My Take | Why Canadians are opposed to a free-trade deal with China
Beijing has a serious image problem and its officials are not making things any easier with their knee-jerk, defensive responses to questions of human rights
China and Canada have been engaged in exploratory talks towards a free-trade agreement. Yet, in its public statements to Canadians, Ottawa often sounds non-committal. A free-trade deal makes good sense for both countries. So what’s not to like?
The short answer is that most Canadians don’t want such a deal. Quite simply, China has a serious image problem.
Nearly nine in 10 Canadians are either “uncomfortable” or “somewhat uncomfortable” with the idea of granting greater access to Chinese state-run companies to their economy, according to a survey in April by the national newspaper The Globe and Mail. And almost eight in 10 Canadians think any free-trade conditions should be tied to human rights.
Of course, it’s possible to tweak any trade deal such that Chinese investments in Canadian strategic industries might have to be passive or that these might be considered no-go zones. But given the high level of public antipathy towards the Chinese government, it appears many Canadians prefer not to have such a deal at all.
Unlike Australia and New Zealand, both of which have free-trade deal with China, Canada is far away from Asia. The United States is, and will always remain, its most important trading partner. US President Donald Trump has been putting heavy pressure on Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the decades-old North American Free Trade Agreement. That has created an opening for China.