Published: June 11, 2024
Written by: Ng Weng Hoong

In the growing firestorm over national security threats now reaching levels of paranoia, Canada is drawing inspiration from its dark past.

The European settlers who founded and ruled Canada harboured fears of being overwhelmed by the cheap labour and dirty immigrants from China even as they coveted the cheap labour of the same dirty immigrants and the fabled markets where they came from.

Thus, was born Canada’s ambivalence towards the Chinese, with the pendulum swinging between greed and fear depending on the mood of the ruling class. The Chinese seem to incite this extreme dichotomous greed-fear reaction in the West. Canada has returned to the fear phase where every Chinese person is starting to look like Fu Manchu (80). In the recently ended greed phase, Canadian prime ministers and businesses fantasized about “the Chinese” as a giant market of a billion faceless consumers and suppliers of endless cheap labour and capital. The objectification of the Chinese explains why they will always be foreign to the Canadian establishment, regardless how long they have been in the country.

Shiran, citing fellow Marxist economist Michael Roberts, observes that the U.S. and EU have sustained trade deficits since decades ago, before China’s emergence as an industrial superpower: “In a previous era, it was Japan and Germany that were the source of the U.S.’s protracted trade deficits.” This rather suggests that “the main problem is the decline in the competitiveness and productive capabilities of the U.S. itself rather than China’s (or, for that matter, anyone else’s) industrial policies.”

Americans have a hard time answering that question. Though China ended its years of pandemic isolation, tensions with the U.S. have restricted the visits of American business people, students, journalists and even tourists who want to see how their global rival is doing.

But Morning Edition got a first-hand look at China when we traveled to Beijing and Shanghai for a week this spring. Our travels produced big stories and insights — and a hundred little observations about a dynamic nation. When it was over, I talked about our experience with NPR’s John Ruwitch, who has covered China for decades.

Less than a month after Washington announced plans to quadruple duties for Chinese EVs to 100%, Brussels said it would combat excessive subsidies with additional tariffs ranging from 17.4% for BYD (002594.SZ), opens new tab to 38.1% for SAIC (600104.SS), opens new tab, on top of the standard 10% car duty.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) on Monday local time adopted a resolution aimed at reaching a comprehensive cease-fire deal drafted by the US in three phases to end the war in Gaza, with China, which voted in favor, calling for all UNSC resolutions to be implemented in a comprehensive and effective manner while expressing concern that the US-drafted text is still ambiguous in a number of aspects.

Chinese analysts said on Tuesday that although the US claimed that Israel has accepted the deal and Palestinian group Hamas also said it accepts the deal and is ready to negotiate on details, to what extent the resolution can be implemented is still in question, as the conflicting parties lack mutual trust. If there are further incidents or disagreements during the three phases of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the conflict will continue, so the US-drafted deal is fragile. China will play a role for peace and will make full efforts to mediate the crisis.  

Global attention on the Arctic has intensified amid global warming, particularly since 2007. China is among the countries that have received the most amount of attention for its interest in the Arctic.

Its emergence as a global superpower, its impressive development of polar technology — including icebreakers — and its creation of an official Arctic policy have raised eyebrows about China’s Arctic ambitions.

The current overall condition of China's marine ecology remains stable, with some local areas seeing improvements and the degradation trends of typical ecosystems being slowly curbed, according to a monitoring report released by the Ministry of Natural Resources on Saturday marking World Ocean Day.

As a significant maritime nation, China's marine territory covers an area of 3 million square kilometers. To deeply engage in global marine governance, the ministry launched the monitoring report to enhance national marine awareness and jointly protect marine ecosystems.