Canada should engage with Taiwan and others given our China troubles

The Globe and Mail
Date: August 18, 2019
By: Hugh Stephens, special to the Globe and Mail

Given the difficult situation between Canada and China since the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, and China’s retaliation by detaining two Canadians and blocking or impeding the entry into China of several Canadian exports, commentators have suggested ways Canada could push back. Among them is a reassessment of our relations with Taiwan.

This is the right policy proposal – but we must be careful not to do it for the wrong reasons. We shouldn’t seek to do more with Taiwan to strike back at China. We should do it because it is in Canada’s interests to engage more fully with Taiwan, which we can do within the existing confines of our one-China policy. For too long, we have trodden very cautiously in developing relations with Taiwan lest we annoy China and imperil Canadian economic prospects in its market. Now is the time to take a more balanced approach, one that has the added benefit of being consistent with Canada’s self-proclaimed “progressive” values. Encouraging Taiwan’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) would be one element of this strategy.

While Taiwan is a member of the World Trade Organization (membership is not contingent on being a sovereign state), most of the trade liberalization initiative these days resides with bilateral or plurilateral negotiations that allow participants to remove trade barriers selectively, bilaterally or within a regional agreement. However, Taiwan has found it difficult to reach such agreements because of China’s opposition, despite the fact that China has its own economic partnership with Taiwan.
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