It’s Time To Rethink China

The economic punishment Beijing has inflicted on Canadians after the extradition arrest of a top Chinese executive last December should spur Canada to reduce its trade reliance on China, a new paper from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute says.

Writing for the Ottawa-based think tank, economist and senior fellow Duanjie Chen says Canada is not the first country to suffer what she calls “economic coercion” from China.

Since Ottawa arrested Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou at the Vancouver International Airport last December on an extradition request from the United States, China has stopped buying Canadian canola seed and soybeans, and has banned Canadian pork and beef.

“China’s ban on major Canadian agriproducts has opened a new chapter in its habitual deployment of economic coercion against countries whose lawful actions it finds offensive,” Dr. Chen writes.

She said Canada needs to use this crisis to restructure its relationship with China, adding that key Asian countries have withstood the same kind of coercion from China by diversifying trade away from the country.

Ms. Meng will likely have to remain in Canada for years as she fights extradition to the United States under the Canada-U.S. extradition treaty. The Americans allege Ms. Meng helped the company violate U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. She has been charged in the U.S. with bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud.

This means Canada could face years of economic coercion from China.

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