VANCOUVER—Ottawa will have chosen wisely if veteran business leader Dominic Barton can be as strong an advocate for Canada as he has been for China.

After 220 days without a Canadian ambassador in China, Ottawa this week appointed Barton as its top diplomat in Beijing at a time of unprecedented tension between the two countries.

“Beijing is likely very happy over his selection, as it would seem to signal Canada is making a very pro-China appointment,” said Christopher Balding, associate professor on the Chinese economy at Fulbright University Vietnam.

Some have expressed optimism about Barton’s qualifications for the role, including his negotiation skills. Others immediately pointed to Barton’s corporate history with the Chinese state as cause for concern.

When Barton was global managing partner at McKinsey and Company in 2015, the consulting firm signed a client that was building islands in the South China Sea as part of China’s play for sole ownership of the region. The firm’s activities were detailed in reporting by the New York Times last year. International rulings have shot down Beijing’s claims to the region.

Barton also sat on the advisory board of the state-owned China Development Bank Capital Co.

Now, Barton is heading back to China in a role meant to represent Canada.

In response to reporters’ questions, Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday that “Mr. Barton’s appointment has been carefully vetted by officials in the public service whose job it is to ensure that no one serving Canada, representing Canada around the world has conflicts of interest.”

“As with other people moving from a distinguished career in the private sector to public service, Mr. Barton will have to ensure that there are no conflicts between his personal business interests and his public service.”

Global Affairs said Barton was unavailable to respond to questions, referring the Star to Freeland’s comments. Since Thursday, the Star received no response to questions sent to Barton’s McKinsey email address, and Teck Resources declined to share a contact for Barton.

Lauded as a savvy business leader with an arsenal of appointments and titles at many organizations, Barton has been an adjunct professor at China’s Tsinghua University, director at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and senior trustee at the Brookings Institution, which often supports expanded trade with China.

Starting last year until the ambassadorial appointment, he was chair of Canadian mining company Teck Resources; the Chinese government has a 10.5 per cent stake in Teck through a China Investment Corp. subsidiary. The company experienced controversy in 2016 when it appointed Quan Chong, a member of China’s government at the time, to its board.

Beijing will likely view Barton’s business background as indication that he would rather mend economic relations than focus on human rights, experts and former China ambassadors say.

Charles Burton, an expert on China relations with the Macdonald Laurier Institute think-tank, reckons Barton could be in the camp that believes the highest priority in Canada-China relations is the promotion of Canadian prosperity through trade and investment.

In a 2016 interview with the Canadian Press, Barton advocated for a free-trade deal with China and a “proactive” business approach, including courting foreign direct investment and attracting more international Chinese students to Canadian universities, since they pay higher tuition than locals.

The appointment has Burton concerned that Ottawa has no plans to address concerns Canadians have about China if those concerns aren’t economic.

Burton said Canada’s largest corporations with “considerable influence” in the Prime Minister’s Office want economics to define Ottawa’s relations with Beijing. In the meantime, human rights, security issues and China’s attempts to influence Canadian politics and the Chinese diaspora could be ignored, Burton said.

For decades, Ottawa has had an overall amiable relationship with Beijing focused on deepening trade and economic ties.

The arrest of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou last December hurled Canada into a heated dispute with Beijing. Chinese authorities have since detained Canadian diplomat-on-leave Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor on vague state security charges — a move widely condemned as retaliation — while Robert Schellenberg was handed a death sentence after a one-day retrial on charges related to drug offences.

Kovrig’s employer, the International Crisis Group think-tank, said in a statement that Barton was an “inspired choice.” The group’s president said he was confident that Barton would make the detained Canadian’s case a priority.

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Former Canadian ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques said in an email that Barton may be in for a more frustrating ride than he expects.

“Mr. Barton will have to raise many difficult issues with Chinese leaders, something that he is not used to,” Saint-Jacques wrote, adding diplomats in the Beijing embassy will be able to help him with the task.

Saint-Jacques cast doubt on the prospect of Barton patching up the Canada-China relationship based on his familiarity with the country and its business leaders. Barton, he said, may have been put to better use elsewhere.

“I don’t think it is possible to come back to the type of relationship we had prior to the crisis,” he wrote. “In this way, he would have been a good candidate three years ago; now, he might have been a better choice for Washington.”

In response to Barton’s appointment, Beijing urged Canada on Thursday to “reflect on its mistakes” and immediately release Meng.

“At present, China-Canada relations are facing serious difficulties,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a daily briefing.

Geng said China hopes the new envoy can play an active role in returning ties to a “normal track” and take China’s concerns seriously, adding that Canada is responsible for the current tensions.

Barton’s predecessor left the role at the height of those tensions. At a Vancouver charity lunch in January, the Canadian ambassador to China at the time, John McCallum, told Star Vancouver it would be “great” if the United States abandoned its attempt to extradite Meng. He said such a deal would benefit Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked for his resignation that night.

McCallum’s comments doubled down on his controversial remarks at a news conference days before where he said Meng had strong arguments to fight extradition. McCallum repeatedly contradicted Ottawa’s official stance on Meng’s detention: that it was not a political matter.

Chinese officials work aggressively to make foreign diplomats and journalists see things their way. Many journalists and politicians have stories about the time they were told not to be so negative about China, including former Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s infamous outburst at Canadian reporters in 2016, when the Ottawa press gallery raised human-rights issues.

Cultivating an envoy as a “special friend” to China — who believes he has singular access to and understanding of the country’s inner-workings — is a standard tactic to ensure a diplomat becomes an ally, said Jorge Guajardo, who served for six years as Mexico’s ambassador in China.

Guajardo predicts that Chinese leaders will “try to appeal to Barton’s pragmatism, with a wink and a nod, saying, ‘We know (Meng’s arrest) has been a distraction and trust you believe so too’ to get him on their side.”

“I hope he stands his ground and reminds them what country he represents and what values his country stands for,” Guajardo said.

With files from the Associated Press and Perrin Grauer

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