One of Japan’s top academics says China is trying to create its own new world order — and leading Western democracies, Canada included, have started to look at their relationship with the rising superpower through that lens.
For the last several years, Junya Nishino’s research has been focused on his country’s relationship with South and North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s outbursts gave him plenty to work on.
But it has been hard for the demure, precise professor of political science to ignore an increasingly assertive Beijing, its provocative actions and the amount of time and political energy being expended by Japan’s leaders on the China relationship.
While acknowledging China is an “indispensable” economic power for his country and Western nations, Nishino said the policy of engagement based solely on trade and business interests has failed.
A ‘very different’ regime
“We have to keep in mind that China is a very different regime,” he told CBC News in a recent interview. “China is not a democratic country. China is an authoritarian system. So we always need to pay close attention.”
Since the 1990s, Western countries — with Canada in the vanguard — have pursued a policy of helping Beijing build up an affluent middle class through liberalized trade and investment, in the long-term hope that it would lead to a more democratic country.
Over the last several years, however, it has become apparent, in a variety of ways, that the Chinese leadership has no interest in moving in that direction.
Western nations would be wise to tread carefully in their relationship with China, says Japanese political scientist Junya Nishino. (CBC News)
China’s President Xi Jinping, with the full support of his party, rewrote the country’s constitution in March 2018 and scrapped term limits, essentially allowing him to stay in office for life.
The surprise move came as Beijing pressed claims over the South China Sea, built up its military and launched a global infrastructure plan known as the Belt and Road Initiative.
The country also drastically enhanced domestic security and enforced ideological purity standards in schools and the media.
Warning signs
At the same conference that extended his grip on power, Xi told Chinese lawmakers and political advisers that his country’s brand of authoritarian capitalism is a “new type of political party system” that would benefit the rest of the world.
“From the Japanese perspective, clearly, China is trying to create its own new order, not only in East Asia, but the world,” said Nishino.
A year ago, writing in the Qiushi Journal, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) main theoretical magazine, Xi insisted that his country “must never copy the models or practices of other countries.”
Western-style separation of powers — the bedrock of democratic institutions — held no appeal for China, Xi wrote, arguing that the party must remain supreme.
“We must never follow the path of Western ‘constitutionalism,’ ‘separation of powers’ or ‘judicial independence,”’ Xi wrote.
Those sentiments made Nishino and other China-watchers sit up and take notice.
The West grows wary
“We and China have very different values and we need to keep this in mind,” said Nishino, who has been speaking Canadian officials and audiences over the past week.
After an initial flurry of interest among Europeans in the Belt and Road Initiative, he said, there now seems to be a wariness among Western countries — and they’d do well to avoid the plan.
During President Barack Obama’s second term, the U.S. recognized that China had changed and began to take a harder line. Such an approach is more difficult for Japan to take because of geography.
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing run hot and cold, thanks in large part to tension over eight uninhabited islands — little more than hunks of rock — in the East China Sea.
Both countries lay claim to the islands, which are known as the Diaoyu islands in China and as the Senkaku islands in Japan.
But China remains Japan’s most important trading and economic partner and the business communities in both countries have tried to keep a positive and constructive relationship going.
The challenge of keeping that constructive relationship alive is more intense in Japan than it is in Canada, but the problems facing both countries are not dissimilar. China is deeply embedded in the supply chains of Western democracies.
And there lies the problem shared by Canada and Japan, Nishino said. Japan has been trying to strike a balance between a tough security policy and a healthy trading relationship. The Trump administration can afford to be bellicose and fight a trade war with China. Canada and Japan cannot.
Japan has been working hard to find a way to “co-exist” with China without being pushed around, Nishino said.
What’s left unanswered — especially in light of Beijing’s hostage diplomacy over Canada’s detention and possible extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou — is how difficult co-existence will be going forward.
WINNIPEG – Police in Winnipeg say one person has died and three more were injured after a pickup truck smashed into a bus shelter on Portage Avenue during the morning commute.
Police say those injured are in stable condition in hospital.
It began after a Ford F150 truck hit a pedestrian and bus shelter on Portage Avenue near Bedson Street before 8 a.m.
Another vehicle, a power pole and a gas station were also damaged before the truck came to a stop.
The crash forced commuters to be rerouted and knocked out power in the area for more than a thousand Manitoba Hydro customers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
KAMLOOPS, B.C. – A 35-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder after his mother’s body was found near her Kamloops, B.C., home a year ago.
Mounties say 57-year-old Jo-Anne Donovan was found dead about a week after she had been reported missing.
RCMP says its serious crime unit launched an investigation after the body was found.
Police say they arrested Brandon Donovan on Friday after the BC Prosecution Service approved the charge.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets climbed to their best week of the year.
“It’s been almost a complete opposite or retracement of what we saw last week,” said Philip Petursson, chief investment strategist at IG Wealth Management.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
While last week saw a “healthy” pullback on weaker economic data, this week investors appeared to be buying the dip and hoping the central bank “comes to the rescue,” said Petursson.
Next week, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut its key interest rate for the first time in several years after it significantly hiked it to fight inflation.
But the magnitude of that first cut has been the subject of debate, and the market appears split on whether the cut will be a quarter of a percentage point or a larger half-point reduction.
Petursson thinks it’s clear the smaller cut is coming. Economic data recently hasn’t been great, but it hasn’t been that bad either, he said — and inflation may have come down significantly, but it’s not defeated just yet.
“I think they’re going to be very steady,” he said, with one small cut at each of their three decisions scheduled for the rest of 2024, and more into 2025.
“I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency on the part of the Fed that they have to do something immediately.
A larger cut could also send the wrong message to the markets, added Petursson: that the Fed made a mistake in waiting this long to cut, or that it’s seeing concerning signs in the economy.
It would also be “counter to what they’ve signaled,” he said.
More important than the cut — other than the new tone it sets — will be what Fed chair Jerome Powell has to say, according to Petursson.
“That’s going to be more important than the size of the cut itself,” he said.
In Canada, where the central bank has already cut three times, Petursson expects two more before the year is through.
“Here, the labour situation is worse than what we see in the United States,” he said.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
