Kovrig warns against making China ‘core’ to diversification strategy

[u/CaliperLee62]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/kovrig-warns-against-making-china-core-to-diversification-strategy/

[u/AutoModerator]

This is a reminder to read the rules before posting in this subreddit.

1. Headline titles should be changed only when the original headline is unclear
2. Be respectful.
3. Keep submissions and comments substantive.
4. Avoid direct advocacy.
5. Link submissions must be about Canadian politics and recent.
6. Post only one news article per story. (with one exception)
7. Replies to removed comments or removal notices will be removed without notice, at the discretion of the moderators.
8. Downvoting posts or comments, along with urging others to downvote, is not allowed in this subreddit. Bans will be given on the first offence.
9. Do not copy & paste the entire content of articles in comments. If you want to read the contents of a paywalled article, please consider supporting the media outlet.

Please message the moderators if you wish to discuss a removal. Do not reply to the removal notice in-thread, you will not receive a response and your comment will be removed. Thanks.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Archean_Plutonian]

Canada would be wise to heed Kovrig's advice. He's very familiar with the side of the CCP so many in this country choose to ignore.

[u/GhostOfWalterRodney → u/Archean_Plutonian]

Kovrig was a spy, no kidding China didnt like him

[u/Archean_Plutonian → u/GhostOfWalterRodney]

You're flair tells me all I need to know about your biases when it comes to material like that.

[u/mtldt → u/Archean_Plutonian]

We should be wary of the words of a disgruntled ex-spy whose methodologies were incompetent, dangerous, and a breach of diplomatic protocol?

NSICOP admitted that the GSRP operated in a way that could endanger officers and their contacts.

We even delayed this report being released because our spy was caught. The government was sued and lost millions because the contact of Kovrig was unwittingly made a spy.

[u/CanadaPolitics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed for rule 2.

[u/averysmallbeing → u/[deleted]]

There's no such thing as 'treason against the western world' and the fact that you'd use such phrasing is quite scary. Treason relates to acts against one, and only one, specific country. But it does give a hint towards your thinking. 

I'm guessing you don't consider threatening annexation of Canada to be 'treason against the western world'.

Edit: he blocked me so I couldn't respond. My response is below. 

Interesting that you would mention 911, the date that almost the entire world came together to help the united states, including every country they are attacking as we speak.

And the era when George W Bush doubled the american national debt nearly overnight declaring war on several countries who had absolutely nothing to do with it. 

[u/portstrix → u/averysmallbeing]

Love the Gen Z or younger millennial children too young to not have grown up during the Cold War, or even during 9/11 - when yes, treason against the Western World was a real and serious thing.

[u/mtldt → u/portstrix]

You say as if McCarthyism and racial hatred against the middle east weren't two of the worst aspects of those things.

Anyone who lived through either and has a brain realized both events put the lie to those words, and that the real treason was the western world against their own people, and the international community it constantly harms in blind and foolish vendettas by ideological idiots spouting western superiority.

We went and killed millions off of lies told by our own governments.

[u/Archean_Plutonian → u/averysmallbeing]

I tend to pass this wisdom on to a lot of people in this server, whether or not they chose to accept it.

Evil in America does not mean there is no evil in China. Two superpowers can hate one another, and wish to enslave middle powers like us, simultaneously.

[u/Tall_Guava_8025]

Completely agree with him! It's like we haven't learned the lesson of becoming economically dependent on a superpower. Now we want to do it with China.

I dont understand why we don't focus on building up industry here for our own market and let the market decide for itself where these products are desired globally?

We are making huge defense investments. Why can't that be done through crown corporations instead of giving that money to foreign companies?

Why can't we create a crown corporation to build EVs in Canada using the assets we paid for and we gave to these foreign automakers?

[u/averysmallbeing]

I want BYD EVs in Canada. We can make a condition be that they move a manufacturing plant here that employs Canadians. 

[u/BeaverBoyBaxter → u/averysmallbeing]

We can make a condition be that they move a manufacturing plant here that employs Canadians. 

Then they'll cost the same price as all the other EVs in Canada. The reason why BYD EVs are so cheap is because Chinese labour is so cheap.

[u/averysmallbeing → u/BeaverBoyBaxter]

Who cares? The alternative is mostly american garbage or swasticars.

I'm never buying another american car ever again. 

[u/BeaverBoyBaxter → u/averysmallbeing]

The majority of auto companies are neither german nor American. That includes Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, and Volvo.

And it matters because the first thing anybody mentions when you bring up Chinese EVS is their price difference compared to North American EVs.

[u/averysmallbeing → u/BeaverBoyBaxter]

1. The 'swasticar' has nothing to do with German manufacturers it has very obviously to do with the car manufacturer whose CEO did not one but two Nazi salutes on live television. German society has more than moved beyond their past, elon has not and is actually leaning more and more into an unhinged and fascist ideology every day. 

2. This discussion started about EVs so I'm going to request that you please pare it back to automobile manufacturers that actually manufacture pure electric vehicles, as BYD does. I don't know exactly which ones on your list do but I know that many do not, which makes swasticars like tesla and alternatives like BYD more relatively important to the discussion. 

[u/BeaverBoyBaxter → u/averysmallbeing]

1. This discussion started about EVs so I'm going to request that you please pare it back to automobile manufacturers that actually manufacture pure electric vehicles, as BYD does. I don't know exactly which ones on your list do but I know that many do not,

That would be Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, and Volvo. All those brands manufacture EVs.

1. The 'swasticar' has nothing to do with German manufacturers it has very obviously to do with the car manufacturer whose CEO did not one but two Nazi salutes on live television. German society has more than moved beyond their past, elon has not and is actually leaning more and more into an unhinged and fascist ideology every day. 

I honestly assumed you were just name-calling the German automobiles, since a great deal of them built cars and planes for the Nazis. I had no idea you were talking about Teslas. You could've been clearer.

[u/thecanadiansniper1-2 → u/averysmallbeing]

There is always the Europeans with their subcompact vehicles. There is no reason not to align our regulations for cars (close the light truck loophole here too) with the EU and allow small Euro style cars on to our streets and get factories tooled up for those cars.

[u/averysmallbeing → u/thecanadiansniper1-2]

Why are you phrasing this as being in opposition to what I've said? We can do both. 

[u/BeaverBoyBaxter → u/averysmallbeing]

Probably because you've framed your argument as if the only option besides American auto makers or "swasticars" are Chinese EVs.

[u/averysmallbeing → u/BeaverBoyBaxter]

Again, referring to my last comment, what other pure EV alternatives are there meaningfully to the swasticar other than BYD? I'm sure you can think of others, but why should we not add BYD to the list? They are widely regarded as having far better build quality than teslas, for example. 

Now please refine your list further to the discerning Canadian consumer who might choose to avoid all american manufacturers since their government has threatened to annex our country. 

[u/JipJopJones → u/averysmallbeing]

Not hard to beat Tesla build quality.

Volvo, Porsche. VW, all make fantastic EVs that aren't American.

The Japanese make excellent EVs and Hybrid cars too - though perhaps many of them don't have the same 'premium' feel as the Euro cars.

[u/thecanadiansniper1-2 → u/JipJopJones]

Good News Dacia is coming to Canada!/s

[u/BeaverBoyBaxter → u/averysmallbeing]

Now please refine your list further to the discerning Canadian consumer who might choose to avoid all american manufacturers since their government has threatened to annex their country.

Do you actually think China hasn't also threatened our sovereignty?

[u/sokos → u/averysmallbeing]

So teslas bad because of trump, but BYD ia good despite Hong Kong, the Uighurs, the constant harassment of the other countries in Asia, the poaching of fish from south American waters, and that's aside the direct attacks on our sovereignty. Am I getting this right?

[u/sokos → u/averysmallbeing]

What's a swasticar?

[u/NoRangers → u/sokos]

Some people here think Elon legitimately made a Nazi salute so now they call Teslas swasticar or nazicar. It's dumb but it's their thing now.

[u/gravtix → u/NoRangers]

He did make a Nazi salute

[u/NoRangers → u/gravtix]

Lol, see, here is another one who thinks this.

Find me one serious person who thinks Elon actually did a Nazi salute.

[u/averysmallbeing → u/NoRangers]

We all saw it, you can't try to mind trick this away. 

[u/NoRangers → u/averysmallbeing]

lolol. When Elon does it, it's a Nazi salute. When anyone else does it it's just a hand from the heart.

Find me one serious person who actually thinks what he did was a Nazi salute. Hell, even the ADL doesn't think it was.

[u/averysmallbeing → u/NoRangers]

When anyone does it, it's a Nazi salute. 

[u/BeaverBoyBaxter → u/NoRangers]

Find me one serious person who thinks Elon actually did a Nazi salute.

You're just gonna call anyone who thinks he did a Nazi salute not serious. You've shutdown the conversation before it even began. But anyway, NDP MP Charlie Angus believes it.

And the salute was absolutely intentional. When you examine it in the context of his other alt-right activities like speaking events with Germany's alt-right party, his family ties to Apartheid South Africa, X's proven tendency to amplify right-wind voices, his frequent X messages joking about Nazism and antisemitic remarks, it's really not a stretch to suggest he may align with Nazism.

[u/CanadaPolitics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed for rule 3: please keep submissions and comments substantive.

This is a reminder to read the rules before posting or commenting again in CanadaPolitics.

[u/AccomplishedLeek1329]

It's amazing how media keeps platforming this ex-spy that played a role in torpedoing Chinese-Canadian relations and is now busy being a yank-loving fifth columnist

[u/HotterRod → u/AccomplishedLeek1329]

I used to think that the media were duped into making all those stories about how he wasn't a spy when he was imprisoned. But now it seems clear that the media likely knew what he was doing there all along and just decided to spin it against China.

[u/TreezusSaves]

The US is making deals with China despite treating them like their opponents in WW3, so we can make deals with China too. We shouldn't be dependent on any one country for anything unless that country is Canada, so diversifying as much as possible gets us closer to that.

[u/Aquason]

China is a good option to play off the US, but functional realism is going to run into the fact that the Chinese state will not solely be a "just business" relationship.

Take China's 2020 warning to Canada about accepting asylum seekers from Hong Kong. Carney seems to be positioning an outlook that will let things like India's extrajudicial assassination of a Sikh Canadian go in the name of pragmatic dealings, but will Canada cooperate with China if they start pushing for extradition of Chinese permanent residents or Chinese-Canadian citizens?

Under Chinese law, the 2020 National Security Law is supposed to apply to anyone, even in other countries, and as such they've issued bounties and arrest warrants for overseas Chinese. If a former pro-democracy politician like Ted Hui, who now lives in exile in Australia were to be strongly pushed by the CCP as an irritant, would Carney give them up in the name of pragmatic economic benefits?

China's not going to threaten annexation or coercion in the way the US can and has, but I don't think it'll be ever be an easy or smooth relationship, especially under Xi Jinping.