Should Canada suspend relations with China?

[Argus]

3 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Well MP’s can and do cross the floor or go independent.  

And how often do they wind up getting re-elected afterward?

[Argus]

 

Sean Maloney puts things succintly in pointing out the bloody, murderous recent history of China in which tens of millions were murdered by its brutal Communist governments, and asking; do we really want to do business with these people?

Forty-five million people. We are dealing with a country that murdered or otherwise let die something greater than the population of Canada. And in our living memory, not through black and white photos from the increasingly distant 1940s. And this is not taught in our schools? This is not the context to the China we deal with today when the prime minister lectures China on civil rights?

But, the apologists argue, that was in the 1960s. Things have evolved. Well, certainly they did. Let us look at the 1970s, when a Maoist-inspired movement called the Khmer Rouge eliminated a couple million of its “class enemies” to generate “year zero” for Cambodia. Then the 1980s: In the euphoria of the collapse of the Berlin Wall after a 40-year nuclear standoff, tanks of the People’s Liberation Army moved into Tiananmen Square and liberated the souls of … how many, exactly? We don’t know for sure, as CNN removed its cameras.

If you are outraged by Nazi concentration camps, why are you not outraged by BBC revelations on Chinese concentration camps for “re-educating” the Uighurs? Time to get woke, Canada.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/maloney-china-do-you-really-want-to-do-business-with-these-people

[Dougie93]

30 minutes ago, Argus said:

 

Sean Maloney puts things succintly in pointing out the bloody, murderous recent history of China in which tens of millions were murdered by its brutal Communist governments, and asking; do we really want to do business with these people?

Forty-five million people. We are dealing with a country that murdered or otherwise let die something greater than the population of Canada. And in our living memory, not through black and white photos from the increasingly distant 1940s. And this is not taught in our schools? This is not the context to the China we deal with today when the prime minister lectures China on civil rights?

But, the apologists argue, that was in the 1960s. Things have evolved. Well, certainly they did. Let us look at the 1970s, when a Maoist-inspired movement called the Khmer Rouge eliminated a couple million of its “class enemies” to generate “year zero” for Cambodia. Then the 1980s: In the euphoria of the collapse of the Berlin Wall after a 40-year nuclear standoff, tanks of the People’s Liberation Army moved into Tiananmen Square and liberated the souls of … how many, exactly? We don’t know for sure, as CNN removed its cameras.

If you are outraged by Nazi concentration camps, why are you not outraged by BBC revelations on Chinese concentration camps for “re-educating” the Uighurs? Time to get woke, Canada.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/maloney-china-do-you-really-want-to-do-business-with-these-people

Doing business is not a morality play, but moreover, China is so big you have no choice, and they are only going to get bigger.

No, they will not take the Americans down, but they will end up ruling everything outside of North America and Europe eventually, so there will be no escaping them.

It's a billion and a half people going capitalist, that, is going to be a globe spanning monster, no matter what.

[turningrite]

21 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Doing business is not a morality play, but moreover, China is so big you have no choice, and they are only going to get bigger.

No, they will not take the Americans down, but they will end up ruling everything outside of North America and Europe eventually, so there will be no escaping them.

It's a billion and a half people going capitalist, that, is going to be a globe spanning monster, no matter what.

China faces many structural problems going forward, some of which are similar to those Western economies are facing. It's population is set to age quite quickly and the size of its labour force will stagnate as will its general population size, which will see only marginal growth between now and 2050. And after 2050 its population is set to face decline as is the size of its labour force. Japan was once predicted, as recently as the 1970s, to be the world's first Asian economic superpower but due to several structural factors, including population and labour force stagnation, the predictions never came to fruition. Its real estate and equity markets essentially collapsed and it's faced a couple decades of stagnation. There are already indications that China's residential real estate sector is overbuilt. Further its debt levels, which have risen to accommodate infrastructural development and growth, may dampen future growth prospects.

Another problem for China is what's sometimes called the prosperity conundrum whereby once a country's population reaches a certain living standard its growth rate levels off significantly. As such, India, which will displace China as the world's most populous country and will experience significant population growth until the end of this century, may become a bigger growth engine in the global economy than China will be.

Another problem for China is political monopoly, which tends to undermine trust and productivity. China's two path (Communist - capitalist) system isn't easily transferable, nor is it palatable in a lot of places. It's difficult to operate a mercantilist trade policy without alienating a lot of your trading partners. The stronger ones (i.e. the U.S. and E.U.) will demand reciprocity and the weaker ones will come to resentfully view such a system as a form of economic colonialism.

So, China faces a lot of hurdles in its quest to establish economic suzerainty outside of Europe and North America. Optimistic projections may be premature.

[Dougie93]

6 minutes ago, turningrite said:

So, China faces a lot of hurdles in its quest to establish economic suzerainty outside of Europe and North America. Optimistic projections may be premature.

1.5  billion people as a Hegemon becomes a globe spanning monster by default, no matter how many hurdles, China was a third world country, that was the only way a billion people was not a super power.

There's already no escaping them, not doing business in China? Would require a nuclear war to bring to a halt.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[turningrite]

6 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

1.5  billion people as a Hegemon becomes a globe spanning monster by default, no matter how many hurdles, China was a third world country, that was the only way a billion people was not a super power.

There's already no escaping them, not doing business in China? Would require a nuclear war to bring to a halt.

We'll see. China's future impacts on world trade and diplomacy are matters of significant conjecture. The outcomes will be determined as much by what happens within China as outside of it. It's unlikely it can be isolated although for decades it isolated itself. Can the West isolate itself? That's a good question. I think the one thing that is clear, though, is that China's economic growth will plateau. With a stagnant and eventually declining population and labour force this is a pretty solid prediction. China needs to learn to be subtle in its relationships with other countries, something it has not exhibited much capacity for to date.

Edited January 10, 2019 by turningrite

[Dougie93]

3 minutes ago, turningrite said:

We'll see. China's future impacts on world trade and diplomacy are matters of significant conjecture. The outcomes will be determined as much by what happens within China as outside of it. It's unlikely it can be isolated although for decades it isolated itself. Can the West isolate itself? That's a good question. I think the one thing that is clear, though, is that China's economic growth will plateau. With a stagnant and eventually declining population and labour force this is a pretty solid prediction. China needs to learn to be subtle in its relationships with other countries, something it has not exhibited much capacity for to date.

The West cannot isolate itself from doing business with China, the West will simply be defending classical liberalism with the wagons circled, backed up by hydrogen bombs, new cold war same as the old Cold War.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[GostHacked]

12 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

The West cannot isolate itself from doing business with China, the West will simply be defending classical liberalism with the wagons circled, backed up by hydrogen bombs, new cold war same as the old Cold War.

That's because corporations moved operations to China. North American corps only did this to themselves with outsourcing to China over the past few decades. I would be taking the corporations to task (Like Apple) for contributing to that deficiency in North America. It's not China's fault here.

[Dougie93]

Nobody is not selling to a billion and a half people with money, and government in free countries cant tell their own people not to business with that, because they are free, so the only other way to stop them, is to invoke a war with China and designate it as a declared enemy.   But then you're starting a war with a nuclear armed super power, so that's probably not a good idea.

[GostHacked]

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Nobody is not selling to a billion and a half people with money, and government in free countries cant tell their own people not to business with that, because they are free, so the only other way to stop them, is to invoke a war with China and designate it as a declared enemy.   But then you're starting a war with a nuclear armed super power, so that's probably not a good idea.

So because North American companies outsourced to China over the decades your proposed solution is to throw nuclear weapons at China? That's really stupid.

Globalists love China.

[Dougie93]

Globalism is market forces, the only thing holding China back was that they were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, when they flipped sides, nothing could stop the world from going there to try to sell them stuff.   That's all "Globalism" is.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

See,  Ghost, that is what changed,  the thing that was preventing Globalism was the Cold War, when the Cold War ended, there was no structure which stopped the flow of trade anymore, so we've gone back to the 19th century, because the 19th century was globalized because it was all European Empires.   The thing that tore the world in two, was two World Wars and a Cold War.   But that all stopped on 9 November 1989.   

It wasn't anything that anybody in the West did that created Globalism, the Soviets created Globalism, when they capitulated.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[GostHacked]

1 hour ago, Dougie93 said:

See,  Ghost, that is what changed,  the thing that was preventing Globalism was the Cold War, when the Cold War ended, there was no structure which stopped the flow of trade anymore, so we've gone back to the 19th century, because the 19th century was globalized because it was all European Empires.   The thing that tore the world in two, was two World Wars and a Cold War.   But that all stopped on 9 November 1989.   

It wasn't anything that anybody in the West did that created Globalism, the Soviets created Globalism, when they capitulated.

No, the Cold War did not prevent globalism as it was being implemented during the Cold War.  And that last line is ignorant as anything else I have seen on this board. And you are conflating colonialism to globalism.

[Argus]

5 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Doing business is not a morality play, but moreover, China is so big you have no choice, and they are only going to get bigger.

There is always a choice. There is nothing they supply we can't find others to supply. And our natural resources sell just as well elsewhere.
At a minimal we should be keeping our distance, keeping their government corporations out, and keeping their students and their government research money out of our universities.

[Argus]

4 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Nobody is not selling to a billion and a half people with money, and government in free countries cant tell their own people not to business with that, because they are free, so the only other way to stop them, is to invoke a war with China and designate it as a declared enemy.   But then you're starting a war with a nuclear armed super power, so that's probably not a good idea.

Nonsense. There are a myriad of things you can do, starting with close and exacting searches of every ship that comes here from China.

Fentanyl comes from China, after all. They refuse to declare the making, shipping or foreign export of that substance in any way illegal. Therefore, we're justified in closely searching everything and everyone who comes from China. And if that means freighters have to wait weeks or months before they can offload their goods well... too bad so sad.

With people like this, if you don't punch them in the nuts you don't get their attention.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Argus

[Dougie93]

2 hours ago, Argus said:

Nonsense. There are a myriad of things you can do, starting with close and exacting searches of every ship that comes here from China.

Fentanyl comes from China, after all. They refuse to declare the making, shipping or foreign export of that substance in any way illegal. Therefore, we're justified in closely searching everything and everyone who comes from China. And if that means freighters have to wait weeks or months before they can offload their goods well... too bad so sad.

With people like this, if you don't punch them in the nuts you don't get their attention.

Sounds like a Nanny Police State National Security Boondoggle to me, never mind that even they can't grind things to a halt for fentanyl as if fentanyl is plutonium, we got businesses to run up in here, the spice must flow.

Fentanyl hysteria is the old 19th century Temperance Lady, and I ain't down with her hachetation.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Dougie93

[Argus]

1 hour ago, Dougie93 said:

Sounds like a Nanny Police State National Security Boondoggle to me, never mind that even they can't grind things to a halt for fentanyl as if fentanyl is plutonium, we got businesses to run up in here, the spice must flow.

Fentanyl hysteria is the old 19th century Temperance Lady, and I ain't down with her hachetation.

Fentanyl is so dangerous a tiny bit can kill an ox, and is killing thousands of people. It's not nanny state to want to stop that, it's just common sense.

[Dougie93]

7 hours ago, Argus said:

Fentanyl is so dangerous a tiny bit can kill an ox, and is killing thousands of people. It's not nanny state to want to stop that, it's just common sense.

Common sense is a fallacy,  clearly as there is no sense in the nanny state war on drugs.  

Thousands of drug users are killing themselves because that's a high risk lifestyle, who knew?

Personal responsibility, not my problem, if I kill myself, that's my problem, if they kill themselves, that's their problem. 

You're going to shut the ports down to examine every single container from China? Unrealistic but a fool's errant to start off with.  

And for what?  To save junkies from themselves?  Absurd.

You said  you were a "Real" conservative, but what you are advocating is nanny state socialism, so not so conservative after all, as I said at the time /shrugs

Edited January 11, 2019 by Dougie93

[Argus]

7 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Common sense is a fallacy,  clearly as there is no sense in the nanny state war on drugs.  

Thousands of drug users are killing themselves because that's a high risk lifestyle, who knew?

Personal responsibility, not my problem, if I kill myself, that's my problem, if they kill themselves, that's their problem. 

You're going to shut the ports down to examine every single container from China? Unrealistic but a fool's errant to start off with.  

And for what?  To save junkies from themselves?  Absurd.

You said  you were a "Real" conservative, but what you are advocating is nanny state socialism, so not so conservative after all, as I said at the time /shrugs

I'm sure some back-channel discussions with China could convince me to ease my determined search for Fentanyl. But they'd have to make it worth my while.

You said you were a real conservative but you seem to want to surrender a lot, to just about anyone pressuring us.

[Dougie93]

47 minutes ago, Argus said:

I'm sure some back-channel discussions with China could convince me to ease my determined search for Fentanyl. But they'd have to make it worth my while.

You said you were a real conservative but you seem to want to surrender a lot, to just about anyone pressuring us.

I'm a classically liberal limited government conservative in the tradition of British Westminster Parliamentary Democracy and associated Parliamentary Supremacy.

Which is obviously opposed by nature to big government nanny police state overreach to solve problems not actually subject to.

[QuebecOverCanada]

Should we suspend relations? I mean, it would be their loss, since they're exporting way more to us than the other way around. 

[Dougie93]

Pretty sure Canada is not of particular significance to a twelve trillion dollar economy.

[turningrite]

22 minutes ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

Should we suspend relations? I mean, it would be their loss, since they're exporting way more to us than the other way around. 

It would negatively impact some industries, particularly in the resource and agricultural sectors. And Western Canadians would pay the highest price, a situation that will likely ensure the current federal government, which is already widely reviled in parts of Western Canada, will refrain from rocking the boat too much. But your main point is correct. China only imports from Canada what it can't make or grow itself in sufficient quantity. There is no reciprocity where it comes to trade in manufactured goods and, infamously, China doesn't recognize or respect Western standards on intellectual property. Because our economy and supply chains are so integrated with the U.S. economy, however, it's unlikely Canada would have the capacity to suspend trade with China. The cost of consumer goods would likely skyrocket were we to do so. What we should do, I believe, is tie our strategy on trade to the American approach as Trump is far more likely to get trade concessions from the Chinese than are we.

[Dougie93]

Companies would simply evacuate Canada and set up in the USA and trade with the Chinese from there, then ship their goods and services into Canada from the USA under USMCA

/shrugs

[Argus]

2 hours ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

Should we suspend relations? I mean, it would be their loss, since they're exporting way more to us than the other way around. 

I think we should encourage industries to shift the source of their supply of goods with subtle tax changes - which could grow increasingly less subtle over time if necessary. I think we should ban Chinese electronics of any sort, and bar any Chinese company from taking over any Canadian company until and unless the Chinese government removes its control over them.

As for relations, we have an old drunk there as ambassador. Let him keep going to parties and getting drunk. But I would downgrade China's relationship with us, and definitely make no bilateral agreements with them. I'd rather focus on Taiwan. They're a democracy with a robust economy. Much smaller than China, of course. But a bigger slice of a smaller pie can do wonders. South Korea should be another major target for us to export resources.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Argus