The dream of China joining the west in a cooperative and fruitful partnership is over. We see China now for what it has become, a predator. Offering to build roads, mines and ports in third world countries and waiting for them to default on the loans, so it can steal their resources that they had put up as colaterial. China is building up its military and is making land claims as well as huge rights in the South China Sea. China’s claims in the South China Sea are completely unlawful, but this bully is after the rich offshore oil resources of the region.
China respects no nation, just ask Canada, Australia or many others what happens when China feels threatened in any way. Kidnapping, blackmailing and murder are all on the table. They will not tolerate any criticism and are willing to go to any length to get what they want.
Now it pains me to say anything nice about Trump, but he has made the world aware of China. Trump also has made all nations more aware of being more self reliant.
Europe is waking up to the Chinese threat and the only ally of China is really Russia.
Here is where China has stumbled. Putin is not going to be a pawn to China. China still cannot build a decent military jet engine and requires Russian jet engines and other high tech that it has been unable to steal the designs for from the west. Now Putin has put China on notice that coping any more Russian tech is off the table and trying to grab any Russian territory is crossing the line.
China, having learned their lesson about dictators from Mao Zedong, divided their power base into three separate branches.
It has only been since Xi Jinping who grabbed all the power and declared he can stay in office forever, has China become such a bully. Now that Xi Jinping has declared himself king, he wants the entire world to bend the knee.
Canada and like minded countries need a policy change in regard to China.
Only when it brings real pain to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) now run with the very firm hand of Xi, will change occur. We have no issue with the chinese people (who are just hostages like our Michaels) to the CCP.
Many countries feel they do not want the pain of upsetting China. However, let us look at Australia.
A country with a smaller population and GDP than Canada, also Australia is a major trading partner of China. They have been bullied by China for longer than most and have grown stronger because of it.
Who needs who more, should be the question. China needs Australian iron ore and coal. Just a quick note here– to make good steel you need quality coke (from coal). China needs Australian coal because of making steel… Chinese coal does not make good steel.
This same idea of who needs who the most can be applied around the world. China needs resources and every time China embargos a product to punish some country it hurts China. Let us look at China’s Canadian canola embargo. There are now shortage of canola oil in China. The fact is, the price of Canadian canola oil has soared (helping Canada not hurting us at all) as roundabout ways of delivery of our canola oil to China continues, but at a much higher price.
The bully is really a paper dragon, a third world country that is going down the wrong path. The entire world is beginning to understand that they must work together against this aggressor.
image sources
- Hupao_Wikimedia: Sh1019 | CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported