Much ink was spilled on the state of Canada-China relations during Prime Minister Harper's visit to China last week. Canadian business circles expressed considerable regret at the long gap since the previous visit to China by a Canadian Prime Minister. Mr. Harper does not enjoy the same closeness to Bay Street as some of his predecessors. Nor does he have the boldness of Nicolas Sarkozy who can criticize China at a news conference at the Élysée and travel to Beijing the same day to help Areva or EADS land a major contract.
Notwithstanding repeated criticism pertaining to the lack of real dialogue with China since 2006, Prime Minister Harper's trip (and his trip to India in November) could bring about significant benefits over and above financial spin-offs. For several years already, the influence of emerging nations has been spreading and their ambition has reached beyond the mere potential of their domestic economies. The recent decision of the G8 to entrust to the G20 responsibility for all financial matters is not unrelated to the anxiousness of emerging nations. Having helped to implement global solutions to the current recession, emerging nations had no intention of sitting idle until the next crisis triggered by shortcomings of financial regulatory systems in certain G8 countries.
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