Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gives a thumbs up as he leaves the stage following Chinese President Xi Jinping following a family photo at the APEC Summit, in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian WyldAdrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Charles Burton is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, non-resident senior fellow of the European Values Center for Security Policy in Prague, and former diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing.
For more than 40 years, Canada’s business-political complex of interests have yearned to cash in big time by getting privileged access to China’s enormous market and global economic heft. Now, with the nightmare of the Michaels Kovrig and Spavor well in the past, Canada could be tempted to resume old patterns of China relations.
However, it is important we don’t. Canada must face the facts: China is now closed for business.
2023 has afflicted China with alarming concerns, including deflation, a terrifying crash in real estate, falling domestic consumer demand, and youth unemployment so bad that Beijing simply stopped reporting it. Foreign investment plummeted as overseas investors pulled billions out of China, seeking better returns elsewhere. (Canada “suspended indefinitely” our involvement in China’s........