cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/8494004
Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig is sounding the alarm about Canada seeking deeper trade ties with China in the face of growing tensions and uncertainty with the U.S., warning the pivot carries significant risks to Canada’s economic security.
Speaking Tuesday at the Future of Business Summit in Ottawa, Kovrig — a longtime China analyst who was arbitrarily detained by Beijing for more than 1,000 days after Canada detained Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou — said Ottawa’s new China strategy is a “risky play” that will not be viewed kindly by Washington and could threaten trade talks.
He pointed to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s criticism last week of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deal with China, announced early this year, which included importing a limited number of Chinese electric vehicles.
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“The basic problem is that China is not a solution to most of our problems with the U.S.,” Kovrig said at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce-hosted event.
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Kovrig said a key difference between the two countries is that China is currently “in selling mode, not in buying mode,” and is seeking to make international markets reliant on its cheaper exports.
While Canada has only committed to buying up to 49,000 Chinese EVs, Kovrig said Beijing may seek to increase that quota using economic and diplomatic pressure points like it has in the past.
He warned Ottawa not to be driven by “short-term considerations” like consumer demand for less expensive electric vehicles that could lead to “the long-term strategic implications that path dependence can put us on.”
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“If you’re living in a small town and you have just a local Main Street with a hardware store and so on, sure, wouldn’t it be nice to have a Walmart move in and offer you all kinds of cheaper homewares and stuff?” Kovrig said.
“That’s going to be great until … they come in with super low prices and bankrupt all your local shops, and then Main Street looks like a dead zone and all that’s left is Walmart, and then there’s no competition and they can ratchet up the prices. Chinese makers will be able to do the same thing, and it will come with the cost of geopolitical leverage that the state can weaponize.”
Kovrig said the export strategy mirrors how China has already made Canadian sectors like canola, pork and seafood “excessively” dependent on the Chinese marketplace, he added.
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“If China cuts off that trade, the people in those sectors face an economic catastrophe and come running to Ottawa and are effectively trying to lobby our government to do what the Chinese Communist Party wants it to do,” Kovrig said.
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Firstly, thats completely off topic to Chinese interference in Canadian democracy and economics. Secondly, they have a multi century friendship with France and Ireland and managed to build the worlds largest mutual defence pact NATO which also protects Canada.
US interference in foreign countries democracy and economics is par for the course and much more destructive than anything China has done. South America, Cuba, Central America, Iran, Afghanistan... The list goes on.
The only difference being the countries were not white. China doesn't discriminate. It interferes immaterial of race.
The current version of China is not even century old still it has treaties with Russia, North Korea. That doesn't prove anything.
With friends like those, hopefully it doesnt last another century.
If Canada can survive with US surely China would too.
China will collapse just as the USSR before it.
Maybe it will, no country is made to last.
Dictatorships are especially volatile in this day and age. The divine right of kings is over, pal.
USA should learn that.
You realize that the constant whataboutism to defend China weakens your standing in debates? We're not idiots. We see you.
Not defending China. I am defending the position that US is just as bad as China. China exploits and massacre Ughyurs, US did the same with Native Americans and blacks. China is doing political manipulation, US is doing political manipulation.
I am defending Canada's decision to trade with China.