. He said he’s seen tomes on Western heads of state from Angela Merkel to Margaret Thatcher in Chinese bookstores.
“(Pierre Trudeau) is the second best-known Canadian in China. The first is (doctor) Norman Bethune,” he said. “That they would want to publish his book in Chinese translation would not come to me as a surprise at all.”
In fact, the Canadian business world and many politicians were at that time eager to exploit the burgeoning Chinese market. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper made repeated, trade-focused trips to China after his election in 2006.
A more pertinent issue, said Evans, is the fact that almost all books published in China, whether by state-owned companies or not, are subject to censorship that has only grown more severe in recent years.
He said he pulled a recent book of his own after censors in China said they would excise any reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre, Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward or human rights generally — about a third of the volume.
“It’s a murky and risky prospect,” said the professor.
The Liberal campaign was unable to respond to a request for comment by deadline.
The general issue came to the fore recently with a report that a Chinese version of Justin Trudeau’s memoir had been released in 2016 by a state-controlled publisher. Security advisors to the prime minister at the time told The Globe and Mail they would have discouraged the translation but, regardless, were never informed about it.
A decade earlier, Two Innocents in Red China — which recounted the trip Trudeau senior and Hébert took to the country in 1960 — was published by the Shanghai People’s Publishing House.
An online description of the company, originally set up by the propaganda department of the Shanghai branch of the Communists, says it has been at the forefront of producing “party-building” books.
In a 2016 interview with the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC), Alexandre (Sacha) Trudeau said he had been approached by Chinese officials about reprinting his father’s book, and asked to write a preface for it.
He said he suggested visiting China before writing the introduction, and later the Chinese publisher encouraged him to pen his own book on his experiences. Sacha’s resulting title — Barbarian Lost — Travels in the new China — was published here in 2016 . A different publisher — not Shanghai People’s — released it in China in 2019.
The translation of Pierre Trudeau’s book was unlikely to have generated much if any income for the publisher after it paid for translation — and any advance fees the sons received, said Charles Burton, a former diplomat in Beijing and fellow with the Macdonald Laurier Institute.
“This kind of book by foreigners based on a short, carefully monitored tour of China do not sell well in the PRC as they are typically ridiculously misinformed and devoid of meaningful insight,” he said. “There are dozens of them gathering dust on state bookstore shelves all over China.”
Rather, the publishing deal would be designed to curry favour and “a sense of reciprocal obligation” with Justin Trudeau, Burton argued.
“This is highly consistent with the strategy and purposes of the Chinese Communist Party’s very well-resourced United Front Work Department.”
The Conservative Party — which has promised a tougher stance toward Beijing if elected — seized on the fact that Pierre Trudeau’s book was published in China 16 years ago as more evidence of a too-cozy relationship between the prime minister and the People’s Republic.
“It is extremely concerning that Justin Trudeau has been caught hiding a second secret book deal with the Chinese Communist Party,” said Tory candidate Michael Barrett. “If Justin Trudeau won’t tell Canadians about this secret relationship with the Chinese communists, how can Canadians trust him to stand up for Canadian interests when dealing with Beijing?”
In 2005, a Communist Party-affiliated company won the family’s approval — and a preface from brother Sacha Trudeau — for a Chinese-language edition of a book their father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, co-authored in the 1960s.
China experts differed Wednesday on why a publisher there would be interested in Two Innocents in Red China 50 years after the fact, suggesting it was either out of admiration for Pierre Trudeau — or to curry favour with his prominent sons.
Either way, said one scholar, it was likely subject to significant censorship.
Neither offspring had entered politics by 2005, but speculation had been bubbling since Pierre Trudeau’s death in 2000 that one of them would make the plunge. Justin Trudeau did three years later.
The offer to re-release the Two Innocents book by Pierre Trudeau and journalist-friend Jacques Hébert was likely an attempt to flatter two influential figures in Canadian affairs — an “insurance policy” in case one of them ran for office, says Guy Saint-Jacques, a former ambassador to Beijing.
“The approach is always the same: you make people feel special, you tell them they understand China and you pretend to give them special access,” he said. “Publishing books falls into that category because it gives face to the authors even if they cannot know for sure how many books are really sold.”
But a leading China specialist at the University of British Columbia said it’s doubtful the offer to translate and publish Pierre Trudeau’s 1960s book had anything to do with trying to influence the Trudeau sons.
It was more likely part of a common Chinese practice to issue versions of books on world leaders considered important or “empathetic” to China, said UBC Prof. Paul Evans. He said he’s seen tomes on Western heads of state from Angela Merkel to Margaret Thatcher in Chinese bookstores.
“(Pierre Trudeau) is the second best-known Canadian in China. The first is (doctor) Norman Bethune,” he said. “That they would want to publish his book in Chinese translation would not come to me as a surprise at all.”
In fact, the Canadian business world and many politicians were at that time eager to exploit the burgeoning Chinese market. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper made repeated, trade-focused trips to China after his election in 2006.
A more pertinent issue, said Evans, is the fact that almost all books published in China, whether by state-owned companies or not, are subject to censorship that has only grown more severe in recent years.
He said he pulled a recent book of his own after censors in China said they would excise any reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre, Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward or human rights generally — about a third of the volume.
“It’s a murky and risky prospect,” said the professor.
The Liberal campaign was unable to respond to a request for comment by deadline.
The general issue came to the fore recently with a report that a Chinese version of Justin Trudeau’s memoir had been released in 2016 by a state-controlled publisher. Security advisors to the prime minister at the time told The Globe and Mail they would have discouraged the translation but, regardless, were never informed about it.
A decade earlier, Two Innocents in Red China — which recounted the trip Trudeau senior and Hébert took to the country in 1960 — was published by the Shanghai People’s Publishing House.
An online description of the company, originally set up by the propaganda department of the Shanghai branch of the Communists, says it has been at the forefront of producing “party-building” books.
In a 2016 interview with the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC), Alexandre (Sacha) Trudeau said he had been approached by Chinese officials about reprinting his father’s book, and asked to write a preface for it.
He said he suggested visiting China before writing the introduction, and later the Chinese publisher encouraged him to pen his own book on his experiences. Sacha’s resulting title — Barbarian Lost — Travels in the new China — was published here in 2016 . A different publisher — not Shanghai People’s — released it in China in 2019.
The translation of Pierre Trudeau’s book was unlikely to have generated much if any income for the publisher after it paid for translation — and any advance fees the sons received, said Charles Burton, a former diplomat in Beijing and fellow with the Macdonald Laurier Institute.
“This kind of book by foreigners based on a short, carefully monitored tour of China do not sell well in the PRC as they are typically ridiculously misinformed and devoid of meaningful insight,” he said. “There are dozens of them gathering dust on state bookstore shelves all over China.”
Rather, the publishing deal would be designed to curry favour and “a sense of reciprocal obligation” with Justin Trudeau, Burton argued.
“This is highly consistent with the strategy and purposes of the Chinese Communist Party’s very well-resourced United Front Work Department.”
The Conservative Party — which has promised a tougher stance toward Beijing if elected — seized on the fact that Pierre Trudeau’s book was published in China 16 years ago as more evidence of a too-cozy relationship between the prime minister and the People’s Republic.
“It is extremely concerning that Justin Trudeau has been caught hiding a second secret book deal with the Chinese Communist Party,” said Tory candidate Michael Barrett. “If Justin Trudeau won’t tell Canadians about this secret relationship with the Chinese communists, how can Canadians trust him to stand up for Canadian interests when dealing with Beijing?”
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