Then: Canada Opened Its Markets. Now: We Need a Reset with China

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By Joseph Caron, The Globe and Mail Jan 05, 2016

Joseph Caron is a former Canadian ambassador to China and to Japan, and former high commissioner to India. He is a distinguished fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

It’s time to reset Canada’s relations with China.

Canada has always been actively and positively open to the world, because it must. For the past half-century, China has taken its place among our most important international partners, and has become central to our foreign policy. John Diefenbaker expanded trade and opened the immigration doors to China, Pierre Trudeau established diplomatic relations, and the subsequent decades have seen the development of a full panoply of people-to-people and government-to-government relations.

As a result, China provides the largest number of immigrants to Canada, almost half-a-million yearly tourists and the largest number of international students – 30 per cent of Canada’s total. China ranges among the top three sources of new permanent residents. China now absorbs 10 per cent of our exports and a third of our commercial services sold abroad. More jobs are created through trade with China than with every country but the United States.

China is today the world’s demographic leader, its second economy. It possesses the world’s second-largest military force. Five years from now, these and many other metrics will be larger. No one should bank on decline.

So why is a reset in order? Because today’s China is not the same partner that it once was, and because we have a new government in Ottawa.

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