On Reflection | From Meng Wanzhou and detentions to USMCA and the Arctic: 5 rules to unfreeze Canada-China ties

The present breakdown in relations between Canada and China is neither morality play nor conspiracy. It is, instead, a tragedy in the making.

There is, in my view, nothing inevitable or natural about Canada and China becoming enemies. Indeed, I am a firm enemy of the proposition that our two countries should ever become enemies.

Canada does not know today’s China in any deep sense, and China surely overestimates the degree to which it understands Canada’s domestic and regional complexities. After all, modern Canada was born immediately after China lost the Second Opium War in the late 19th century. This means that the entire century and a half of modern Canadian statehood coincides almost exactly with the period of great destabilisation in China, and that Canadians and Chinese alike have much mutual learning to do in the context of the Chinese restabilisation and flourishing that my friend Kishore Mahbubani has called “the great convergence”.

Here’s a fact that surprises many of my Chinese friends and colleagues: Canada is older than China. Yes, I said it. Chinese civilisation is obviously far older than the Canadian project, but the modern Canadian federation is over 80 years older than the modern Chinese state. This means that, contrary to possible appearances or stereotypes, Canada’s internal political and administrative systems, at all levels of government, are highly entrenched and hugely sophisticated.