If Canada were to enter into talks regarding a potential free trade agreement with China, it wants a \u201cprogressive\u201d which would include chapters on human rights and labour standards says Canada\u2019s new ambassador to China, John McCallum. Formal talks haven\u2019t started between the two countries but Ottawa has been holding a round of exploratory consultations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to do this with our eyes open,\u201d mentioned McCallum in a recent interview. \u201cWe know that in many areas, China and Canada have different views of the world, different priorities, and different laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Ottawa, opposition members have raised concerns about the current talks pointing out recent remarks by the Chinese government that human rights and limits on investments by state-owned enterprises would not be part of the trade discussion. \u201cThere are huge gains for Canadians if we\u2019re successful, said McCallum. We also have responsibility on the human rights side. We do both.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the eve of President Trump\u2019s inauguration, former World Bank chief and U.S. trade czar Robert Zoellick raised concerns about the Canada-China talks during an event held in Washington. Canada, according to Zoellick, shouldn\u2019t get too close to China if it wants to stay on the good side of the Trump administration citing some well documented anti-China sentiment from the President and his entourage.<\/p>\n
Ambassador McCallum politely brushed aside Zoellick\u2019s warnings noting Washington doesn\u2019t even have its Chinese ambassador in place yet, \u201cWhatever the American position is, the Canadian position has been defined clearly by our prime minister and it\u2019s my job to put that in effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
When questioned about Zoellick\u2019s comments, Prime Minister Trudeau reaffirmed his government\u2019s position: \u201cCanadians expect me as prime minister to grow our economy and defend our jobs while, at the same time, standing up for our values and principles and those are two things that I will always do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ottawa is sending heavyweight cabinet ministers to China in the near future: Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is expected to visit in order to pursue Canada\u2019s ambitions for a potentially lucrative clean tech co-operation, Finance Minister Bill Morneau as well as Trade Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne are scheduled to co-chair a high-level economics discussion with China\u2019s vice-premier.<\/p>\n
After years of struggling due to cut backs and the general lack of interest by the former conservative government, Canada\u2019s diplomatic corps has a lot of work ahead to create and rejuvenate diplomatic ties.<\/p>\n
McCallum wraps it up best: “The more we can establish good ties, the more they will listen to us in other areas. I am cautiously optimistic that as we deepen our relationship, they will listen to us more in general than they may have in the past.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Canada were to enter into talks regarding a potential free trade agreement with China, it wants a \u201cprogressive\u201d which would include chapters on human rights and labour standards says Canada\u2019s new ambassador to China, John McCallum. Formal talks haven\u2019t started between the two countries but Ottawa has been holding a round of exploratory consultations. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,142,250,246,241],"tags":[580,671,672],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4040,"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037\/revisions\/4040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearit.ca\/canadian-customs-broker-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}