‘Canada, Meet Global China’

Abstract

Atlases in any Canadian home invariably display a vast expanse of blue separating the land masses of Asia and North America. The two continents comfortably occupy different pages, usually in separate sections.We need a new kind of map. Globalization has increased Canada's connections around the world through the multiple bands of diplomacy, commerce, migration, culture, and communication. That new map will shrink oceans, especially the Pacific, and show that human interactions are expanding in remarkable ways.What Wang Gungwu has called the fourth rise of China has in the course of a decade shrunk the map even further and with unprecedented speed.' Responding voraciously to global opportunities, deepening interconnections with Asia, and connecting positively to North America and other parts of the world, China has been transformed from being a place out there to a daily reality for Canadians. In part this reflects the changes in Canada's demography resulting from large numbers of immigrants from greater China over the past two decades and the increase in Chinese tourists in the past three years. But even more tellingly, a trip to the shopping centre reveals how China's manufacturers have reduced the price of consumer goods; a trip to the gas station reveals how China's demand for energy is increasing prices for energy and natural resources; and a trip to the bank reveals how mortgage and interest rates are tied to China's purchase of US securities.The new map will not present Canada as being closer to China than to the United States, Britain, France, or Mexico. But it will need to reflect that China's impact is growing dramatically in ways that will affect our domestic affairs as well as our relations with all of these countries.What follows is a brief and generally optimistic assessment of the forces behind China's expanded presence, Canadian reactions, and the policy choices that lie ahead for a new Canadian government. China has mattered deeply for Canadians going back to the era of railroad building at home and missionary activities across the Pacific. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations with Communist China in 1970, it has been a diplomatic priority of successive governments. What is changing is that the challenges posed by China are now as much for domestic arrangements within Canada as for our foreign relations. What we consume, what we produce, and how we produce it have all entered a globalized world in which China is suddenly a cutting edge.GLOBAL CHINAContemporary China is portrayed in a variety of ways, including as a rising power, an emerging superpower, a potential hegemon, a peer competitor to the United States, and a failing authoritarian government. The term global China is preferable for several reasons. It underscores China's new gravity without implying an inevitable power struggle with the extant superpower. It signals that China has grabbed the world's attention by opening its door to the forces of globalization, looking outward, and connecting to supply chains, production networks, and foreign investment that have both regional and global reach. China is both the product and beneficiary of a period of intensive globalization. It has not just opened its own door but serves as a model that other developing economies are scrambling to replicate or follow. If Japan once led a formation of flying geese in eastern Asia, China is provoking a buffalo charge that extends across Asia and into emerging markets around the world.China has become part of the global economy at the same time that it is changing it. In the course of a generation, it has emerged as the shop floor of the world by Grafting a production system that fuses high-end technology with low-wage, labour-intensive activity; cut-throat domestic competition; a reliable, docile, and capable industrial workforce; utilization of huge sums of foreign investment and technology; and the new appetites of a billion domestic consumers. …