By Brett Byers and Shuvaloy Majumdar, December 20, 2020
Beijing has weaponized its commerce.
In October, President Xi Jinping announced the Chinese Communist Party’s “Dual Circulation” framework, a plan to decouple the Chinese economy from its export-driven mode to an increasingly self-reliant domestic one. It is the central doctrine in a scheme to double the Chinese economy by 2035.
This isn’t just about protectionism or economic nationalism.
By expanding China’s neo-colonial Belt and Road Initiative — designed to: harvest data and resources from the developing world; tear apart China’s commitment to “One Country, Two Systems” in Hong Kong, which once underpinned the economic development of its mainland; levy political agricultural bans; steal technology; and ruthlessly exploit vital medical-supply chains — 2020 marks a decisive end to an unmitigated fantasy of China as an economic partner.
Canadians have felt this acutely. A combination of targeted economic coercion, hostage diplomacy with Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and threats of further actions for failing to release Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou is only a harbinger of what’s to come.
But of all these measures, the weakest is China’s strategy of economic coercion. Canada could occupy a strategically advantageous position, but this would require politicians in Ottawa to discover a fortitude that has thus far escaped them.
Canada is not as dependent on trade with China as we may think.