Confidential Foreign Policy Draft Plan Says Canada Slow Off the Mark to Asia/China
A confidential government document obtained by CBC News warns the Harper government has been slow to open new markets in Asia, leaving Canada firmly tied to the troubled U.S. economy for a long time to come.
The document prepared by Foreign Affairs and dated Sept. 6 is a draft of a highly classified new “Canadian foreign policy plan” the Conservative government has been preparing for more than a year.
The draft briefing paper for the federal cabinet states: “We need to be frank with ourselves — our influence and credibility with some of these new and emerging powers is not as strong as it needs to be and could be.
“Canada’s record over past decades has been to arrive late in some key emerging markets. We cannot do so in the future.”
The Harper government itself took the slow road to China.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn’t visit Beijing for almost four years after first being elected in 2006.
Now the Harper government wants to focus Canada’s international efforts primarily on one goal: forging new trade deals and business opportunities in the rapidly expanding markets of Asia and South America.
The draft plan for a new foreign policy states: “The situation is stark: Canada’s trade and investment relations with new economies, leading with Asia, must deepen, and as a country we must become more relevant to our new partners.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper lauded stronger relations with China during a speech in Guangzhou during his visit to China in February. A confidential draft document makes deepening trade ties with Asia the main focus of Canada’s new foreign policy. (Kin Cheung/Associated Press)
It also drops any pretense of using trade deals to pressure countries such as China on human rights and other matters of democratic principle.
On the contrary: “To succeed we will need to pursue political relationships in tandem with economic interests even where political interests or values may not align.”
Instead, the draft doctrine is mainly about money, recasting Canada’s international role from aiding the world’s needy to reaping its riches.
That’s in stark contrast to Harper’s views of China when he first came to office.
“I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide and we do that,” the prime minister said in November, 2006. “But I don’t think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values, our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights. They don’t want to sell that out to the almighty dollar.”
Six years later, almost every aspect of the Harper government’s international plan casts foreign policy as a tool to give Canada either direct economic benefit or access to China and other emerging markets.
– cbc.ca