We Don't Have to Trade With China

This China:

The federal Leaders’ Debates Commission awarded a research contract to a group that fundraised for four cabinet ministers and praised China for its “environmental leadership,” records show. The Commission was to be impartial when created by cabinet three years ago: “We ensured the Commission would have the independence required to make its own decisions.”

This leadership:

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Canada’s ambassador to China spent three weeks in Washington in early April holding talks with senior American officials aimed at facilitating the release of two Canadians imprisoned in China.

Three sources told The Globe and Mail that Ambassador Dominic Barton’s confidential mission to Washington involved discussions about a possible U.S. deferred prosecution agreement for Huawei Technologies Co. chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou that could lead to freedom for Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

The sources declined to discuss details of the talks about a deferred prosecution agreement because of the sensitive and confidential nature of the matter. However, they stressed that Mr. Barton’s conversations involved a broader appeal for stronger U.S. action to put pressure on Beijing to release the two men from prison, where they have been locked up for 910 days.

 

As usual, the Canadians expected the Americans to fix their problem.

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China is hosting foreign ministers from 10 Southeast Asian nations this week amid heightened competition between Beijing and Washington for influence in the region.

Chinese state media said the meeting Tuesday in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing will cover issues from restoring tourism and other economic exchanges battered by COVID-19, to more coordinated efforts in fighting the pandemic and the feasibility of creating a vaccine passport to allow freer travel among them.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is also expected to meet separately with each of his counterparts on the sidelines of the conference.

(Sidebar: this Wang Yi.)

Beijing has been building influence with the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, despite frictions with some of them over rival territorial claims in South China Sea. The Philippines has complained repeatedly over the presence of Chinese boats moored at a reef that it claims and Malaysia last week protested over an intrusion by 16 Chinese military aircraft into its airspace, calling the incident a “serious threat to national sovereignty and flight safety.”

Chinese economic and diplomatic heft have helped override such concerns, however, while the bloc has been unable to form a unified stand in the face of opposition from Chinese allies within, primarily Cambodia.

 

Rather, China has unofficially annexed smaller nations in Asia.

Learn from the Indonesians and others what will become of you, Cambodia.