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As President Xi Jinping lays out a five-point vision for a more open, connected and inclusive Asia-Pacific at APEC, how will this vision shape the region's economic cooperation and drive new growth in the coming years?
Welcome to Road Today, the panel discussion with Mika Anna in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has outlined a five-point proposal for the development of the Asian Pacific region during his speech at APEC economic leaders' meeting in Jiangsu.
He called for jointly safeguarding multilateral trading system, building an open regional economic environment and promoting trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.
He urged APEC to jointly keep industrial and supply chain stable and smooth.
The Chinese leader also suggested the Asia-Pacific region jointly promote digitalization and the greening of trade.
With APEC serving as the region's most important platform for economic cooperation, how can Asia-Pacific economies work together to tackle global challenges and chart a new path for sustainable growth?
To delve into this.
Joining us on the line are Einar Tengen, Senior Fellow of the Center for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian think tank, and a chair of Asia Narrative's 15th Five-Year Initiative.
Thanks for joining us, Einar.
My pleasure.
Dr. Yao Shujie, Chang Kong Professor of Economics at Chongqing University.
Great to have you, Professor.
Hi, and also Professor Qu Qiang, fellow of the Biao Tan Road Research Center at Mingzhu University of China.
Welcome to our show as always, Professor Qu.
Thank you.
Gentlemen, let's start with the challenges.
President Xi mentioned that the road is undergoing profound changes and seen in a century, with increasing instability and uncertainty in the Asia-Pacific.
Einer, let me begin with you.
In your view, what are the biggest challenges facing the region today?
Well, actually, it's not just the region, it's the entire world.
You have a competing set of economic ideas.
One is the United States, which has, in essence, said that it wants a model where it's on top.
Donald Trump has said, oh, if America does well, you know, the rest of the world will do well.
And too many countries.
It seems like a facile state system where the US is able to extract value from other countries.
China has a very, very different perspective.
They say, look, this isn't a zero-sum game.
It's how you make the pie bigger and how we share it.
Xi Jinping has put forward his four initiatives about security development civilization, which equals autonomy respect, and then global governance.
And this is not ideological.
It's just simple things that all countries can agree to.
Everyone wants security, development and all of these things.
So regionally, what you have is, you know, the interplay of these larger forces uh coming along.
I mean, the reason that donald trump showed up is initially he thought he could pressure china um, you know, through chips and um denying china chip making equipment uh, interfering with the global supply lines.
And then, all of a sudden, you know china, not all of a sudden, i mean america.
The irony is that america is very much aware of the issue of rare earths.
In fact, they had a white paper on it in 2008, 2010.
There was a border issue with Japan, and that came to the forefront.
So it's always been there.
It's just, unfortunately, Donald Trump ignored it.
So, all of a sudden, rare earths, which are essential to almost all the higher technologies, from chips to gyroscopes, became an issue.
And that's what we see playing out here, And most of it has to do with America's desire to contain China because it's an existential threat to US hegemony.
The idea that American exceptionalism, you know, America is somehow under orders from God.
There's a shining city on a hill and all this type of stuff.
But it's starting to wear very, very thin.
And so China has responded and you know it's doing the best it can to, you know, just expand trade uh to uh strengthen.
As you heard, she's had that speech.
I also examined the last four speeches he gave um, you know, at the just prior to the plenum, uh to the women's conference, to the uh environmental at the agm.
It's very consistent message all across the board.
It's tailored slightly to the audience in terms of whether it's a more regional, uh global or domestic, but it's the same words and that is that planning And through, you know, concentrating on what China can do internally will lead to a successful situation where especially, a lot of investment will be interested in a very, very large, stable market, especially as the US makes things more and more difficult.
So China can point to the fact that over this last year, as Xi Jinping pointed out to Donald Trump, you know, China has grown.
Its trade has grown.
It has grown by, you know, 5.4 percent to factor in deflation.
And its trade has gone up most recently by about 8 percent.
So China is doing well despite the headwinds.
Doesn't mean there isn't pain going on in China for a lot of smaller businesses.
Other businesses are dependent on the American markets.
But it means that China is resilient.
And this has been a game changer for Donald Trump.
We've seen this in this last meeting.
Mm hmm.
Professor Yang, what's your take on the challenges we're facing today?
The biggest challenge is twofold.
One is the so-called uncertainty in the global geopolitical system.
And the other challenge is the technological progress that is penetrating rather unequally through the global and also domestic society in each country.
So, as far as the external uncertainty is concerned, especially for the smaller countries, for example, like the member state, in Southeast Asia, in Central Asia, in Africa, they are faced much more challenges than the bigger economy such as the European Union Japan, China and the United States.
Because the smaller country tends to be more vulnerable if the external system is risky, because the trade pattern is highly volatile to the external environmental change.
The second challenge is the technological change, especially the change in the AI, the big data.
It has some characteristics of economy of scale and economy of scope.
Now, smaller countries tend not to have this kind of advantage because any technological application feature with AI, with platform technology, internet of things they require a certain scope and certain scale of economy.
Particularly, you need a big population of middle-income people who are able to consume and use the services, because the downturn or the so-called fixed cost of the investment in the AI, the Internet of Things, is huge and if the domestic economy is small then it's very difficult to digest the investment.
So this means that the smaller country have to look like much more on the bigger country to provide the necessary uh, you know infrastructure, uh the ai infrastructure automation, internet of things, which are currently is our daily life.
Now for China and United States.
They have some fairly obvious advantage because China has a gigantic domestic country, domestic market.
It has a huge middle-class population who are able and willing to consume and to buy the services provided by the new technology.
United States is a leading country, control the top-end technological system, especially the microchips, which are very important for the AI technology and for the digital technology, as it is reflected by the listed company Nvidia Apple, Microsoft.
And nowadays they have a huge market value.
So this kind of divide between the big country, the smaller country, the rich country and the poorer country is getting more and more obvious.
It provides additional challenges for the Southeast Asian countries, but also some other similar smaller countries.
They are far more vulnerable than the rich and the bigger countries, such as China and the United States.
So what they can do is to rely on the big countries such as China and the US to have a good relationship so that they can provide a stable external trading investment system and they can minimize the cost of moving the technological ladder.
Unfortunately, the act that we see by Donald Trump, from Donald Trump 10 to Donald Trump 20.
In between you have the Biden administration, who are doing exactly the same as the mega American again, which to some extent is understandable.
But to some other extent I think it could be regarded as a little bit selfish in order to maintain the global dominance and also assess to abnormal profit.
I think the Americans may be going a little bit too far.
And this is why the negotiation of trade and investment between the big economy power China and the United States becomes so complicated and difficult.
But as my colleague just mentioned, China is doing the best, including Xi Jinping's speeches.
It laid out the key points that China is willing not only to invest more in technology innovation itself, but also to help the smaller country to face up with the challenges that are prevailing in the current external environment, with the rising of Protestantism, the rising of Unilateralism, the rising of, to some extent, imperialism in a different form.
So I hope that with the kinds of better relations between the two countries, the external environment could be a little bit more stable and better, more friendly for the smaller nations that we just mentioned.
Uncertainty and uneven development caused by the high-tech development like artificial intelligence.
Professor Chu, anything to add?
Would you like to elaborate further on these challenges we are facing today?
Yes, I totally agree with what our colleagues are talking about in here.
Talking about challenges we're facing here today.
I think politically, you know, the mistrust among major players in the whole world are are going up really quickly, like in the European Union, like inside of America, even among North America you know traditional allies and also in the Asian regions.
Old way of gross is, you know, stopping and new ways are popping out.
But there is a long way, there's a long term for the transition.
So during the kind of the transition, there are always problems.
So I think politically, this can be a problem.
And economically we're just getting there is where we are coming a shift in the major, you know, paradigms.
On one hand, the traditional energy sectors are fading away, shrinking.
The renewable energies are popping out.
So oil is not as important as before.
So which means middle lists are welcoming a new round of the changes.
And that kind of spill over as well, you know, affecting lots of areas, including the power of US dollar, including the whole geopolitical you know scenarios and Middle East and also the two rivers zone and the whole world.
That will generate the different problem, like you know, 40 or 60 years ago.
And also we're seeing AIs popping out.
But AI gives us such an expectation, a grand expectation for the changes in the future, but now it's not delivering actual growth.
But meanwhile things are changing, you know, ahead of the real efficiencies, ahead of the real productivity that are happening.
So we got a lot of things.
On one hand, investment craze are happening in here, but on the other hand, it's not been growing as much as we expected.
So economically, we actually are seeing more doughs, more flours has been put in, but the cake is not making as bigger as we expected.
So how to cut the cake becomes a problem.
And that being translated back into the problem of the geopolitics.
And besides that, we've been going through a major change in the demographic structures.
In the poor countries, the young people are are growing up in many different definitions.
For example, many young people are growing up in the global South nations.
But in the global North nations, which are richer countries, people are getting older and older.
But in the poor countries, people are getting very, very young.
So right now you're seeing like half of the world young people I'm not talking about half the world.
Half of the world young people are rising up with the pirate cartoon flag from the Japanese anime called One Piece.
You know trying to burn down the things, trying to boycott.
You know the foul use of the internet.
But on the other hand, the older nations actually cannot find a way to accommodate the young people into not only into the global development scenario, but also cannot fit them into even their own country's development scenario, even though the scope of South Nations has been developed so many years and has been so rich.
But even among a sane country, like in America, like in Canada, a rich Canada Canadian, a rich American are old ones, but they cannot translate their wealth to the younger people.
So the discounted are growing up.
So we're facing so many changes and we don't think there are many major countries with the capabilities you know would like to hold this accountability and then show responsibility.
China, well, is one of them, actually are doing things.
We try to build this kind of you know Our growth pattern, our growth, you know planning for the next five or 10 years.
Try to, you know, bridge the gap within our own society and also try to contribute to the global sales.
You know communities together.
So we'll spill over that technology, helping you know uh, the country who likes behind with renewable energy.
We're not giving them the obsolete, pollution oriented energy, we're giving them the renewable energies and we're sparing over the, sparing over the uh.
The ai technology open source.
Everybody can use it from china, and if china did not open source first, open ai wouldn't do it right.
So uh, microsoft wouldn't do it as well.
So China actually tried to do the right things and China actually acted as one of a very, very constrained player in the geopolitics.
So the Eastern Asia is probably the only place in the whole world that's not getting involved in any kind of military conflicts, even though we have thousands of reasons to have this kind of conflict, but we're not.
China is a stabilizer in the supply chain, in politics, in the geoconflicts and in the, you know, economic growth and also facing the future.
Um, so i think we have so many problems, of that problem actually just a joint juncture.
Well, if you turn the right turn, you're facing the right future and if you're turning the wrong turn, you're probably going to face a darker future.
Trying to want to make the right choices and we hope actually more country can join this team and together we choose a brighter future for all the human being, with a shared future as one community, one people.
Let's elaborate about China's role based on President Xi's speech and vision.
This year, President Xi once again emphasized the importance of inclusive development in an era of rising protectionism.
Professor Chu, how can this vision go beyond the traditional model of globalization and create fairer opportunities for developing countries to participate?
Well, I think in this year of the AIPAC keynote speech, I think President Xi Jinping actually mentioned about many new concepts or it's not new concepts, but actually he reiterated and put more emphasis on it.
For example, in 2025, different from 2024, President Xi Jinping actually reiterated more times about multilateralism and global governance, because this is truly important, as I just mentioned.
Any other country are interested still being a global player.
Take responsibility for not only yourself, but also try to take care of the neighbors, your trade partners.
Try to be a good friend, not like a bully.
So China actually is one of the few countries are really trying to do so.
The true multilateralism, true globalism.
Try to fight against the anti-trend of this protectionism hegemony, strong-arming and bullying.
So I think this is the answer for China.
And also President Xi Jinping mentioned in his speech about how we can build this AIPAC – know um intercommunication blueprint to make this community with shared fate in apac to be more institutionalized.
So we're gonna, you know, interact with each other on a hardware, on software and also from the bottom of a heart.
So this actually are meaning it.
I think this is very, you know ideal, even given uh, even is given, this current you know backdrop of the whole world.
But china still trying to be the idealist in here, try to fight for a brighter future.
And also president xi jinping mentioned we should really uphold the cooperation anti-protectionism, do not weaponize and politicize.
You know the just trade issue.
But the trade is something you do on a free will.
You want to buy it, you buy it.
If you think it's not fair, just don't buy it.
When you do trade everybody, including the people in your own country, will benefit from it.
So with the trade, everybody get better in the past of 50 years after the Second World War.
So it's eventually the answer towards the whole global growth.
Yes, you can shut down the trade and benefit, you know yourself a little bit.
But the cost of well be all of your voters.
This is something the voters probably don't know and you purposefully don't want to tell them because you want to hide the secret and benefit from it.
But china didn't want to do so and meanwhile trying to do believe that green development and innovation is still the important drive.
Go green.
It's not only a moral high ground, but you know something really make your children healthy.
You want to make money?
Fine, but do not Do it at the cost of your children.
And then green energy is probably the only answer towards the growing AI and its consumption of the power.
The more AI you use and the more AI you train, the more energy you've got to use.
If you use traditional power...
Well, guess how much of the oil and gas and coal you have, or how much of the pollution you're going to have.
But if you use a solar and a wind, well, they're free.
And the more you use it, the marginal cost is getting to lower and lower near zero.
So China are not only doing it out of the morality, but also we're doing it out of the reason and efficiency.
So you see, according to President Xi Jinping's statement, you see, Chinese policies are always consistent and always reasonable.
Professor Yang, what's your thoughts on this?
You have like two minutes to answer this question.
Well, there's a lot of ground to cover in two minutes.
OK, I'm going to add something a little bit different.
I think the speech was great.
I think it follows everything the speeches recently and in the past.
But I think there are some opportunities and it's a trap to think that we can only live in the past and that there are no new dynamics in the way that we do things.
And I want to point to two areas.
Small countries, especially those with resources, do have options.
I mean, look at what OPEC did for the Middle East.
It changed everything.
And from being nations who were basically bought off, they became masters of their own destiny.
And I think there are a lot of opportunities, especially in resources.
And this would reverse the wealth gap that currently exists.
And with that more wealth flowing into the majority of the world.
That could see a huge increase in demand.
And that would be good for China.
It would be good for these countries, certainly because they'd be able to take care of some of their own development and also in their environmental needs.
The second one is that small medium-sized enterprises, because they can use digital tools.
Now they can get past the barriers of the past, when you needed to have, you know, bank letters of credit and lawyers.
It's international.
You had to travel there.
It was very expensive.
So unless you were doing it in scale, it probably wasn't worth it.
But today they have the digital tools to receive payments, to find customers and to produce very interesting things.
People are more interested in experience.
Mm-hmm.
Thanks, gentlemen.
Let's take a short break.
We'll be back in a minute.
Welcome.
I'm Elav Elad, economics professor and member of the Data Science and AI Center at New York University, Shanghai.
On the World Today program, you can find in-depth and impartial insight, as well as critical commentary, on key trends in the Chinese economy, financial technology, business and blockchain.
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Welcome back to World Today, the panel discussion on China's vision for an open and inclusive Asia-Pacific and President Xi's bilateral talks with leaders from Canada, Thailand and Japan at APEC.
Let's continue our discussion, gentlemen.
Einar, you've been talking about the importance of inclusive development.
Maybe let's combine a more specific case together to discuss about this.
One point that stood out to me during his speech was China's commitment to granting zero tariff treatment for 100 percent of tariffs lines, to the least developed countries that have diplomatic ties with China, and to extend this through economic partnership agreements with African partners.
So how do you view this initiative and what tangible development outcomes has it already generated?
Well, you're already starting to see a tremendous amount of African businesses trying to figure out what they can export to China.
This goes back to my last point I was making is that Africa is full of small, medium sized business entities.
It's very difficult, time consuming and expensive to come to China.
Try to figure it out.
Figure out what you can sell and things like this.
So there has to be a better way.
And you see it now with the upcoming China International Import Expo organized ways in which you can try to bring people together in one place rather than having them wander the country.
These are very important parts, but these are aimed at what I was talking about before small and medium-sized business entities, which make up the majority of the world's jobs.
In China, it's the majority of the world's, of the nation's tax revenues, employments existing employments 80, new employments, somewhere around 90.
So this is the area where you really want to encourage uh, chinese small businesses.
If they can find niches, they can do, they can do wonders, and the same is true with other countries.
But they need the capital and investment uh to do that, not huge amounts, small amounts um, this is where you have to have policy banks willing to to lend Based on contracts not, you know, you develop your business and we'll try to figure it out.
That model didn't work.
That peer to peer lending sounded good, but in the end it got gamed and a lot of people lost money.
So there are different ways of doing it.
The digital economy represents and tools represents the best.
Yeah, for these companies, and when they get going, you're gonna have a new economic force, an ever-growing one, because there are always new small businesses who have new ideas, new ways of doing things, who create efficiency.
And this is the lifeblood of economies.
So when you start talking about giving zero tariffs, that sounds great, but what are they gonna sell?
What are they, they have to figure out, you know, Who to sell, what, and things like that.
And there's a knowledge difference, asymmetrical.
And truthfully, not a lot of people in China know that much about Africa.
And the vice versa is true.
So there's got to be more education, along with these kind of policies that are giving favored nation status to these countries.
Professor Yao, what's your take?
Because China is providing full zero tariff access to the least developed countries that have ties with China and is expanding it through economic partnership with Africa.
What's your take on this initiative?
Yeah, this is exactly what I say.
The attitude is different in China compared to the United States.
The global uncertainty created by the unilateralism feature with high tariff, of United States with every country, including the rich and the poor, the bigger and the smaller countries.
Now, China has a very clear strategy of inclusiveness in terms of international development.
On the one hand, China always opens the door for foreign investors, multinational companies coming into the huge domestic market, including multinational companies originated from the United States.
And, on the other hand, China is given favorable condition not only through the direct foreign aid and technological assistance to the poor country, particularly the country in the African continent where pre-captured GDP and the economic development level is fairly low.
And it requires a lot of humanity help in terms of not only direct foreign aid, but also provide easy market access.
And, as my colleague just mentioned, because of the smaller country, especially the country in Africa, the manufacturing power and also the product for export are largely limited by the individual country.
And if you set up very high tariff for this country, they will suffer more and more.
And that would suffocate their long-term economy development and prosperity for the local people.
Now, by allowing export with zero tariff, it at least reduces the export cost of the African countries and also for the local producers, whether they are farmers or small manufacturers or some other services in the African continent.
This certainly will provide the so-called impetus development through production, through export, give more energy for the poor, the least developed countries to have a space for growth and development.
China has been doing this for a long, long time.
As early as in the 1960s, the Chinese government despite when China was still a very poor developing country the Chinese government sent lots of medical workers and also experienced farmers to demonstrate how medical care could be provided to the people at low cost and also how the land could be calculated, including irrigation, including sea breeding and also planting and so on.
Now nowadays, as China is getting more and more prosperous and technologically more advanced, it can have more financial strength and also sorts of market ability to digest more output from the African countries, not only establishing developing zone in the local area but also allowing those developing zone the you know, the multinational company in you know subsidiarily to produce good and then export to the chinese market.
This provides the very needed foreign currency, foreign exchange, to buy necessary equipment and technology from the advanced countries, including China, for the local economy development, to prepare the technology from the very basic to the modern and advanced level.
This is the only and the best effective way of helping the poor countries, the least developing countries, especially the African countries.
Nowadays you can see that the bilateral trade, the volume of bilateral trade between China and Africa is growing much faster than the national and international average of Chinese export and import, and also the global cross-border trade.
Investment is also going in the same way quite exponentially.
This provides jobs not only for the local people, but they also create more products that are sellable to the international market.
This way.
I think the so-called common prosperity and one world, one people is the concept of Chinese international political standard to have a better, integrative and inclusive growth for the poor country.
It's quite uh, you know, very different from the approach of america and some other countries which just consider their national interest.
China believes in maximizing collaboration so that everyone can grow together.
Gentlemen, let's shift gear to president xi's bilateral talks with the leaders of canada, thailand and Japan.
Professor Chu, why were these three countries chosen for such engagements and what strategic considerations underpin this arrangement?
Well, I think there are truly important, you know, economic trade partners with China.
For example, President Xi always mentioned that we will have to work with all the you know trade partners to have this.
You know trade system work globally.
Canada.
Actually, you know, We don't quite have that much of the good relations currently, especially after the Trudeau government.
You see, we have the Meng Wanzhou incident.
We have a very foul accusation of Canada towards so-called human rights issue.
But now I think the new prime minister of Canada, Mr Carney, has been in the position and having this ice-breaking trip and meeting with President Xi Jinping.
And I think Canada also understand the truth of what's going on after America.
They're highly trusted, loyal and the good North, their great South neighbors America, turn the tables against them uh, with the tariff and trade war.
So they finally find it out that china is always their very stable trade partners.
Never accuse to canada, never create any kind of turbulence, no melodramatics, no problems for canada, but just wanted to trade with them and can understand.
You know contact with china actually can have this kind of diversified supply chain.
You know feeding the Canada's the best interest.
And for Thailand, it's a different story for sure.
China and Thailand have 50 years, you know, diplomatic relations.
This is our anniversary this year.
And also both sides agreed to upgrade our partnership into, you know, the partnership with a shared fate.
And Thailand is always a very important trade partner with China. and you know key player in rcep and we've been partnered with each other in av in industrial park green energy digitalization so we see thailand and china one family so this slogan actually has been translated into many detailed and important project So I think that's the reason why we've been meeting with Thailand.
Well, Thailand didn't go through a lot of the domestic political incidents for sure.
But I think the message for China is they want to show that China always supported Thailand, no matter what, no matter who is in position.
I think China always respected the choices of Thai people and want to support Thailand and Thai peoples.
You know economic growth and a living standard.
And that's it.
China don't want to interfere with their domestic issues.
You know, manipulate the situation and to get the water muddy.
It's not what China do.
Well, some country would like to do that to benefit themselves.
China don't want to do that because we don't want to see people suffer.
We just want to be good partners.
And for Japan, it's also a complicated issue.
Takaichi, the first female prime minister in Japan.
Just to get into the position Well, a bit tricky is that she posed herself as one of the tough girl who's going to take over the banner of the Abe Shinzo and become a very vigilant watchdog for United States.
Well, at least when Trump visited Japan, Takayuchi, this madam, actually showed so.
But surprisingly she also say, right after the election Japan and China are the stabilizers and the cornerstone of the whole region.
And China and Japan have a high economic reliance on each other.
And we should work on many issues.
Well, I think that is the right thing to say and quite correct.
So I think that's a reason why China would like to talk to Japan even further, even though there are very complicated signal has been sent.
But I think Chinese leadership fully understand how important China and Japan's economy is.
Actually, we've been great partners in car parts semiconductors, renewable batteries and even in service industries, for example, like the aging services something uh, you know, concerning those uh, you know aged communities.
So we would like to partner with japan, even with america.
Remember, in the past few months, we always been saying that if you want to fight, just uh, bring on the horses, but if you want to talk, We always open the door and there's the table for you.
So I think this is what we do.
So, even in the current situation, like I always mention, China wants to be responsible, want to be a grown up in the room.
And for our good partners, there is always, you know, a good hospitality in here.
And if you want to comfort China, fine.
But we're not a stubbornish.
You know children in the room, but still have this preparation to work with you, because if everybody were just to lose a temper and just to want to work on their own profit, every people, every ordinary family in your own country, will suffer from this wrong choices.
So i think that that's the reason why we have this kind of you know, tornado discussion, and it's very, very long meetings with all these partners, no matter where you from.
And what's your recent record with china?
Then let's delve further into China-Canada ties.
Einar.
As Professor Chu mentioned, before the meeting, the office of Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, said his government aims to restart broad engagement with China after years of strained relations.
So how do you view this policy shift, especially compared with the previous Trudeau's administration?
And what do you think has driven this change?
Donald trump uh, to put it uh mildly, he has been pushing canada.
No one knows exactly why, but he's getting some pushback.
The senate did not agree with his tariffs and they voted it down, and that is very important.
It sends a signal to him that he cannot go around pushing around who americans consider very friendly.
No one in america says oh, i hate the canadians.
Um, it's quite different.
So right now, canada is, They feel, very much captive by the United States.
I mean, 99% of their energy goes to the United States.
So many of their industries, especially in auto, goes to the United States.
They sell so much lumber, both for paper and also for building.
So they really feel put off. completely blindsided.
I mean, you have to remember it was Donald Trump who said he had created the most beautiful bill ever.
Remember, he walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
And he said, I'm going to craft a new agreement instead of NAFTA.
And it's going to be with Mexico and canada.
And he, after he finished and he had, you know, extracted as much value as he could he said this is a wonderful deal.
And then he comes into office for round two and he says uh, these are horrible neighbors and they're cheating us and all this kind of stuff.
So it's the unpredictable nature of donald trump that is pushing these things.
But now the realization in canada is that they have to start making moves to diversify.
They cannot put all their eggs in the us basket.
You know, initially they thought well, maybe Trump is a one term president, never comes back.
But then he came back and now it seems the bookends of American politics are moving and it's probable that they're going to have problems with in the future with other candidates who believe, like Trump does, that you put America first by grinding down everybody, including your neighbors.
So this is where they're at in terms of policy.
They are obviously kind of one foot forward, two steps back with China.
They don't quite know how to get away from what they see as values.
And I'm not saying, my point about that is that it's a bit hypocritical.
Let's go back to the Meng Wanzhou incident, where Canada cooperated with the US in seizing the daughter of Huawei, completely protectual.
There were all sorts of you know they handed over phones to the us government.
It's less time.
I recall canada was the sovereign nation and they're supposed to be a new process.
It ended up being settled mainly because she wanted to get back to china after three years of being held hostage.
You know, a lot of the west has this kind of hypocritical thinking that you know what i do is fine and what others do isn't, and they have to get over that.
So at this point, Canada is searching for answers, much like Japan and every other nation out there, because they're not alone.
They're one of many who've been blindsided by Donald Trump.
You can talk about India.
They have no idea what happened in terms of why they were America's favorite.
They were going to be the doorstop to preventing China from expanding.
And then all of a sudden, They're nothing.
And they're being excoriated publicly for supporting a war, saying it was their war, things like this.
This really has upset them.
So right now, you know, Donald Trump is a phenomenon.
He's pushing it.
But it's also making all these countries think that it is time to find more reliable partners and partnerships.
And that's where you're seeing the growth of these multilateral regional groups, whether it's ASEAN RCEP, the South American groups, also the groups within the Middle East and Africa.
And even in the stance where you have SCO and things like this, they're starting to say OK, if we can't rely on the United Nations right now because of what the US is doing, We have to figure out something else.
I think China would love to see that energy initially put in at the regional level, but then going up and creating, reforming the UN, doing what is necessary to make it a truly fair and impartial body that is capable of settling conflicts with talks, as opposed to tanks and troops.
So Canada, as my wrap up would be, is they're in the same boat as everybody else.
They're just closer to the United States and it's hurting them a lot more.
We hope Prime Minister Carney's pragmatic internationalism can help Ottawa find a balance, keeping close to its traditional allies and pursuing a more independent China policy.
Let's move to China-Japan relations.
Professor Yao, she held his first talk with Japan's newly elected leader, Asane Takaichi.
Her government earlier said Japan values its ties with China and has no plan to decouple.
How should we rate these signals?
Yes, my colleague just mentioned that the Sino-Japanese relationship is always very complicated.
It's not a single one-dimensional business relationship.
The history, the culture and also the complication within the Japanese society.
You see that the change of the prime minister is very rapid, which means that there are lots of internal instability in terms of politics and foreign relationship in the Japanese domestic party and society.
But China, on the other hand, is still very consistent.
We always maintain peace and also political stability with any country, basically.
But in the Japanese case, you know, the relationship cannot be easily ignored because the complementarity of industry and also technology and also the adjacent issue, because China and Japan is so close, you know, by nature the closer you have, the more ability you are able to make investment and trade and also people to people's exchange.
Now Japan feels that it is a little bit insecure.
After the Second World War it was totally defeated by the Allies.
And America wished to help Japan to establish Japan's position as a regional power in Southeast Asia.
But because the United States has its own agenda.
The United States, you know, traditionally.
You know, including in the Second World War, after the Second World War, the Greek order is always considered the sale interest rather than you know, others' interest.
In this case, you know Japan and the American relationship.
You can see it is not a balanced relationship.
One is dominant, one is the follower, or one is basically just listen to whatever the United States say, including international tariff.
I think Japan, in the other case of Canada, they are without exception.
I mean the United States impose tariff on the Canadian export to the US market, impose tariff on the Japanese product to the US market and ask the Japanese to spend more money in the US military base in the country.
I mean this kind of thing.
Why the Japanese are bearing this kind of pressure from the United States is because they believe they have made enemy with China and the military.
Why China is getting stronger and stronger, and also the kinds of international propaganda that seems to that China is a threat to the Japanese national security and so forth.
But in reality China doesn't really want to make violence.
China wants to just protect the wrong territory and, in the longer term, to integrate, with taking back the Taiwan province.
This kind of national security and also sovereignty is always very clear and consistent.
But Japan, United States, some other Western airlines.
They consider that Taiwan should be, you know, a bargaining chip for, you know, containing or suppressing China, or making China difficult in different ways.
So, whatever China and Japan do, I think the foundation is that the economy-business relationship cannot be totally cut off, because international trade, cross-border investment are beneficial not only for the Chinese people but also for the Japanese.
And the Japanese is getting relatively smaller and smaller at the global level.
The share of global GDP is declining, the population is aging and also the new technologies are a little bit lagging behind.
Not only the United States, but also even China.
So Japan requires some sort of you know interconnection, not only with the United States but with a fairly a lot of people realizing you know business superpower China.
So Japan have every interest to have a good relationship with China rather than making, as a you know, some sort of mutually, you know antagonizing each other.
Thanks, Professor Yao, and thanks to all of our panelists.
Professor Yao Shujie, Chang Kong Professor of Economics at Chongqing University.
Professor Qu Qiang, Fellow of the Belt and Road Research Center at Minzu University of China.
Einar Tengen, Senior Fellow of the Center for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian think tank, and Chair of Asia Narrative's 15th Five-Year Initiative.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today with me, Ge'Anna.
And please stay tuned for our Sunday program, where we will bring you the latest on AIPAC and China's role in regional cooperation.
If you want to hear this episode again or to catch up on previous episodes, you can download our podcast by searching World Today or you can find us on X CGTN Radio.
Thank you again for listening.
Bye for now.
