The Hubris of Canada's Condescension Courtesy Justin Trudeau : What! Trudeau Patronizing?!
"China does have a strategy for influencing public opinion and political opinion in other countries on issues that are important to China."
"The Chinese communist successfully links patriotism to support for the party and the government. [Chinese students studying abroad can succumb to frustration, hearing their country criticized, turning them into [super patriots]."
"We do that [reaching out to other countries through above-board negotiations] above board, we do that publicly. Where China differs is its willingness to use diaspora groups, people who have an economic stake in China to work behind the scenes. That's a form of interference in Canadian affairs."
David Mulroney, former Canadian ambassador to China, senior national security adviser
"The superiority and narcissism of the Canadian media is beyond words."
"This is the most genuine attitude of Chinese society; [China should] not be in a rush to develop its relations with Canada through a free trade agreement]."
"Let it be."
China Global Times
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| Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Dec. 4, 2017. Trudeau has just returned from China without a promise to start formal talks on a comprehensive trade deal with the country. (Fred Dufour/Pool photo via the Associated Press) |
"I'm a huge supporter of progressive views on gender equality, human rights, environmental protections and labour conditions, but despite the nice-sounding rhetoric, trade agreements are just not effective in pushing that agenda forward."Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is suffocatingly confident that his 'sunny ways' can win over the most cantankerous of critics of his Liberal-led, 'progressive' government. But that he admires China and its Communist administration is without doubt. It is an inheritance, a family tradition. His father as Canada's prime minister launched a friendship with China, and the son famously mused years ago how impressed he was with the Chinese Politburo that could 'turn its economy on a dime'. Yes it could. Yes it did.
"We like to think of ourselves as being nice and the rest of the world likes us. But when it comes to these trade agreements ... we're coming across as being patronizing, we're coming across as arrogant and frankly, we're coming across as being naive."
"The rest of the world is playing chess and we're coming with our checkers."
Martha Hall Findlay, CEO, Canada West Foundation think tank
And nations across the world want the opportunity to buy into some of that promise of China attaining to the status of super-power, both in influence and in economic strength. Without even trying, it has reached the pinnacle in population status at 1.4-billion people. And its astonishing ability to capture the world market in manufacturing, exporting consumables abroad with products cheaper to acquire through the effort of cheap labour is legendary. The supreme irony being of course that people the world over clamour for cheap goods and their own nations' industries languish.
The current Trudeau prime minister embarked on a trip to China for the express purpose of bringing to life the final negotiations to achieve a free trade deal with the trading giant. Uniquely, Justin Trudeau feels justified in insisting that any country doing business with Canada on the scale of a free trade agreement recognize the viability and the justice of doing so with full respect for workers' rights, the environment and female empowerment. In effect, using the diplomacy of a cudgel to achieve inroads in a market to benefit Canada.
Setting aside that China's human rights record is fairly sub-par, its commitment to the environment emerging at home while investing in infrastructure abroad that would see coal-fired plants built in huge numbers there, while clearing them out of China to improve its dreadful atmospheric conditions. Arriving with full confidence that an open free trade deal was full steam ahead only to brought up short in his meeting with the Chinese premier who stamped hard on the fantasy of an agreement Trudeau-style, Xi Jinping, China's president explained: "China encourages other countries to explore ways that suit their own national situation."
China did not take well to the impudence of a middle power's leader dictating to China how it should conduct itself, and what Canada's expectations are to entice it to sign a free trade agreement with China. That it is Canada, and not China, that is anxiously pursuing such a deal is irrelevant to Justin Trudeau's way of thinking. An item not lost on China, where this junior politician has been identified as Mr. 'Small Potato'.
Labels: Canada, China, Condescensiom, Political Realities, Trade, Trudeau
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, December 09, 2017
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