The prime minister arrives Tuesday in Beijing to shout that Canada is open for business.
Australia caught China fever some years ago and because of it the Land Down Under has been creating a staggering amount of wealth out of one of the greatest resource booms of all time.
To little fanfare elsewhere, Australia's trade to China has tripled over the past five years to more than $60-billion a year. When imports are included, trade between the countries is $80 billion a year, compared with a relatively piddling $30 billion a year of trade between Canada and China.
Moreover, Australia enjoys a three-to-one trade imbalance with China while China has a formidable four-to-one trade advantage over Canada.
But you ain't seen nothing yet. China has agreed to take $90 billion in natural gas exports from a field in Queensland while $75 billion is being spent to develop two other natural gas fields in northwestern Australia that promise much bigger exports to Asia.
Small wonder then that any Canadian government would want to get in on such a bonanza.
As good as trade with China has been for Australia, its relationship with the emerging superpower is complicated and there are lessons in it for Ottawa which hopes to sign a deal for Canadian natural gas to be shipped to China through a marine export terminal under construction in Kitimat, B.C.
Aside from purchasing raw materials and buying resource companies, China has been keenly interested in acquiring fully integrated agricultural businesses that include land for grazing, sugar, cotton and vineyards as well as food processing plants and market delivery systems. Some Australian skeptics have expressed alarm at this unprecedented buying spree and have demanded that the country's Foreign Investment Review Board get tougher on China investments. The flip side of the argument has been that blocking such deals would inhibit the kind of massive investments that Australia needs and that its own financial sector lacks the cash to make.
As in Canada, among the other points of concern have been China's human-rights record and its ambitions in the South China Sea, where there are a web of competing territorial claims.
Alongside Australia's trade relationship with China, the two countries have met 13 times since 1997 to discuss human rights. Issues on the agenda at those meetings have included freedom of religion, the death penalty, forced labour and the rights of women and children and ethnic minorities including Tibetans and Muslims from Xinjiang, according to a submission to Parliament.
As a result of differences over human rights and because Australia raised the possibility two years ago in a White Paper on Defence that China may at some point represent a military threat, there have been periods when Beijing has tried to teach Australia a lesson, according to Australians familiar with the file. But such attempts have ended in a whimper, not a bang.
Those here who have dealt with the Chinese say they have learned that they are pragmatists who do not want to interfere with business. China does not buy or invest because it likes you. It does so because it is in its national interest and makes economic sense to do so. Countries which disapprove of China's human-rights record must pick their spots and remember that while there are serious problems of social injustice and corruption that must be addressed, the country has made great efforts to bring a lot of people out of poverty. What the Chinese do not take kindly to are tough public messages that leave them with little wiggle room.
On issues such as the South China Sea, Beijing prefers one-on-one talks to multilateral discussions. However, because there has been a consistent, co-ordinated message from the Association of Southwest Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Australia, among others, there have been signs that China has backed off a bit on its claims.
Still, with China today, it always comes back to trade, and everyone in Australia is aware that exports to China are very heavily weighted toward natural resources.
"If China goes south we take a big hit," one old China hand told me. "But I don't like people who say we are too dependent. What should we do? Not sell it? You make the best of what you've got."
It is a message the Harper government is belatedly embracing.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Matthew Fisher
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