Liberal leadership contender Michael Ignatieff blasted Stephen Harper Thursday, criticizing the prime minister for engaging in "megaphone diplomacy" on his foreign policy stance toward China

"Mr. Harper, I think, believes you can go to one of the greatest civilizations on earth, a superpower of the 21st century and give them a little lecture on human rights," Ignatieff told CBC News.

Michael Ignatieff
(CBC)

The leadership frontrunner was responding to this week's diplomatic row between Canada and China.

Earlier this week, China called off an arranged meeting between Harper and Chinese President Hu Jintao at the APEC summit in Hanoi. The cancellation was apparently due to Canada's criticism of China's human-rights record. 

While the meeting is now back on, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed Thursday that China rejects any criticism of its human-rights situation.

Ignatieff said the best way for Canada to raise those concerns is to get in a room with the Chinese president and say "here are the files, here are the issues where we have specific disagreements with you; how can we work to get these things resolved?"

"[It] doesn't mean you don’t stand for your values but you don’t engage in megaphone diplomacy. It just doesn't work with the Chinese," Ignatieff said.

Praise for China

Ignatieff praised China for improving the economic and social rights of their citizens over the last decade.

"You have to give them credit for a fact not enough Canadians, I think, recognize which is over the last 10 years, the most important human-rights advance in the world has been the hundreds of millions of Chinese lifted out of absolute poverty," Ignatieff said.

But Ignatieff said China also needs "to join the international community on these standards."

"But the right way to do that is to lower the megaphone, lower the volume, get into rooms, stand up for our values quietly."