The Canada-China relationship has been through many fluctuations since China’s establishment in 1949. The Canadian Cabinet decided to give its recognition in the same year as China’s establishment on 16 November. However, the diplomatic relations with China was not formed until 1970, two decades from Canada’s primary consideration. Though there were many factors influencing the Sino-Canadian relations since 1949, due to the limitation in length, this essay will focus on three main reasons, how the political consideration, the attention on human rights problems and Canada’s economic interests influenced its relations with China from 1949 to the 1990s. From 1949 to the 1960s, the relationship between China and Canada was strongly influenced by Canada’s political consideration. With Canada’s gradually pursuing of independent foreign policy together with the change in international climate eventually left the room for Canada’s recognition to China. Since then, the Canadian economic interest started to dominate any other factors in this bilateral relationship, even if Canada paid attention to China’s human rights problem. Thus, the Sino-Canadian relationship after the 1970s is a balance between Canada’s economic interests and human rights issues in China. This essay will examine the three factors thematically, and in each factor, it will follow a chronology order. In the first part of the essay, it will discuss Canada’s political consideration in recognition China when taking the U.S. influence and the change of international atmosphere into account. Canada’s willingness in achieving an independent foreign policy led to its formal relations establishment with China in the early 1970s. Then it will discuss how the Chinese human rig... ... middle of paper ... ... China dominated the human rights problems, and enabled Canada-China to be an economic partnership of each other. From 1949 to the early 1960s, the American pressure that Canada received was the fundamental reason for the delay of recognition China. As Canada’s desire of pursuing an independent foreign policy grew stronger, the impact of the U.S. government on the normalizing relationship between Canada and China was less and less. After the establishment of relations in 1970, the bilateral relationship remained steady besides the human rights issue in China. When China dominated on the economic terms in the world, Canada preferred to cooperate with China. The economic trade between China and Canada brought positive influence to both economies, and the Sino-Canadian relationship should maintain at a peaceful and beneficial level if both states worked together.
In today’s rapidly growing global society, foreign relations with other countries are imperative to a nation’s prosperity and world-wide harmony. Especially with China, the fastest growing country in the world, it is important for Canada to establish relations that can benefit both countries. The foundation of these Sino-Canadian relations was created by Norman Bethune’s involvement in the Second Sino-Japanese War. China was not always such a flourishing and prosperous society. In 1937, during this war, Japan invaded China with imperialist objectives.
Moreover, economic interdependence promotes peaceful trade between countries since it is beneficial and avoids war at all cost. For example, “China’s economy is thoroughly integrated in this complex interdependence global economy,” thus it would be suicidal for China to start war (Wong, The Rise of Great Powers, Nov.18). China free trades with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has developed a profitable relationship that led to trade surplus (Kaplan, pg.3). As a result, starting conflicts with the ASEAN will threaten the Chinese economy because it will drastically impact free trade and will cause a downfall in profits. The possibility of war between China and United States is remote because China would rather benefit from resources such as, security, technology, and market that United States provides (Wong, The Rise of Great Powers, Nov.18). Although economic power shifts to China, United States provides security because it has always been the dominant hegemony; therefore, it has a better and powerful economy (Green, pg.34). It is evident that China’s economy is rapidly increasing, but it still has no interest in being the head hegemony and therefore does not challenge United States. That being said, countries choose to avoid conflicts with United States or their trading partners since it will negatively impact their markets and investments.
Canada has undergone a wealth of changes in the past fifty years, many of which have progressed this country from loyal soldiers of Britain to prominent world bankers. Through the evolution of legislature, economic policy, and the actions of the Canadian Forces, Canada’s global image has developed since the end of World War II. Canada’s current global image, an amalgamation of actions in the past fifty years, demonstrates Canada to be an independent entity of substantial belief in people’s well-being and equality, strong economic policy that is widely regarded, and a military that is equal parts peacekeeping and combatant forces.
Which in turn, created a whole new set of problems or rather anxieties for Canada due to the fact that now, “[The United States] are now the primary market and source of investment for Canadian commerce” (Bow, p. 346). Now instead of the essence of the threat being a physical invasion of the United States, Anti-Americanism in this time period derived from a threat of economic and cultural assimilation. Canada throughout this time period continues to find ways in order to separate themselves from their Western counter-parts. This was especially evident during the 1960s where, “the social and political turbulence… provoked a new wave of liberal anti-Americanism in Canada, focusing on a supposedly endemic pattern of racial conflict, urban violence, cultural polarization and political corruption” (Bow, p. 346). Due to those issues in the United States the sentiment has been more social among its people and it shows with different implementations of policies that Canada has placed or tried to place in order to separate themselves and as a country make themselves look better than the “super powered” United States by comparison. As a result, Canada became to be “proponents of universal health care, national welfare and pension programs and post war social programs…” (Bow, p. 347). The sentiment would evolved further due to the issues regarding the Vietnam war, which not only created a perception that, “America is by nature inclined to an aggressive self destructive foreign policy” (Bow, p. 348), but also is the “first Cold war crisis in which Canada chose to stand apart from the United States, and this affected not only Canadian diplomats’ capacity to influence U.S. decisions, but also Canadian public perceptions of what the war said about American values and priorities” (Bow, p. 348). During the Vietnam war the U.S were mostly criticized for acting
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Essentially the Chinese government would need to provided assurances that suspected criminals sent back to China will be given due process or that prisoners wouldn’t be executed.The only way to assure China’s commitment is through monitoring. Monitoring is essential because without it innocent individuals could die in jail. However, monitoring is a challenge in itself. Canada has to act as a watchdog by putting controls in place to keep China in check, but there’s no guarantee that China will abide by the rules. As mentioned above, China currently uses many illegal techniques, such as fox-hunting. So it becomes the question of can Canada change ingrained beliefs about unethical treatment in China? United Nations Committee against Torture has said that in China “the practice of torture and ill-treatment is still deeply entrenched in the criminal-justice system” (Vanderklippe, 2017, para. 20). In one case, Chinese businessman “Peter Zhao” fled to Canada after five days of interrogation by Shuanggui investigators in which he said he was forced to sit in uncomfortable positions for long periods of time and repeatedly ordered to confess to bribery by interrogators who screamed, swore and insulted him. It brought him to a mental breakdown. “I thought it would be better to be dead,” said Mr. Zhao, who spoke on the condition that his real name and other identifying details not be used because he fears for the safety of family still in China. (Vanderklippe, 2017, para. 22). The example of Zhao is one of many cases that occur in China on a daily basis and has been occurring for a countless number of years. Thus, it would be ignorant for Canada to think that by simply signing an extradition treaty the structure and the entire way of thinking in the Chinese legal system would change over
...itten the full word Foreign direct investment and then in the brackets he has put the abbreviation (FDI).
Canada and China are very different States and are run by very different forms of government. The basic underlying difference between the two governments is the location of sovereignty in the counties. In China it seems as though the people do play a large part in the government, but after studying it, it is evident that the power really rests with the Communist party and the dictatorship. While in Canada the people popularly elect their representatives who elect their Prime Minister.
The Web. The Web. 27 May 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1354343?ref=search-gateway:1c7b5d35c756095be3255402d85e5e3f>. Nathan, Andrew J. "U.S.-China Relations Since 1949."
(+)Robertson III , Grayson R “The China-MFN Controversy: The Case For Maintaining China's MFN Status Part 1” <a href="http://www.china-net.org/CCF94/ccf9409-3.html">http://www.china-net.org/CCF94/ccf9409-3.html
Rosemary Foot, The Practice of Power: US Relations with China since 1949, (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1995), 96.
China is the most populated country is the world with about 1.35 billion people. Not surprisingly, this is almost 4 times the population of the United States. For such a large country, the government must be strong and efficient in order to govern its people. It is a communist country and its power is divided into branches. While it is not a democracy, it has the three branches of government that resemble those in the US. These branches are the legislative, executive, and the judicial. However, there are differences between the governments of the US and China. In Legend, a novel by Marie Lu, the Republic is a dystopian government. Citizens of the Republic have limited rights. Despite the fact that most governments may appear
In order to have a better understanding about the conflict of Tiananmen and its influence on further American relations with People’s Republic of China, this paper gives a short background of the bilateral relations until 1990. Historically, the United States and China did not have good relations due to the political regime of China. In addition, China was not that developed economically to have trade or any kinds of relations with the US. According to some historical data, the first China-US negotiations at the ambassadorial level started on August 1, 1955. The bilateral relations of America and China consist of several stages. The first stage of the US-Chinese relations started in 1971 when both opened their doors to financial and economic ties. The trading volume of these countries stood at US$ 4...
China's development is praised by the whole world. Its developments are not only in the economic aspect, but as well in its foreign affairs. Compared with other developed countries, China is a relatively young country. It began constructing itself in 1949. After 30 years of growth, company ownership had experienced unprecedented changes. Entirely, non-state-owned companies can now be more involved in sectors that used to be monopolized by state-owned companies.
China's Foreign Policy Since the initial warming of U.S.-China relations in the early 1970’s, policymakers have had difficulty balancing conflicting U.S. policy concerns in the People’s Republic of China. In the strange world of diplomacy between the two, nothing is predictable. From Nixon to Clinton, presidents have had to reconcile security and human rights concerns with the corporate desire for expanded economic relations between the two countries. Nixon established ties with Mao Zedong’s brutal regime in 1972. And today, Clinton’s administration is trying to influence China’s course from within a close economic and diplomatic relationship.