China Love

Stephen Harper with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

Canada's esteemed Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is visiting the "Far North" to:

address the issue of China’s state-owned enterprises buying stakes in Canadian resource companies.

The Gulf News, hardly a main stream publication whose article I've quoted above, continues in detail about China's "investments" in Canada.

Harper’s government is reviewing Beijing-based Cnooc [China National Offshore Oil Corp] Ltd’s $15.1 billion offer for Calgary-based oil and gas producer Nexen Inc under the country’s foreign-takeover law. The government in 2010 rejected BHP Billiton Ltd’s $40 billion hostile bid for Potash Corp, only the second time Canada had blocked a foreign takeover in 25 years

The Gulf News continues:

Investment from Chinese companies helped push exploration spending in the Yukon to a record last year....Asian companies have made seven “significant” investments in Yukon-based companies since 2007.

Now, what I don't understand is why Chinese companies have to be the ones who make investments in Canadian companies. And why Harper is so eagerly courting their investments.

My simple (not simplistic) question is based on the fact (we know this) that the Chinese government is running on a corrupt system, that it has a large, Third World level work force that it exploits, that the stories of the rising Chinese middle class may be true, but this tiny middle class is rising at the expense of the country's vast underclass, and that the model the Chinese government has adopted is not true capitalism but a form of coerced capitalism, with lots of government intrusions and regulations.

China is NOT a free country, and is fact is cleverly straddling between pleasing the West with specific, few and well-designed "open" market policies, while maintaining a stringently controlling government.

Even Harper's political base agrees with me. According to the Sault Star, another way off-main stream media newspaper:

...rock-ribbed Conservatives in Harper's political base...object to the deal because they don't like the idea that Communist China should have such influence in one of Canada's most important industries.

Commenter #1 at the National Post's article Oil sales, human rights (and pandas) on Stephen Harper’s China agenda writes in:

Let's be very clear about something from the start. China is a communist country. Communism is all about world domination. What the hell are we doing pandering to them? This is a huge mistake. China wants to buy more and more of Canada for one reason.......so they can pull the political and economic strings of this country.

And the #1 comment on the leftist CBC's online article Canada and China next steps could include free trade deal is:

The price Canadians will pay for "free trade" with China is lost jobs and closed businesses.

Courting Chinese business and development ventures in Canada also means courting Chinese "experts" to Canada. Chinese immigration into Canada will of course increase, as Harper's government is doing all it can to reduce overall immigration into Canada. On his February visit, the National Post reported that Harper took with him:

Chinese-Canadian community leaders and the president of the University of Western Ontario...to attract China’s best and brightest to Canada.

The ordinary readers and commentators quoted above have a much better understanding of why Harper should not be playing trade games with China.

Major publications, left and right, are not reporting honestly on this mission, and are not covering the social, political and economic impacts they can have on Canadians. But it is good to know that ordinary people are so insightful. But, this is probably insight brought on by suffering. Off the beaten path newspapers are also taking on the challenge of reporting this "hidden" news. And the internet becomes an active hub for all this information.

Finally, here's an interesting tidbit, from the Windsor Star, hardly a publication that the majority of Canadians read:

According to the World Bank, the GDP per capita in China last year [2011] was nearly $8,500, as compared to $40,500 in Canada.

So much for Chinese wealth and development.

The only reason I can think of why Harper would court a communist government to assist him with his country's development, instead of going across to the much friendlier nation, and sure ally, to the south, is a pervasive anti-Americanism in the world these days. Perhaps the key information for his decision is in this Wall Street Journal article:

The trip is part of a broader strategic push by Canada to more closely align itself with China and reduce its reliance on the U.S. Mr. Harper aims to increase Canada's capacity to export oil and other resources to China, an effort that has intensified following the Obama administration's decision to reject for now TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL pipeline, which would have shipped oil-sands crude from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast

The operative word is "for now." The Obama administration may have closed off the oil sands venture, but business men and oil companies continue to think it is a good idea. There is no reason why the venture cannot resume, and soon.