Abstract
Considering China’s political and economic rise, it is reasonable to argue that a sound foreign policy toward China is a necessity. Given China’s increasing economic importance to Western countries, many scholars argue that an antagonistic view toward China is counterproductive [(Dobson in International Journal 61:299–312, 2006), p. 306]. To better understand the challenges facing Canada in developing a new China policy, this paper returns to the roots of the relationship to understand the evolution of Sino-Canadian relations. The 45 years of this relationship is placed within a framework to explain the underlying causes of its evolution. Through combining contextual factors and path dependency theory this framework suggests that from 1970 until the new millennium, Canada’s prime objective was to encourage China’s integration into the international community. This paramount goal led to a cohesive set of decisions aimed at influencing China positively. Whereas Canada contributed to China’s opening toward the international community, the accomplishment of this goal in the beginning of twenty-first century has left Canada’s China policy in search of a new purpose.
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Notes
- 1.
Negotiations started in Stockholm in 1970. The most contentious issue was the status of Taiwan. Canada did not want to accept the Chinese claim of sovereignty over Formosa, but Canadian diplomats new that Canada would have to forgone official relations with Taipei to obtain an agreement. Canada chose to recognize that the Republic of China was not the legitimate representative of “China” and did comment specifically on the PRC’s affirmation that Taiwan was part of its territory. This was later coined as the “Canadian formula” (Frolic 1985, p. 189).
- 2.
In 1970, a majority of American allies did not recognized the PRC, including Italy, Austria, West Germany, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Australia, Spain, Portugal and the Unites States of America, but most would follow in the wake of Canada’s decision and PRC’s accession to the UN.
- 3.
At the time, China and Taiwan were disputing claim of the legitimate representative of China. There were no significant movement in Taiwan for independence. The concept that athletes from the ROC could represent China was unacceptable for the PRC since it would give legitimacy to the Guomingdang (National Party) claims over China, but the PRC was ready to accept a “Taiwan” delegation. Today, the problem has been somehow reversed, since the PRC wants to make sure that the ROC continues to identify itself to “China” to counter the Taiwan independence movement. This explains why Olympic delegations from Taiwan compete since 1984 under the designation of “Chinese Taipei” insuring a reference to China and avoiding reference to the ROC.
- 4.
From 1989 to 1993, internal political struggles inside the CCP opposed reformers and leftist on the future of the PRC’s regime. Leftist wished a return to more socialist if not Maoist policies and reformers wanted to restart economic reforms. Ultimately, the struggle ended when Deng Xiaoping toured southern Chinese provinces, the Cantonese part of China historically more involved in foreign trade, and supported publicly these provinces’ economic position in the state control media, signaling to the CCP that the reformist had won and that reforms needed to resume (Bergère 2004).
- 5.
Li Peng, the Chinese Prime Minister at the time, visited Canada for the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
- 6.
Zhu Rongji, then Chinese Premier.
- 7.
Wen Jiabao, then Chinese Premier.
- 8.
Hu Jintao, then President of the RPC.
- 9.
Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (2007)
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Lefrançois, E. (2016). Canada’s Foreign Policy Toward the People’s Republic of China: Continuity and Change Since 1949. In: Cao, H., Paltiel, J. (eds) Facing China as a New Global Superpower. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-823-6_5
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