Why Is Mark Carney Making Deals With China？
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Summary
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is currently in Communist China, looking to talk trade with senior government officials and also looking to resolve the trade war between Canada and China. Michael Kovrig was unlawfully detained in China for around three years on trumped-up charges of espionage, and he knows a thing or two about the bad side of the Chinese government.
Transcript
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Put bluntly, that's essentially asking, how does Canada sell more to a country
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when at the same time its authoritarian government has a largely hostile agenda
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against Canada and other democracies and often does harmful things to Canadian citizens and residents?
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Canadian Prime Minister needs to be very careful in China, according to a former political prisoner.
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Mark Carney is currently in Communist China, looking to talk trade with senior government officials
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and also looking to resolve the trade war between both countries.
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The Canadian government imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese electrical vehicles back in 24,
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causing the Chinese government to retaliate, imposing 100% tariffs on canola products from Canada.
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However, in light of Trump's ongoing trade war with Canada and the rest of the world,
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the Liberal government in Canada is looking to increase and build trading relationships across the Pacific and the Atlantic.
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Michael Kovrig was unlawfully detained in China for around three years on trumped-up charges of espionage,
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and he knows a thing or two about the bad side of the Chinese government.
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He laid it all bare during a recent interview with Miranda Anthesol of Global News.
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Given your experience and everything that you went through while you were detained, Michael,
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how do you view Carney's trip to Beijing, which, as I mentioned, is really being touted as this step forward
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in restoring and rebuilding relations between our countries?
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Talking with China is necessary, so I support Prime Minister Carney going.
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The reality is there are several foreign leaders going to China this year, right?
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France's Macron just went, South Korea's Lee, and right after Mark Carney, we have Keir Starmer.
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Canada has to be part of those diplomatic dialogues.
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If we want our voices and interests and perspectives to be heard and respected,
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And since Xi Jinping isn't traveling very much these days, aside from the occasional APEX summit,
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if you want to talk to him and get things done in China and solve problems,
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you have to go to Beijing and you have to talk to President Xi.
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So talking to China is necessary, but doing it without illusions is essential.
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I mean, let's talk about sort of the blurred lines between politics and trade
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I mean, how can our government balance strengthening trade ties but also addressing security concerns?
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I mean, are there concerns that this trip can maybe sweep legitimate concerns
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like political interference allegations under the rug and leave those unresolved?
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How does Mark Carney balance the stronger economic ties with China without compromising on Canadian values?
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Put bluntly, that's essentially asking, how does Canada sell more to a country
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when at the same time its authoritarian government has a largely hostile agenda against Canada and other democracies
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and often does harmful things to Canadian citizens and residents?
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Short answer, very carefully with a lot of safeguards.
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So keeping Canadians safe, protecting their rights, protecting their democratic processes
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and ensuring that national security, all of those things have to be red lines in any negotiation.
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Both sides in Beijing right now, as they sit around the negotiating tables,
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are going to be setting out the boundaries of what they can accept.
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Within those boundaries, he has some room to negotiate on areas where mutual interests overlap
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in order to drive economic benefits that bring jobs and economic growth and prosperity to Canada.
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But he has to stay firm and recognize that trade with China comes with a lot of complications
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A big part of the complication today is the tariffs on canola, seafood and pork that China's put in place
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as it tries to coerce Canada to let it dump subsidized EVs, steel and aluminum on the Canadian market.
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But Mark Carney needs to negotiate very carefully on that to make sure that he doesn't hurt one sector
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While the Canadian Prime Minister is looking to make new friends in light of an increasingly erratic
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and unstable American president, he ought to be careful in not replacing one unstable friend
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Now, most right-wing political commentators in Canada are describing this as Carney's selling
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out her country to communists, one of those people being right-wing commentator Jasmine Lane.
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Let's take a look at a recent video she put out.
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So just to clarify, Canada is panicking over Trump annexing us while actively warming relations
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with a country that's actually trying to annex somebody?
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We're told by mainstream media predominantly and the liberal government that Trump's 51st state
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comments are an existential threat to our sovereignty.
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There's endless panels, endless headlines, endless lectures diversifying our trade.
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But then at the exact same time, Canada is promoting closer ties with China.
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China is running active military drills around Taiwan, threatening force, isolating them diplomatically
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Donald Trump says something stupid and there's a national meltdown that is still continuing almost
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China threatens democracy with invasion and it's careful diplomacy and we should really
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We are so terrified of something that Donald Trump isn't even doing while accommodating and
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wanting to get closer to something China openly says it will do and is pressuring and low-key
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threatening other countries who try to intervene in it.
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Now, Lane's argument is more or less in line with what other right-wing commentators in Canada
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She's basically trying to equate China's threats to annex Taiwan with Donald Trump's
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However, I don't really like this argument and it's easily debunkable.
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First of all, to state the obvious, we don't live in Taiwan.
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Now, if you think Donald Trump was joking about that, I encourage you to listen to what he
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Real fast, you said you were considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland.
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Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Panama?
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Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.
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You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like.
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And it would also be much better for national security.
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And that wasn't the first or the only time he said something like that.
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When he threatened to take over a country with economic force, that is the textbook literal
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Now, the second problem with Lane's argument, and many of the other arguments I'm seeing
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and hearing online, is that Trump is acting in good faith, and he's the one that wants
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But Trump has made it pretty clear as of late that he's not interested in any sort of trade
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I just wanted to build their product in the USA.
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You don't think you're going to renegotiate USMCA?
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You know, I want to be a nice person, but we don't need...
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Now, the Canada cars, the Canadians are moving here to build cars.
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Japan's paid us billions and billions of dollars for the privilege of making cars here and selling
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Now, I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like someone who wants a trade deal with
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That sounds like someone who's a bully, who's also economically illiterate.
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And I checked today, and to my surprise, the United States still has tariffs on every
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So, when people try to spin this around as if it's somehow just a problem between Canada
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Regardless of what Donald Trump says, the United States is still heavily reliant on Canada.
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And of course, the United States is the stronger, bigger power, but that doesn't mean they don't
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Donald Trump treating his allies like this, it's only going to hurt him and his country
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Now, contrary to what you may have heard, it was Donald Trump that picked a fight with
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Canada, and it put us in this unfortunate position of having to find new, reliable trading
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The biggest threat to Canada right now, it's not China.
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Aside from our own government, it's the United States of America.
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If Trump is able to fulfill his imperialistic ambitions of taking over Greenland, I'm pretty
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Look, I'm tired of right-wingers in Canada simping for Trump.
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Just do the right thing for once in your lives and call it out.
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Donald Trump has gone full authoritarian, and he's acting less like a friend to us and
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And in my opinion, he's the biggest threat to Canada since Nazi Germany.
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And yes, there is genuine criticism of Mark Carney.
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And if you've watched my videos, you would know that I am highly critical of Mark Carney.
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But just because there's genuine criticism of Mark Carney doesn't mean that Donald Trump
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The way a lot of my other fellow commentators are framing this is that just because Carney is
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bad, and just because the liberal government is and was bad, everything that Donald Trump
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You can criticize Carney and still criticize Donald Trump.
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These two things are not mutually exclusive, at least to anyone who has an IQ over 80.
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And I would like to think that the majority of people that watch my videos, if not all,
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have an IQ that's at least a little bit higher than 80.
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I play the rest of the interview with Kovrig and Global News.
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I don't necessarily agree with everything that Kovrig says, but I think it's worth watching.
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So, Michael, do you think that real progress, or some progress at least, can be made here?
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I think some incremental progress, probably on the issue of electric vehicles and canola,
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And then probably some further progress in other areas that are not as sensitive or that are more negotiable, shall we say.
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So, progress, for example, on selling energy to China, selling other agricultural commodities to China.
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China is already taking oil through the TMX pipeline, and there's capacity for more.
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Canada is increasing the capacity to sell liquid natural gas to China.
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That's largely a win-win that is not very politically contentious.
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It's a question of capacity and the political framework that makes it possible.
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The crucial thing in any sector is to make sure that we don't sell too much to China,
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that Canada's government oversees sectors and doesn't interfere necessarily in the business operations,
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but makes sure that no one company or sector becomes so dependent on China
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that the Chinese government can then weaponize that to put pressure on Ottawa to change Canadian policies
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That is the trade security balance that he has to keep.
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And Michael, what did you learn from your time in China that you think could serve as advice for our government on this particular trip?
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Well, a lot of things, but I studied China for a couple of decades as well as spending time inside its system.
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The Chinese, particularly people inside the Chinese Communist Party in the state,
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have a radically different worldview from people who grew up and live in liberal democracies.
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They see things very differently and they also mirror image.
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So you need to start with understanding their worldview, have strategic empathy for their perspectives,
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even if you don't agree with them, to understand why they think the way they do,
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what makes them act the way they do, because they're not unpredictable.
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What's unpredictable, or in many cases erratic, has been Canada's policy on China,
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which seems to go through this cycle of excessive hope and optimism to frustration to bitterness and then back again.
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Instead, we need to have a long-term strategy that takes a holistic whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach
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to understanding China deeply, understanding that we're not going to change China,
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and so we need to protect ourselves and seek areas where we can cooperate on China.
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I would expect a lot of discussions on economics, on climate and climate finance that could go fairly well,
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possibly even public health issues, people-to-people ties, increased tourism,
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some academic exchanges within areas that are not sensitive for research security, for example.
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So do you think Canadians are safer with improved relations between our country and China,
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or do you think we should always be wary of that government, and it may always serve as a threat to us?
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I think the reality is citizens of open societies and democracies always need to be wary of any government
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that doesn't have checks and balances, that doesn't obey the rule of law.
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And in China, the Communist Party makes the law.
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It sees the law as a tool of its own political objectives.
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So any country that functions like that, you're never going to be entirely safe visiting,
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and you always have to be extra cautious in dealing with it.
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You need efforts to do further policing and intelligence around transnational repression,
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around espionage, cyber security issues, foreign interference, investment screenings.
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You need all those measures to protect Canadians.
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But at the end of the day, yes, if you have better diplomatic relations,
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then that does make Canada safer and more protected,
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because ideally, more and more things then can be raised by Prime Minister Carney and his ministers and officials,
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The crux of the problem in the crisis that I got pulled into was that Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant,
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and China, instead of trying to solve the problem diplomatically,
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tried to solve the problem through hostage-taking, blackmail, and trade sanctions and threats,
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So Canada's been trying to talk to China all along.
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What's changed since Mark Carney came into office,
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is that Xi Jinping became willing to talk to Canada again.
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But we should have no illusions that if another crisis happens,
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once again, the Chinese Communist Party may not pick up the phone.
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Well, Michael, you got caught up in that system.
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What is your perspective on that country and that government?
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I think the critical differentiator that all the Canadians,
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and indeed every citizen who wants to understand China,
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is there are the people of China and the nation of China.
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And they're as wonderful and diverse as any other nation.
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Many of them have become Canadian citizens or residents and go back and forth.
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So the challenge there is simply that it is an extremely large country, right?
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than there were on the entire planet in the 19th century.
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So that makes any country of that size vast and powerful and complicated to deal with.
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The real challenge that makes China unique is its one-party state.
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It's fundamentally a Leninist, bureaucratic, authoritarian state
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And it sees an opportunity, particularly in this decisive decade,
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and to weaken the bonds between Western countries
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And that's the crux of the challenge that Canadian citizens need to understand,
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and constrain those aspects of the Chinese state,
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And that's the balance that Mark Carney also has to help us strike.
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while limiting and carefully managing relations with the Chinese government.
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I mean, let's look at our neighbours to the south.
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What do you think some of the risks from this particular trip could be?
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Because Washington is going to be watching very closely here.
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Canada cannot trade its way out of security dependence on the United States, right?
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Replacing US dependence with China dependence would be worse, not better.
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As challenging and problematic as the US has become
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There are still other centres of power and influence in US society, right?
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There's business, there's non-governmental organisations.
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And it can bring so much more power to bear of China's power
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than the US government can from the United States.
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At the same time, Canada is right next to Washington,
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And so Washington can apply much more leverage and pain on Canada
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than China can if Canadian policy drifts too far out of bounds.
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And President Trump has demonstrated a pretty strong willingness to do that.
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So the risk is, when Canada says diversification,
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because Canada does need to diversify its partners,
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the risk is US President Donald Trump hears betrayal.
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Imagine if your spouse started talking about wanting to diversify partners.
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And so that relationship needs to simultaneously be managed in a triangular way.
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We need to build as much as unity as possible in North America
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with a common set of trade principles and rules and norms.
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That's what the rules-based order is all about.
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And we need to maintain as much of that as possible
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I think you said it perfectly earlier on, Michael,
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that the world is just in such disorder these days.
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Thank you so much for joining us and for your insights today,