Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said that China is one of the largest threats with respect to foreign interference in Canada and is an emerging threat in the Arctic.
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Asked to elaborate at a news conference in Niagara Falls on Friday, Carney said Canada has to counter Chinese foreign interference threats. He also criticized China for being a partner with Russia in the war with Ukraine and said it is a threat to broader Asia and Taiwan in particular.
Carney said China is the biggest threat “from a geopolitical sense.” “We’re taking action to address,” he added.
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Same with the USA
China is a dictatorship country with many flaws.
But for too long, Canadians have ignored the vicious American Gorilla standing up at their door.
The main reason China has had worsening relations with Canada and has been threatening to Canada at all is because we have been so closely allied with the US, and the US overtly wants to hamper China’s development and even to overthrow their system of government.
The Meng Wanzhou thing was Canada purely going along with a brash US attack on a leading Chinese company, and it did tremendous and needless damage to Canada-China relations. China didn’t start that. The US did, and Canada helped them do it.
Now, while the US has started acting towards Canada in a way a little more like it has treated countries throughout the Global South for decades, China is offering to partner with Canada to oppose the US abuses of the whole global system of trade. China isn’t devastating Canada’s economy. They’ve started buying our oil, which is good for our economy. They’ve been suggesting more open trade with us, and would no-doubt drop tarrifs on our agricultural products if we lowered our ridiculous tarrifs on their EVs, which we imposed at 100% just to please the US even though it’s worse for the Canadian consumer and has been primarily beneficial to Tesla and Elon Musk, an overt fascist enabler of our biggest threat who also says we’re not even a real country.
The US is the primary aggressor to worry about. They’re holding military exercises this week with the Philippines on simulating all-out war with China and Trump appointed a bunch of guys who have years of advocating for war with China. He is waging economic war against China right now.
I support Carney wanting increased economic ties with Europe and more pivoting away from US dependence, but to treat China as an enemy and speak more harshly about them than even the US is something I really dislike. Opposing the foreign interference, asserting sovereignty in the Arctic, protecting Canadian markets to an extent that is reasonable and fair, these are all good things, but they can be done without making an enemy of China, especially while China is actually offering to work with us and to help us out in dealing with our biggest immediate threat.
Well, China sure as fuck took hostages in it’s response to Meng Wanzhou. That response was unforgivable, holding innocent people as a bargaining chip in a diplomatic game. We got played by the US, no doubt, by having to hold someone due to our treaty obligations when they had her in their own country and never arrested her. But the way China handled that like gangsters did not inspire confidence in their diplomatic choices.
Yes, they arrested a… A FUCKING SPY and a guy who was unfortunately being USED by said spy… Seems pretty reasonable.
“Unfortunately being used by a spy” does not sound as reasonable as you think it does…
He isn’t wrong about China being a security to Canada, and he isn’t the first PM to say so.
Things like the Zhao/Chong incident are far more subtle than the leader of a country saying over and over again that they want us to be the 51st state, but it doesn’t mean that it’s something that we can ignore. Radiation and a shotgun will both you.
especially while China is actually offering to work with us and to help us out in dealing with our biggest immediate threat.
I don’t think that China wants to work with anyone to ‘help’ them. They just try to take advantage of the situation, but the Chinese government hasn’t become better because the U.S. got worse.
Agree with that. Now is not the time to pick a fight with China. I was surprised that Carney picked China here. The much bigger threat is the USA. We don’t have to be best friends with China but I think to have a strategic trade partnership is crucial right now to eliminate ties with USA as much as possible.
Are you forgetting the “police stations” China established here recently? Those are not actions of a foreign government respecting our sovereignity or of a government defending itself against the US’s attacks. That is the action of a foreign power intent on ignoring our borders and laws to enforce their own ideologies.
I think this is a well reasoned take. We should cooperate with China on the issues where it’s mutually beneficial since the EU can’t provide all the things we need (goods and markets). We should demand China retract their interference tentacles as part of this cooperation, as well as independently work to cut them off ourselves. Our current posture where we parrot US’es “China bad” talking points probably counterproductive on that front. Carney’s recent rhetoric could be useful for some voting blocks and I suspect that’s why it escalated. I think he’ll probably reset the relationship if he wins the election and establish some boundaries and red lines.
The way people (especially on the left) talk about politics is very reminiscent of ancient anthropomorphism. People like to assign human emotions to countries in order to judge their relationships. Understanding the nuances of political structure is very difficult, and if you don’t understand (I am one of them) it’s better if people don’t get involved.
I don’t see it. How is China a geopolitical threat to Canada? I get it’s a threat to the Chinese people, being a dictatorship, and to their neighbors, being jingoistic, but how are they a threat to us?
In the same way the Americans have been a threat to ideologically misaligned countries around the world for decades, through influence, interference, subterfuge, and meddling.
Americans own our media and boost or snuff our politicians, or apply pressure on us to change our policies, China may very well get to the same level of influence over time. They’ve started on that road.
They’re just as involved in the Arctic as Russia is, not to mention a lot of their illegal fishing in our waters. They’ve been just as involved in trying to put people in positions of power in our government, and have had their own CCP police stations where people can report on dissenters of the CCP on Canadian land.
This thread is so focused in other comments about how “America is just as bad if not worse of a problem for Canada!” And that alone makes me wonder how much Chinese propaganda is showing up on Canadian social media channels, even newer ones like Lemmy. The fact of the matter is that there can be multiple threats, and ignoring China just because the US is being a big, loud, scary threat right now is not what I want the leader of my country to be focused on. Carney has been doing well to bring up the problem of the US wanting our minerals, while also pointing out other adversarial problems focused around trying to open up shipping lanes through the Arctic in our land.
