Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi wants Canada to “take practical actions to protect the global free-trade system with China,” reports the Globe and Mail.
He told Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland that Beijing hopes Ottawa will “advance the establishment of a China-Canada free-trade zone.”
He seemed critical that Canada agreed to a clause in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal that would end the benefits if Canada enters into a free-trade deal with a “non-market country.”
Most people think that’s a reference to China.
“China is opposed to all sorts of protectionism and to double-standard practices under all kinds of names,” Wang Yi said in paraphrased remarks reported by China’s central Xinhua News Agency.
“Any attempts that aim to sabotage China’s modernization plan will fail.”
”The consensus in Beijing now is that this is not really about trade, it’s about stopping China’s rise, it’s about potentially a new kind of Cold War mentality,” said Andrew Polk, founding partner of Trivium, a Beijing-based business advisory firm, reports the Globe and Mail.
