Western leaders should return to a Pierre Trudeau-style, conciliatory approach to diplomacy with China, the former prime minister's son, Alexandre, says.
"We need to offer the carrot and not the stick," he said of ongoing human-rights and environmental negotiations with the Asian economic powerhouse.
Mr. Trudeau, a writer and filmmaker, was in Toronto yesterday to promote a new introduction he wrote for his father's 1960 book Two Innocents in Red China.
The book, co-written with Quebec journalist Jacques Hébert, is a travelogue that describes Chinese society during Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward.
Mr. Trudeau said the genius of his father's book -- and his approach to China later on -- was that he didn't judge Chinese values by Western standards.
He said politicians today need to remember the key to success in negotiations over human-rights issues will be "a gentle approach."
Mr. Trudeau said the writing in the book encapsulates a lot of his father's values. He said his father was an innocent traveller -- hence the title -- and resisted the urge to pass judgment on what he saw, even if it offended him.
"That wasn't his style," Mr. Trudeau said. "Any authentic traveller is not the same person in one's own country as they are abroad. The true form of travel is to cast away one's familial and national habits and try and accept other worlds on their own measure."
Mr. Trudeau said there was nothing more appalling to his father than a traveller who would walk into a new country and start criticizing what he saw.
He said his father returned from China with a deep sadness over the famine and abuses he witnessed, but he also understood that the Chinese, a traditionally closed society, had to evolve on their own, no matter what Westerners might think.
"His attitude was, Canadian society is a great society. But that doesn't give it a right to impose its values on any other society. ... As right as your idea might be - democracy for Iraq, for example - that doesn't mean it can stick there."
Two Innocents in Red China was originally published in French in 1961, but only came out in English seven years later after Pierre Trudeau became prime minister.
Alexandre was approached to write an introduction after it was released in China in 2005.
He said he's been interested in the country since a family trip to China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
For his introduction, he dug deep into his father's archives and spoke with Mr. Hébert -- a lifetime friend of the elder Trudeau's.
Mr. Hébert said he was moved by Mr. Trudeau's work.
"I was really touched when I read it," he said in French. "I knew he had talent, but seeing him write something so long, and on a subject I know a bit about, was really impressive."
Mr. Trudeau said writing the introduction was a chance to learn about China as well as his father. "I was able to put concrete facts to feelings about him that I had had," he said.
Mr. Trudeau said he recalled being puzzled by his father's unwillingness to condemn the Chinese government for its actions at Tiananmen Square, but said he now understands his perspective.
"He had this revelation [in 1960]that the West is not only just a part of the world, it's maybe only a small part of the world, and we have this outlandish sense of righteousness."
It's a subtle message, also found in the book, that lends Mr. Trudeau's work importance even today, he said.
"It's the story of how to travel to outlandish places," Mr. Trudeau said. "It may not be Red China any more -- it might be journeys to Iran or journeys to places that are outcasts, but there's universals in there that make it relevant."