The Predictable and the Unexpected

"The Chinese economy is designed to be, when it comes into a country like Canada, fundamentally parasitic. It sucks out capital, it sucks out IP, it sucks out jobs. It's designed to feed the parasite and to weaken the host."

"Another thing about China is that according to the 2017 National Intelligence Law, every Chinese citizen and Chinese company has to support China's intelligence efforts. They have to. They're punished if they don't, and they're rewarded if they do. If you're a Chinese citizen, you are a hostage, an unwilling hostage, often, of the Chinese state."

"[The Chinese Communist Party's] disintegration warfare [finds fault lines in communities, and exacerbates them]; to use countries' own weaknesses or strengths in the case of democracy, against itself, in order to weaken its resistance to China, in order to advance China's relative comprehensive national power."

"The Chinese are very good at identifying legitimate grievances, exacerbating them, and then leading you toward a solution that benefits China."

Canadian journalist Cleo Paskal, China politics expert 

Models pose near the BYD Seal 06 Dmi, unveiled during the Auto China 2024 show in Beijing, on April 25, 2024. China's largest EV maker has been expanding rapidly into overseas markets, and could reach Canadian shores shortly following Ottawa's recent deal with Beijing. (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)

 

Canada's intelligence agencies are acutely aware of the danger that China poses to Canada's sovereignty. They issue reports, some portions of which are made public, others that go directly to the Prime Minister's office and a multitude of government agencies. Beijing's acquisition of state, scientific and corporate technology secrets of other countries through complex espionage schemes to further its own interests by shortcuts, undermines trade and military secrets of the countries it infiltrates. Its cyber-spy network has reaped great benefits for China at the expense of the countries whose classified material it accesses.

 

China uses and abuses, harasses and threatens expatriate Chinese who take up citizenship in other countries, considering them solely Chinese citizens and obligated to feed Beijing's hunger for data they can access willingly or unwillingly. Beijing does not recognize dual citizenship of its former nationals. In foreign countries of the West Chinese investment, the presence of elements of its United Front Work Department pose a threat to its expatriate community many of whom feel sufficiently pressured to do its bidding.

 

The Chinese economy thrives as a manufacturing powerhouse, and the nation’s products seem to be everywhere. The majority of tags, labels, and stickers on a variety of goods proclaim they are “Made in China.” ChinaChipManufacturing   Costfoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images

 

In the last several decades, invited to join the World Trade Organization, China used the opportunity to build upon its vast population of cheap labour to over-produce consumer goods, exporting them abroad as less expensive alternatives to similar products made in Europe and North America, establishing itself as the choice of consumers everywhere, leading to the failure of manufacturing elsewhere throughout the world as China mounted the summit of world production championship. 

 

China's trade piracy in government-subsidized production guaranteed it access to global markets through consumer demand. But manufactured goods are not the only items that emanate from China, as the world became acquainted with pathogens that made their presence first in the Middle Kingdom, then transited borders in human-to-human contact to spread wildly in a great global contamination wreaking havoc in illness and widespread deaths, overwhelming hospitals and medical science.

 

 

 

Where the spread of population-levelling disease ran its temporary course, after China took advantage of the need of medical devices and supplies of face masks to a world hungry for any bandaid solutions to help ward off disease and death. China took recourse to other means of conquest, this time through the chemical production of opioids and precursor chemicals to supply the world community with lethal drugs like fentanyl and carfentanil leading to illegal street drugs cheaper to acquire while expanding core groups of drug users, when incidents of drug overdoses began to soar.

 

China's clever use of persuasive media while flooding Europe and North America with illegal substances in its control of pharmaceuticals and supply chains has created a desperate situation of drug addiction, homelessness, drug overdose deaths and criminal violence. All of which are well known in Canada, as it is elsewhere, including Beijing's organized interference in politics abroad in  efforts to ensure that during elections political parties soft on China are elected. Interference that includes persuading expatriate Chinese with dual citizenship to run for political office and once installed, able to influence outcomes in favour of China.

 

And this is the country whose ideology is in such contrast to that of any Western democracy that world leaders will visit, despite its hostile agenda, to pay homage to its commercial, technical, mercantile and trade success, at a time when economies worldwide face onerous trade tariffs brought into play by the world's most influential political and economic giant, the United States, seeking advantage by aligning themselves with the commercial/political savagery of China as an alternative.

 

China’s President Xi Jinping (R) and Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer shake hands before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on January 29, 2026.

Carl Court | Afp | Getty Images 

"These visits reflect managed, selective resets under rising U.S. policy uncertainty, rather than a strategic pivot to China"

"Keeping communication channels open with Beijing is increasingly seen as preferable to disengagement."

"Particularly as the gains from selective resets with China become more visible, and U.S. policy has grown less predictable."

Yue Su, principal economist, Economist Intelligence Unit  

 Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney with China's President Xi Jinping, January 16  Ministry of Foreign Affairs \ People's Republic of China