Wednesday, September 27, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

A perilous China Pivot in Asia: Shuvaloy Majumdar in Inside Policy

October 12, 2016
in Columns, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Program, In the Media, Inside Policy, Latest News, Shuvaloy Majumdar
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A

By turning from established allies in Asia toward a teetering economy and authoritative regime, Canada is playing a dangerous game with its “China Pivot”, writes MLI Munk Senior Fellow Shuvaloy Majumdar.MASTHEAD-2

By Shuvaloy Majumdar, Oct. 12, 2016

The Trudeau government has been telegraphing its “China Pivot” for quite some time now. Upon arriving in government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s team instructed senior officials to undertake a fundamental rethink on Canada’s relationship with the People’s Republic, deploying ministers to Beijing to talk trade and chum it up with Communist Party brass.

In doing so the Prime Minister seems to be intently wriggling himself further between a rock and a hard place.

The allure of China is clear, with its enormous and growing market of hundreds of millions of consumers. But it’s a growth that is beginning to stagnate. This is the rock.

Over the last decade, Chinese growth has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, with an extraordinary rise in consumer goods, technology and infrastructure. Yet its economic fundamentals remain weak. China is transitioning from a communist economy of agrarian labourers into the world’s largest exporter. This is no easy change.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s team instructed senior officials to undertake a fundamental rethink on Canada’s relationship with the People’s Republic

Extraordinary skylines are emerging above Chinese cities, but many buildings are unoccupied. The economy’s overcapacity is driven by local-level rivalries instead of market economics, banks pandering to political interests over prudent business decisions, and a financial system that encourages businesses to be big rather than innovate. High debt levels are threatening a major banking crisis, one which would be felt the world over.

Shuvaloy MajumdarThe hard place emerges directly from this slowdown. As economic momentum begins to dissipate, the Chinese government is becoming increasingly assertive and expansionist. The hungry and increasingly irritable dragon will scour the skies and waters of Asia to inspire nationalist sentiment among Chinese. China’s conquest of the South China Sea re-animates a territorial claim that dates back 2,000 years. And not since the Ming Dynasty in the 15th Century has China considered reconstituting its “fortress fleet” beyond its shores, but in recent years China has been flouting international rules in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

In advance of hosting the G20 last month, China accelerated a campaign to crack down on religious minorities, including Christians, Falun Gong and Muslims. It imposed information blackouts, jailed dissidents and persecuted activists under the broad rubric of President Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, a campaign focused more on strengthening his hold on the state than establishing the rule of law.

The Chinese government is becoming increasingly assertive and expansionist.

Beyond the mainland, China is actively enforcing its “one China policy” on Taiwan by barring the island’s participation in multilateral fora such as the recent International Civil Aviation Organization meetings in Montreal, and subverting its “one China, two systems” policy by shamelessly contorting Hong Kong’s Basic Law to strengthen Beijing’s hold on the city.

The government’s recently proposed agreements with China on free trade, cyber security, and extradition feature prominently in Trudeau’s China Pivot.

But if the objective is free trade, then much work will need to be done to somehow calibrate Canada’s market-based G7 international capitalist system with China’s declining state-owned, centrally planned, single-party communism.

If the objective is cyber security, then the starting point for any dialogue should be that China end its cyber espionage campaign on the Canadian government, on Canadian companies, and on Chinese-Canadians.

If the objective is an extradition treaty, then China must demonstrate it is a society ordered on the rule of law rather than the persecution of the state’s enemies.

For Canada, engagement with China should hinge on clear interests and values.

By tilting toward Beijing in Asia, Trudeau is making an uncertain, perilous and probably regrettable bet. Harvard researchers last year pointed to how Narendra Modi’s structural reforms in India, while slow, are creating the basis for the “Decade of India” to come, with the Indian economy now outperforming China’s.

The China Pivot risks aligning Canada with China’s ambitions over those of market-based democracies in India and Japan, but also South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and various ASEAN states. By taking its foot off the gas on the Trans-Pacific Partnership to chase after the Chinese market, Canada is not only abandoning friends but also many burgeoning economies. And if the TPP fails, Canada should instead prioritize deals with others around the TPP table, such as Japan, over China.

Canada’s national interests require engagement with China, not submission. The China Pivot turns Canada toward the dubious economic future of an authoritarian irredentist state, hostile to long-time Canadian allies. Should the proposed compacts between Canada and China be ratified, that is a difficult position to back out from.

Shuvaloy Majumdar led democracy assistance initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2010, and recently served as policy director to successive Canadian foreign ministers. He is a Munk Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. @shuvmajumdar

Share this:
Tags: Inside PolicyShuvaloy Majumdar
Previous Post

True patriots love Canada because it has made us who we are: Brian Lee Crowley in the Ottawa Citizen

Next Post

What we mean when we talk about private health care: Brian Ferguson in Inside Policy

Related Posts

Gender diverse prisoners and sex-based patterns of offending
Commentary

Gender diverse prisoners and sex-based patterns of offending

September 26, 2023
Cabinet shuffles are OK but a PMO shakeup is what we need: Philip Cross in the Financial Post
Columns

Is the ‘New Ottawa Consensus’ killing our economy?: Jon Hartley in the Hub

September 25, 2023
Zelenskyy meeting with Trudeau: Aurel Braun on CTV News
Video

Zelenskyy meeting with Trudeau: Aurel Braun on CTV News

September 25, 2023
Next Post
Andrew Rodych in Inside Policy: Make public policy easier to read

What we mean when we talk about private health care: Brian Ferguson in Inside Policy

Newsletter Signup

Follow us on

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

  • Inside Policy Magazine
  • Annual Reports
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

IDEAS CHANGE THE WORLD!Have the latest Canadian thought leadership delivered straight to your inbox.
First Name
Last Name
Email address

No thanks, I’m not interested.