We Don't Have to Trade With China

It's time to stop being China's North American vassal state:

China and Canada should promote normalising relations and get back on track toward establishing a strategic partnership, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Canadian counterpart, according to his ministry.

"China-Canada relations have experienced difficulties and twists and turns over the years, which is not something China would like to see," Wang told Foreign Minister Melanie Joly in Beijing, the ministry said in a statement late on Friday.

Joly's three-day visit through Saturday, at Wang's invitation, is the first by a Canadian foreign minister in seven years.

 

Wang just gave Justin's girlfriend her marching orders. 

He explained what China's leadership expects Canada to do and it will be done.

 

The bosses have spoken.

Can't the universities get student fees from someone else?

What of spies?:

From 2019 to 2022, the number of Chinese international students with active Canadian study permits tumbled 26 per cent, from 173,315 to 128,040. Meanwhile, other countries and territories that contribute large numbers to Canada’s international student body experienced growth —  with the Philippines, Hong Kong, Colombia, Nigeria and India, seeing the biggest jumps during the same timeframe. In 2023, study permit applications from mainland China did surge 23 per cent compared to 2019 numbers, however, experts largely attribute the jump to a pandemic backlog and the Canadian government’s post-COVID international student push. ...

In May, the government released its initial report on foreign interference, which stated that China “stands out as a main perpetrator of foreign interference against Canada.” It highlighted Ottawa’s fears of the Chinese state manipulating their overseas students — and the larger Chinese diaspora in Canada — to back pro-China political candidates.

“Intelligence reporting — though not firmly substantiated” indicated that prior to the 2019 elections, people associated with a known Chinese state proxy agent provided Chinese international students falsified documents that allowed them to vote and bused them into the Don Valley North nomination process to support Liberal candidate Han Dong, the report said. Dong denied any involvement.

 

Japan and Pacific islands form agreements on how to deal with China:

Japan and Pacific island countries agreed on a host of new initiatives during a three-day summit in the Japanese capital designed to boost economic and security cooperation as Tokyo steps up efforts to counterbalance China’s growing regional clout alongside the United States, Australia and other partners.

During the gathering, which ended Thursday, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the leaders and representatives of 18 Pacific countries and territories agreed on an action plan that will see Tokyo boost engagement with the strategically important region, with collaboration announced in seven fields, including technology and connectivity, climate change, people-centered development and security.

"I'd like to make ties between Japan and the Pacific island nations stronger and demonstrate to the rest of the world that we are moving in the same direction," Kishida said during the summit, expressing his determination to take relations “to even greater heights.”

Most, if not all the initiatives agreed to at the latest iteration of the triennial Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting are aligned with the 2050 Strategy for Blue Pacific Continent — a long-term regional guideline for cooperation in key areas, including governance, people-centered economic development and climate change.

Under the new plan, Tokyo vowed to help some of the island nations maintain and manage the operation of undersea communication cables that not only link the resource-rich region with the rest of the world but also carry critical internet traffic.

While the project will boost regional connectivity, countries such as Japan, Australia and the U.S. are also partnering on subsea cable development in the Pacific to “rein in China's involvement in undersea infrastructure and reduce the strategic vulnerability of such cables as a result of hybrid warfare,” said Jose Sousa-Santos, a Pacific security expert and associate professor of practice at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury.