cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11900959
cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11900079
When [Canadian] Prime Minister Mark Carney stood in Beijing in January and said Canada’s new “strategic partnership” with China set both countries up for a “new world order,” it marked a striking reversal. Less than a year earlier, on the election campaign trail, Carney had named China as Canada’s biggest security threat. And a year before the trip, the Hogue Commission’s report on foreign interference concluded that China is the most persistent and sophisticated foreign interference threat to Canada’s democratic institutions and elections.
The deal cut China’s tariff on Canadian canola seed to about 15 percent from 75.8 percent and eased duties on peas, and seafood. In return, Ottawa agreed to let in 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) a year at a 6.1 percent tariff, down from 100 percent. The partnership also covers clean energy, multilateral co-operation, people-to-people ties, and public security, including an agreement between the RCMP and China’s Ministry of Public Security, the police apparatus Beijing has used to monitor and intimidate its diaspora abroad.
The pivot comes as Carney rallies middle powers to band together against U.S. tariffs while moving closer to the world’s other superpower. Taiwan, which Beijing refuses to recognize as an independent country, and actively seeks to reunify Taiwan as part of China even by military force, shows how aggressive China can be. And as Chiense coast guard incursions into Taiwan-controlled waters have spiked in 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump has called a stalled $14-billion arms package for the island “a very good negotiating chip” with Beijing, recently adding he isn’t looking to fight a war thousands of miles away.
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Few Western journalists have watched China’s security apparatus as closely as Jürgen Kremb. A former Der Spiegel bureau chief in Beijing, Singapore, and Vienna who was expelled from China in 1998, he now teaches and conducts research at Soochow University in Taipei as a visiting scholar.
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The Hub spoke with Kremb about what Canada should learn from Taiwan as it grows its ties to China.
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Question: … Ottawa has now signed a strategic partnership with Beijing that includes a confidential RCMP agreement with China’s Ministry of Public Security. From where you sit in Taiwan, which has lived with this pressure far longer, does closer engagement with Beijing typically restrain its interference activities abroad, or does it give them more cover and access and embolden them?
Jürgen Kremb: It’s police and domestic security, and they work like the FBI. There are also members of their staff who work as agents, suppressing dissidents and different opinions. This ministry has about 2 million staff in China … and they open police stations in foreign countries, including Canada. The same in Europe and Australia [and other countries]. Of course that’s against the law of other countries, just as the U.S. or Canada cannot open a police station in Beijing.
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China now is the biggest threat to the security of a lot of countries, because they steal intellectual property, they intimidate their dissidents abroad, they intimidate people who are speaking out against China, they operate a lot of media. So we really have to take the threat seriously… And of course the primary target is Taiwan.
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Taiwan is the testing ground, [but it’s also being] executed against other democratic societies, the so-called West, but the so-called West also includes South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, etc.
Xi Jinping wants to rule the world–Western politicians simply cannot comprehend this. He wants to destroy the liberal concept of Western democracies because their very existence poses a threat to his dictatorship.
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Chinese cars are basically spies on four wheels. In Israel, in Sweden or Norway, and in Japan, Chinese cars are not allowed anymore into military installations because where there are cameras, they are actively spying on the surroundings and sending this data back to China.
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What happens if you work too closely with China? First, you seem to have access to a big, big market and make a lot of money. But one day it’s over, and your whole industry base collapses. So if Canada decides to go that way with closer relations to China, look twice and be very careful, and you could lose more than you gain.
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If you’re getting very close to China, in the end you might not be in the driver’s seat of your own country or of your key industry, because the Chinese sooner or later will overtake your products and influence your domestic policy.
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How did that work out for China and the Soviet Union when it came to farming in the 1950s? Millions of avoidable deaths from starvation. You live in theory and are in dispute with reality. Economics is not a science of universal truths but a study of complex systems that you don’t understand and over simplify in accordance with your gospel.
Yet me living in Hong Kong somehow is? Explain how what I did was colonialism but what the Chinese migrants are doing is not?
Wonder how he would feel about the forced labor in these annexed territories? You are awfully quiet on that now after demanding sources in your last comment. You are still claiming this is somehow not the theft of their labor. You are just a massive hypocrite or delusional. How on earth was China taking Tibet by force in 1950 not colonialism? The only government I am talking about here is China, I never called any other government colonial or neocolonial, just the one I am talking about that deserves it.
The USSR ended famine in the 1930s, after it collectivized and industrialized agriculture with combine-harvestors. Outside of wartime, there were no more famines. China went through a similar route, once they had industrialized agriculture, famine became a fact of history, not an active threat. Famine had been common to both regions under semi-feudal relations of agriculture, which is low in productivity and weak to adverse weather.
Regarding the tendency for markets to centralize, this is a fact. Scholarly research backs this up heavily with empirical data. This isn’t “gospel,” it’s how markets work. Of course economics is complex, and of course I have to simplify it for Lemmy comments, especially when you cannot even grasp the passing of time resulting in gradual change.
As for your adventures in Hong Kong, you deliberately referred to the colonial era as “cool,” and the part where China regained its sovereignty as bad. Tibetans and Uyghurs are Chinese. They are not Han, but Han people living in Xinjiang and Tibet are not colonizers. Immigration is not colonialism. Colonialism is a relationship between exploiter and exploited, and central China is not exploiting periphery China. Xinjiang and Tibet both have regional autonomy within the broader system of China.
As for the claims of forced labor, these are false. I already provided evidence of this. Annexation of land is not colonialism, just like the Statesian North annexing the Statesian South is not colonialism. Connolly would be upset that you make light of actual colonialism by listening to the propaganda of the actually existing imperialist and neocolonial powers, such as the UK and US, who still have Ireland under their thumb to this day.
You fail to mention that in both empires the famines ended because they changed the way the system worked introducing market incentives. The Chinese rejected the collectivisation model in favour of the Household Responsibility System. You dismiss the power of direct financial incentives in all of our dealings because it doesn’t fit your theories but it is what works in the real world.
The paper you sent that I have a quick read of (I am not and I am sure you have not read the whole thing!) is based on capitalist economies and the tenancy towards monopoly.
"Along these dimensions, our data (outside the U.S.) come from European countries (Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Denmark, and the U.K.), Canada, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea. "
You are again ignoring the role of financial incentives in centralisation. Your logic is along the lines of “chickens are animals, chickens lay eggs. Cows are also animals, therefore cows also lay eggs.”
So I am a colonist because I though Hong Kong was cool before China reneged on its promises and imposed it’s authoritarian rule over the people. You just put labels on things that you like or don’t like but don’t even understand the meanings the rest of the world understands for these words.
They are Chinese by force, these regions were annexed under military force. Since you are so slippery with your language, let’s get a few definitions clear so you can understand that China is just as much of an empire as the west you despise for the same reason.
Imperialism: The policy or practice of a nation extending its power and influence over other countries or regions, often through military force, economic dominance, or political control.
Empire: A large political unit or sovereign state made up of several distinct territories or nations ruled by a single supreme authority (such as an emperor, monarch, or dominant government).
Colonization is the act or process by which a nation or foreign power sends people to settle in, take control of, and govern another country, territory, or region
You said it was when I did it, get your story straight you absolute hypocrite.
I have already discussed the forced labor which I will return to later. China also extracts resources from these regions. Xinjiang produces a massive share of the worlds polysilicon critical for solar panels, beryllium critical for semiconductors. 10% of the worlds aluminium comes from Xinjiang which is exploited by the Chinese automotive industry. Xinjiang also produces the majority of China’s cotton, heavily utilising forced harvesting labor to supply global brands.
Then we get to the cultural and demographic eradication. Systemic birth suppression, under the Law on Promoting ethnic Unity and Progress we get forced sterilisation, forced abortions, mandatory IUD implantation. Birthrates in Hogan and Kashgar have plummeted by 60-84%. Forced separation of children when parents are sent to labor or “re-education camps” these state run camps strip the children of their language, religion and culture. Physical erasure of thousands of mosques, shrines, graveyards and monuments.
In Tibet we have more of the same with state owned enterprises engaging in large scale mining of gold, copper lithium and rare earth minerals. Displacement of nomadic peoples to build these mines. China has built or planned 200 mega scale hydroelectric dams on Tibet’s rivers since 2000. These dams are built primarily to export power to Chinese industrial centers. We also have similar cultural eradication programmes to Xinjiang.
Both states serve as a testing ground for China’s surveillance economy. Over 1400 Chinese tech firms have used Xinjiang’s population to test predictive policing, biometric data collection, facial recognition and gait analysis tracking etc.
Sounds an awful lot like an exploitative imperial colonisation project to me. You are probably too busy licking boots to notice or do any research on the subject.
Now on to this one, how dare you insult both of our intelligences by dismissing a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights with a report from a think tank with opaque funding. Given their editorial slant it is quite obvious that they are funded by China. This is about as much use as saying well China disputes that China is using forced labor against it’s subjugated people’s. Would you believe a report written by the Heritage Foundation or Cato Institute?
China is just as bad as the other imperial nations, you are an imperial apologist. As for Ireland, I am under no illusion what Ireland is currently, we are a small nation and as such are not a rule maker but a rule taker. We do just fine and have managed to rise from poverty to prosperity by playing our own game within the system we have been placed in.
Famine was ended via collectivization and industrialization, well before “market incentives” were introduced. The market wasn’t necessary, industrial equipment was. Also, “empires,” lmao.
As for centralization, I’m 100% award that market economies trend towards centralization. That’s my point. I’m confused what you think I’m trying to say, here.
As for your adventure in Hong Kong, you’re incredibly defensive of British colonialism and see anti-colonialism as China going back on promises to colonizers. This is ridiculous, lmao.
As for the definitions you provided, they are woefully underdeveloped and simplistic. Imperialism and colonialism are predicated on extraction, not mere influence, and an empire is necessarily a country that does imperialism. Extracting resources is not colonialism or imperialism. The limits of your definitions are immediately apparent. What’s important is the elimination of sovereignty, and the extraction of surplus value. There is no cultural erasure in Xinjiang nor Tibet.
As for your lies about sterilization, they come from Adrian Zenz, Christian nationalist and professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does. Zenz’ work has been thoroughly discredited, yet is supported by western media for its utility in fearmongering. An example is lying about 8.7% of new IUDs as 80%, to back up claims of “forced sterilization,” from this chart:
You get onto me for providing a source that links almost entirely western news sources when available, and has fact checked information, while talking about claims from Adrian Zenz and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation? Hilarious. I recommend actually reading the UN report as well as (especially) China’s response to it, which eclipses it in size and detail. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz.
Please, be serious.
You have gotten awfully quiet with your denials of forced labor.
Incorrect, the collectivisation happened first and the massive famines followed, 15-45 million dead in China, 5.7-8.7 million dead in the Soviet Union.
What does 100% award mean? I’m also confused. What I am trying to say is that you are extrapolating the tenancy of business to monopolise in free market economies to mean that centralisation in controlled state authoritarian societies will yield the same efficiencies.
No I am not and I never set foot in Hong Kong during the colonial period.
No I see it as going back on the promises to the people of Hong Kong. I still have family that lived there as well as family who had to flee to avoid persecution. Before you say it, they are all native Chinese.
You can’t even stay consistent in the same paragraph, how many times in our discussion have you contradicted yourself and fallen flat on your face?
The UN report you provided directly contradicts this, the master of contradiction strikes again! You make this too easy, I’m starting to lose interest in you.
I have a range from several reports, not one figure from a chap I have never even heard of.
No, I disputed your Chinese think tank source.
I did, you obviously didn’t.
242 Data from the 2020 Chinese Statistical Yearbook, covering 2019, shows that in the space of two years the birth rate in Xinjiang dropped approximately 48.7 per cent, from 15.88 per thousand in 2017 to 8.14 per thousand in 2019. The average for all of China is 10.48 per thousand.243
Uyghur-majority areas represented the bulk of this decline, with two of the largest Uyghur prefectures especially affected by it. In Hotan, which is 96 per cent Uyghur,245 birth rates went from 20.94 per cent in 2016246 to 8.58 per cent per thousand births in 2018.247 Similarly, the birth rate in Kashgar, which is approximately 92.6 per cent Uyghur,248 dropped from 18.19 per cent in 2016249 to 7.94 per cent per thousand births in 2018.250 Even taking into account the overall decline in birth rates in China,251 these figures remain unusual and stark. The same applies to the figures regarding sterilisations and IUD placements in XUAR, with official data indicating an unusually sharp rise in both forms of procedures in the region during 2017 and 2018, in comparison with the rest of China.252 For example, in 2018, sterilisations in XUAR stood at 243 per 100,000 inhabitants, whereas the overall figure for China was a fraction thereof at only 32.1 per 100,000 inhabitants.253
Several women interviewed by OHCHR raised allegations of forced birth control, in particular forced IUD placements and possible forced sterilisations with respect to Uyghur and ethnic Kazakh women. Some women spoke of the risk of harsh punishments including “internment” or “imprisonment” for violations of the family planning policy. Among these, OHCHR interviewed some women who said they were forced to have abortions or forced to have IUDs inserted, after having reached the permitted number of children under the family planning policy.259 These first-hand accounts, although limited in number, are considered credible.
Next time read the source before you once again make a fool of yourself. I will not bother with the Chinese report because China says China is innocent does not hold any weight to anyone with a shred of intelligence or integrity. You are being intellectually dishonest for even suggesting this, the USA also disputes the civilian death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan, do you accept them at their word?
You have done nothing to convince me that you are anything more than a biased imperial boot licker. I have come to the conclusion over the last few years that there are plenty of weak minded people out there that need a strong authoritarian daddy figure to tell them what to do. Xi, Putin, Trump, Netenyahu etc. have made their bases unquestionably obedient and infantilised. You keep on defending the demonstrably indefensible to the point where you just look like a fool. You have zero ability to think critically, trying to feed me biased state propaganda to counter independent UN reports (China even sits as a permanent member of the security council FFS). You are not an honest actor but a biased brainwashed stooge. You imperial apologists are a major part of everything that is wrong with this world, enabling all of the misery in this world from Algeria to Afghanistan, Tibet to Timbuktu. You think that your colonialism is somehow different because it is the colonialism your “team” is perpetrating. I am Irish, I understand colonialism in all its forms, we were one of the original testing grounds. To quote another Irishman, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.