We Don't Have to Trade With China

There really is no point in doing so, unless one wants their own country to fail and fail hard:

All of this is made even more humiliating by the fact that China’s rise may not be as unstoppable as its Western admirers believe. China’s economic growth rate is slowing, its bloated real estate markets are showing signs of implosion, and industrial production has slowed to the lowest level since 2004. Meanwhile, its tech and innovation sector is being pummelled by continued government crackdowns.

More serious still are demographic forces. By 2050, China is projected to have 60 million fewer people under age fifteen, a loss approximately the size of Italy’s total population. The ratio of retirees to working people is expected to have more than tripled by then, one of the most rapid demographic shifts in history. By 2050 it will be roughly 20% higher than that of the US; 15 years after that, according to the South China Morning Post, China’s population will be very old and about half its current size.

None of this suggests resisting China will be easy, particularly given the disposition of our rulers. But it does mean it’s possible.

That is the real tragedy of the kowtow crowd. Just as in the Thirties, their prostration only makes their adversary stronger and more confident. Inevitably, it will be the rest of us, and future generations, who pay the price.

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But Canada enjoys selling out to its Middle Kingdom bosses:

Rio Tinto on Monday tapped Canada’s outgoing ambassador to China as its chairman, hoping the veteran consultant’s links to its biggest market will help the global miner as it looks to move on from the scandal over its destruction of ancient rock shelters in Australia.

Dominic Barton will take over as chairman of Rio from Simon Thompson, who decided to step down to take responsibility for the destruction of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia in May 2020.

 

And now we know why he resigned.

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The federal Conservatives say they will not launch a bid to resurrect a parliamentary committee that probed Canada-China relations for more than eighteen months.

In December, 2019, Conservative MP Erin O’Toole, before he became leader of his party, spearheaded a motion in the Commons to establish the special Committee on Canada-China relations. It was created over the objections of the governing Liberals and with the support of the Bloc Québécois and NDP.

At the time, Mr. O’Toole as the party’s foreign-affairs critic said: “The challenge of the China relationship is the foreign-policy challenge that Canada will face over the next generation.”

The committee went on to study the fraught relationship between China and the West under the increasingly aggressive leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping but also Beijing’s quashing of dissent and opposition in Hong Kong and its political inference and harassment in Canada.

The committee also focused on then-imprisoned Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and launched a demand for federal documents about the firing of two scientists from Canada’s top-security virus laboratory.

But now the Conservatives say there are other pressing priorities, such as examining the federal government’s handling of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August, 2021. A motion sponsored by the Tories to create this committee passed earlier this month.

 

Cowards.

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China needs to EU to bully Lithuania (RE: honey badger):

The European Union may take the trade row between China and Lithuania to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if it finds evidence that Beijing is violating international trade rules, the bloc's executive Commission said on Friday.

China is pressuring German car parts giant Continental to stop using components made in Lithuania amid a dispute between Beijing and the Baltic state over the status of Taiwan, Reuters reported on Thursday, quoting two people familiar with the matter.

The Chinese government, which views self-ruled Taiwan as its territory, downgraded diplomatic ties with Lithuania last month after the opening of a representative office by Taiwan in Vilnius.

China's foreign ministry denies that Beijing has pressured multinational companies not to use Lithuanian-produced parts though says its companies no longer trusted Lithuania.

 

Also:

At a Friday press event, de Rugy reiterated Paris' stance in opposing any acts of intimidation that jeopardize the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan is in a particularly difficult position, facing threats from China at a time when Washington and Beijing are competing for influence in the Indo-Pacific region, de Rugy said.

"It is therefore important that democracies show support for each other and that stability and security is maintained in the strait," he added.

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The U.S. government has warned for years that products from China’s Huawei Technologies Co., the world’s biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, pose a national security risk for any countries that use them. As Washington has waged a global campaign to block the company from supplying state-of-the-art 5G wireless networks, Huawei and its supporters have dismissed the claims as lacking evidence.

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I would stay away, as well:

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he had no plans to personally attend the Beijing Olympics, as his government remains non-committal in public about joining the U.S.-led diplomatic boycott of the games.

 

Have the fortitude to stay away completely.

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#NotME(OrElseMyFamilyWillGetArrested):

Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has told a Singapore newspaper that she never said she wrote of having been sexually assaulted, despite a November social media post attributed to her that accused a former top Communist Party official of having forced her into sex.