Evidence of meeting #3 for Canada-China Relations in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chinese.
A video is available from Parliament.
10:50 a.m.
Liberal
Emmanuel Dubourg Liberal Bourassa, QC
Okay, thank you.
I have one last question. I have just talked about the agreement signed between the Americans and the Chinese. Could you tell me whether Canada can derive any benefit from that agreement?
10:50 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Well, at this point, Mr. Chair, it's still fairly early days. The agreement has not yet come into effect. I think it comes into effect on February 14. We will have to see how the trade actually starts to take place. Much of what China has undertaken to do, in terms of accepting commodity purchases from the U.S., will tend to open up markets in other countries. We do anticipate that there will be some opportunities created by the U.S.-China agreement, but I think perhaps we'll also see some negative impact on some of our own interests in China.
10:55 a.m.
Liberal
Emmanuel Dubourg Liberal Bourassa, QC
Okay.
If you follow the news, you know that we have had no ambassador in China for some time and that Ambassador McCallum was recalled. Could you tell me whether you have seen any improvement in our trade with China since steps have been taken to find his successor?
10:55 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I would think it would be difficult to see a direct relationship between the appointment of the ambassador and an increase or an improvement in the trade situation. I think it's safe to say that we have seen somewhat of an improvement in the relationship, in the sense that we have a dialogue now that we have an ambassador on the ground there. We're hoping that will start to pay dividends in the future as time goes on.
10:55 a.m.
Liberal
10:55 a.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
To add to Mr. Dubourg's question, I would say that one thing is certain. We may see some positive effects, but we would have seen them more quickly if we had moved more quickly ourselves. Just a comment.
Mr. Rivest, I am just curious: what is Greater China?
10:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Greater China includes Hong Kong and Taiwan.
10:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Mainland China means China without the neighbouring islands. Greater China includes those islands.
10:55 a.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Okay.
Does it include the islands that China claims, or is building?
10:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question.
10:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I am an expert in trade relations with China, not an expert in China's territorial affairs.
10:55 a.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Fine, but you are the executive director for Greater China. Are those islands part of Greater China?
10:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
No, it does not include those territories.
10:55 a.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Thank you.
I know that, at least since the 1970s, we have been involved in an accelerated push to try and increase trade relations with China in the hope that this will bring social and political changes to the country. I know that the second point does not concern us directly, but let's say that it is our overall objective.
In this mad dash towards more liberal trade with the People's Republic of China, the Prime Minister threw out a clearly premature idea on his last trip to China, the idea of a free-trade agreement, which got a cold reception from President Xi Jinping.
Was the Prime Minister's statement a prepared one? Had the ground been prepared with Chinese authorities?
What was the stumbling block for the Prime Minister's initiative?
10:55 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Mr. Chairman, as was mentioned, we have been engaged in exploring improving commercial relations with China for many, many years. We successfully negotiated a foreign investment protection agreement with them a number of years ago.
We explored in depth the possibility of a potential free trade agreement negotiation with China. A number of meetings were held in 2017. We went through a scoping exercise to determine what such an agreement could look like, what each side's interests would be, and we did a significant amount of analysis in that direction. As it turns out, we were not able to come to an agreement, to initiate free trade agreement negotiations.
Given current circumstances, obviously the timing is not right now, but we continue to have an interest in further exploring our capacity for further growth in the Chinese market.
11 a.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
I do not doubt that for a minute, but I was actually wanting to know about our approach to the Chinese authorities when the Prime Minister made his statement, and why it did not work.
11 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I think the main challenge we had in moving forward with the free trade agreement at that time—and this was, as you'll recall, back in 2017—was that we had different perspectives on what we were looking for in a free trade agreement. China was looking for an agreement that would favour the kinds of interests they had, primarily to expand their exports to Canada. We had interests in getting further information and some constraints on their use of state-owned enterprises, which are very difficult to track in terms of the competitive advantages they offer.
We saw very little interest on the Chinese side on issues like government procurement, which were of interest to us. China showed little interest in having any kind of meaningful discussions on issues like labour and environment, which were also priorities for us as they are in any free trade agreement. We were not able to converge on the kind of negotiation and the kind of agreement we would be looking to achieve.
11 a.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
In a previous life, I represented the constituency of Verchères, with two major steel mills. At the time, our concern was mostly about lower quality steel from China being dumped on North American markets. With the new CUSMA, our concern is now about lower quality aluminum from China being dumped in North America.
That is our concern at the moment. How do you see it?
11 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Yes, it's quite true that we and many other countries around the world have had concerns about excess production of both steel and aluminum coming out of China and the resulting distortions in the world market.
You will recall that the U.S. initiated the so-called section 232 measures on a national security basis against imports of steel and aluminum from around the world. We similarly took actions. It wasn't that kind of provision, but we have a number of anti-dumping and countervailing duty actions against imports of both steel and aluminum coming from China. There are some 67 different actions that are in place. We have had extensive discussions with the U.S. and Mexico in the context of the agreement we reached about ensuring that the North American market not become distorted by unfair imports of products that have been at artificially low prices from, in particular, China, but some other countries as well.
11 a.m.
Bloc
