A few items on Chinada today, sent by various readers;
Refusing to jump on the “Rah! Rah! Chinada!” bandwagon, is the head of the Toronto Dominion bank, according to this Globe & Mail item on Canadian banking investments in China;
TD boss Ed Clark says he has no interest in chasing the Chinese dragon, and is instead focusing his external growth ambitions on the U.S. market. Through its TD Waterhouse brokerage, TD once had a small presence in Hong Kong, but that has since been shuttered. The bank has no beachheads on the mainland.
According to the Globe, Canada is “missing the boat” – why, the Chinese economy is positively titanic!
You’d think that feminists nationwide would be holding Million Hundred Candle Vigils or something to protest the Martin government’s eagerness to fund abuse against Chinese women with their tax dollars….
[The United Nations Population Fund] works closely with Beijing in that country’s drive to keep birthrates low. And that, critics say, makes it complicit in the forced abortions, forced sterilizations and even infanticides committed daily in China. Without U.S. funding, what will UNFPA do? Well, lucky for them, Canada has stepped in with more money to help make sure UNFPA can continue its work in China and elsewhere.
Read it all at the Western Standard (free registration required).
Speaking of population control, China executes more people than all other countries combined – not surprising, given their long list of capital offenses. But this is progress! According to the Times, their Supreme Court is taking a dim view on those courts known for executing “too many” innocent Chinese. As they say, “better late than ……ah, nevermind”.
Add your own in the comments. Items relating directly to China, only, please.
Money rules. Money rules. I remember reading a while back the things the Chinese valued most in life. Money, Face [saving face, honor], one I can’t remember then Family. Family even in fourth spot related mainly to the male children. One has only to travel to China to understand the severe struggle to survive. Human rights, forget it.
I wonder what will happen when all of these chinese male babies grow up and try to find wives. Then which sex will be more valuable?
Speaking of Canadian tax dollars at work abroad, a friend recently told me of one such program in Bangladesh. While there exploring business opportunities he met a man whose responsibility is to distribute Canadian aid money to the poor so that they can purchase staple foods, and then — eventually — pay back the Canadian government.
How it really works is the businessman uses the Canadian money to buy the food, he then charges near market rates for the poor to buy it from him, and then he finally he turns to Ottawa and says the poor lack the means to repay the money.
Ottawa declares the loans a loss, and reaches into the kitty for more.
This type of thing shouldn’t be a surprise to us. After all, it’s roughly what occurred with HRDC and probably continues in Canada today under various guises. If we can lose billions right here, we can certainly misplace it halfway around the world.
Another reason for the Liberals to suck up to China:
“China curbs courts killing too many innocent people”, The Times, October 28, 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1846366,00.html
Sure to make Martin and McCallum feel vindicated as they wave the China card.
Now when will Martin call the judicial murder of innocent Chinese “unacceptable”? And will Irwin Cotler say this is another argument against mandatory minimum sentences?
Mark
Ottawa
http://www.orwelltoday.com/chinada.shtml
Chasing the dragon..lol. Hong Kong slang for smoking opium…
Ed Clark? Ed Clark, Mrs. Clark’s son, Ed Clark? Ah, yes, Ed Clark, head of that bank. Mr. Socialist Central Planning Ed Clark, one of the author’s of Lenin’s NEP, er Trudeau’s NEP. >>>>
Anniversary of an oil wreck
Peter Foster
Financial Post
Friday, October 28, 2005
………………..
The main architects of the NEP were never sent to Siberia, or even Coventry. Indeed, some went on to highly lucrative careers in the private sector. Then energy minister Marc Lalonde — the man who said of the NEP “We know what we’re doing. We really do” — is still a highly respected lawyer. Energy deputy minister Marshall “Mickey” Cohen went on to a somewhat mottled executive career with the Reichmanns and Molsons. Assistant deputy minister Ed Clark, who was considered the NEP’s evil socialist genius, is now head of the TD Bank. Mike Phelps, who managed to work simultaneously as Lalonde’s executive assistant and an employee of Petro-Can, went on to head Westcoast Energy (which he eventually sold to a U.S. company). >>> more
http://www.rapp.org/url/?TBZX7XX0
Financial Post
And yet another reason for the Liberals to suck up to China (which is exempt from Kyoto limitations) and encourage Canadian energy exports to that country–is there any coherence to Liberal policy here?
“China’s Next Big Boom Could Be the Foul Air”, NY Times, Oct. 30
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/weekinreview/30yardley.html
Excerpts:
‘The steady barrage of statistics trumpeting China’s rise is often greeted elsewhere as if the figures were torpedoes and the rest of the world a sinking ship. Economic growth tops 9 percent! Textile exports jump 500 percent! Military spending up! Manufacturing up!…
But one statistic offered last week by a top Chinese environmental official should stimulate genuine alarm inside and outside China. The official, Zhang Lijun, warned that pollution levels here could more than quadruple within 15 years if the country does not curb its rapid growth in energy consumption and automobile use.
China, it seems, has reached a tipping point familiar to many developed countries, including the United States, that have raced headlong after economic development only to look up suddenly and see the environmental carnage. The difference with China, as is so often the case, is that the potential problems are much bigger, have happened much faster and could pose greater concerns for the entire world…
China is already the world’s second-biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions and is expected to surpass the United States as the biggest. Roughly a third of China is exposed to acid rain. A recent study by a Chinese research institute found that 400,000 people die prematurely every year in China from diseases linked to air pollution…
…the political and practical obstacles are formidable. Car ownership has become part of the Chinese middle-class dream, and the car industry has become a major contributor to tax coffers and a force in the overall economy.
Industrial pollution is difficult to control because local officials often ignore emissions standards to appease polluting factories that pay local taxes. SEPA has closed factories, only to see them reopen weeks later. To make a serious reduction in air pollution, experts say, tougher, enforceable standards are needed, and many factories would need new pollution control equipment…’
Mark
Ottawa
“Since 1996 more executions have been carried out by lethal injection, although a bullet to the back of the head or to the heart remains the most common method. In the past the family was often required to pay for the bullet.”
Now here is an opportunity to help out new-found soon-to-be-really-rich friends in China.
To help chinese families and ease their financial burden, we could send them several cases of bullets.
“Supreme Court is taking a dim view on those courts known for executing “too many” innocent Chinese.”
Here is yet another opportunity, we could send several politicians or the GG and friends over to help them sort out just exactly what the “right number” of innocent people should be executed!
Hey wait until the billion peasants find out that there are about 200,000,000 other Chinese living in the coastal cities who are getting wealthy and they arent’ won’t can’t. …. mmm maybe we should plan to send a lot more bullets.
Interactive map showing the steady increase in trade volumes between China & Canada… primarily in consumer products such as clothing goods & electronics.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/special/business/chinaCanada/
Those unions should be paying particular attention.
Speaking of bullets: Kim Dutoit, (the gun guy), worked an ammunition booth at the recent Tulsa Oklahoma Gun Show- his booth sold over 150,000 rounds of 7.62 X 39 mm in ONE AND A HALF DAYS!
Wowser- that’s AK47 food! (And on the ‘tube the other nite, they did a documentary on a company in Phoenix, Arizona that is making a copy of the AK47!! Happy Birthday, Michaiel Kaleshnikov!)
Chen Warns on Investment in China
Former Chinese diplomat Mr. Chen Yonglin has warned Western businesses that they should not increase investment in China because the political environment there is dangerously unstable…
…”Businesses that want to work in China must adjust to this corrupt environment. “There is no real law, the law is fixed according to officials at each level of government.”
Many commentators see the current social crisis within China as the most serious it has been since 1989 when the CCP violently suppressed the pro-democracy movement.
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-10-25/33713.html
Maz2,
OK, so Ed Clark doesn’t have the best history. I’ll give you that.
But I had to deal with something similar down here in the U.S.
In New Jersey (where I grew up), in 1990, Governor Jim Florio rammed through the legislature the largest non-national tax increase in the history of America up to that time – $2 billion. The state’s economy fell like a stone.
Seven years later, Florio runs for Senate, and stakes out a tough anti-Communist position.
It hurt to back thim, but I did it (sadly, he still lost in his party’s primary).
As for Mr. Clark, do you really think any of his Trudeauist buddies will stand by him now after those comments?
I know it hurts to hear this, but the CCP is a greater evil than the NEP.
The Liberals haven’t “missed the boat” on trade with China. They’ve just busy figuring out a way to exploit it for their own benefit. Never worry, I hear Maurice Strong has been living there the past several months.
Well if you believe in globalisation then it is all fine and dandy for china to buy up all it can. After all they have upwards of a trillion dollars to throw around. How do you think the so called conservatives in the US get there money to finance there deficit, from a money tree? I have a hard time trusting human beings from any country, we seem to be a greedy breed. Sad.
I may be wrong but I read that China is the biggest recipient of Canadian foreing aid. But thats ok they need it. I costs a lot to keep over a million in uniform, build nuclear missiles to point at democratic Taiwan, make takeover bids on large Canadian companies and support an extensive spy network in Canada. We shouldnt be so hard on such a deserving country in need. They were even generous enough to take over the work in my company from many overburdened Canadians. Now those Canadians have been blessed with a permanent vacation.
Canada allows China to invest heavily in Canada. It’s only prudent to reciprocate to keep the relationship too heavily weighted in China’s favor. Past and current human rights abuses aside, China is an emerging nation with a burgeoning middle class. Europe didn’t make any huge inroads for human rights and democracy until they too had developed a large middle class.
Reference to the “Titanic” in the post is a little overly dramatic. If anything, the economic engine of China is the real iceberg where Canada has to decide to either get on and ride or get out of the way.
China’s government maybe communist (with a small ‘c’) but their market is much more free in some respects than any other place in the world.
martinb.
China’s government maybe communist (with a small ‘c’) but their market is much more free in some respects than any other place in the world.”
More free in what respect, than America?
Ironman:
“More free in what respect, than America?”
The markets I’ve visited in China appear to have minimal control by government. There’s no tax collected and the price is the one you barter with the vendor – nothing hidden. Product selection is amazing…almost anything you can think of is available somewhere and price is always open to negotiation. I’ve never experienced anything like it in either Canada or the U.S.
Yes Martin, It’s always good to get impressions from those who have actually navigated through the crowds and markets.
As far as this Titanic idea goes,, I don’t think a loss of faith in market exchange is possible in China. Well over a short period of one or two years anyway.
The nature of the Chinese citizen is such that he will continue to plod ahead doggedly with determination through tough times keeping and eventually retoring faith in any dark market times.
A slow and steady progress in China is a good thing, although I have reservations about powerful individual leaders making bad or overly aggressive decisions. TG
“There’s no tax collected and the price is the one you barter with the vendor – nothing hidden. Product selection is amazing…almost anything you can think of is available somewhere and price is always open to negotiation. I’ve never experienced anything like it in either Canada or the U.S.”
You’ve obviously missed many of the stores located in the malls in the Unionville/Markham (GTA) area then. No personal cheques. No debit cards. No credit cards. Only CASH.
Strong ties with China encouraged
Jennifer Campbell
Citizen Special
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
China is part of everyday life for Canadians, said Paul Evans, vice-chairman of the board of directors and co-CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. He was the keynote speaker at a one-day conference put on by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, titled China Rising: Will it join the world, or change it?….
….Mr. Evans noted that China is involved in the equation that boosted gas prices over the past year, that the same country is the reason consumer goods are cheaper.
“China is not just in the global economy,” Mr. Evans said. “It’s changing the global economy.”
As such, Canada is sitting up and taking notice, he said, noting that Prime Minister Paul Martin has instructed every one of his cabinet ministers to go to China to deepen connections.
Mr. Evans pointed out that while Canada’s interest in China is obvious, China also has interests in Canada.
“China wants access to Canadian energy markets on a commercial basis,” he said, adding that its economy is booming and its military is growing….
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/city/story.html?id=4d02d9f3-1ee7-4feb-87ff-f7d2a3f02ed0