International affairs expert Margaret McCuaig-Johnston says premier's message on trade with China in Chinese-language media requires 'damage control.'
Ahead of a planned trade mission to Asia this fall, B.C. Premier David Eby signalled his intent to visit China, in speaking to Chinese-language media last month.
Smith clarified, by email, that Eby’s comment is intended to mean that he may visit China “at some point in the future, when appropriate; but there are no current plans.”Attempting to make sense of the comments, Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a Sino-Canadian affairs analyst at the University of Ottawa, said the Chinese-speaking media audience in B.C. may get the wrong impression of Eby’s actual intentions.
As a total share percentage of B.C. exports, China has shown a gradual decline with B.C. China’s share shot up two percentage points in 2021, to 16.5 per cent but declined to 13.2 per cent in 2022, which is at least a 10-year low. Last year the U.S. represented 57.3 per cent as a destination of exports.
Citing military aggression toward Taiwan and India, illegal overfishing in the Philippines, human rights atrocities against Uyghurs in Xinjiang and forced labour camps, McCuaig-Johnston said “this is not the behavior of a country that we want to do business with that we would court business with.” The B.C. government has stated it sides with the House of Commons majority that China is committing acts of genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. McCuaig-Johnston said provincial politicians who tout international trade ties owe it to Canadians to ensure “that the products coming into B.C. are not tainted with forced labour.”
Sino-Canadian relations were particularly damaged by the December 2019 arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wenzhou in Vancouver and subsequent detentions of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in China , said McCuaig-Johnston.
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