Mark Steyn -- the greatest, most versatile, and most prolific columnist in the English-speaking world -- alludes incidentally in his latest Spectator column to China's push to acquire Canadian natural resource assets.
China's state-run Minmetals recently proposed to purchase Noranda, Canada's largest mining interest and one of the world's larger producers of copper, nickel, and zinc. Two other Canadian mining concerns, Inmet and Teck Cominco, have also become the subject of Chinese designs. Only days ago, China's state-controlled National Offshore Oil bought one-sixth of Alberta's MEG Energy. And Chinese National Offshore Oil and two other Chinese state oil interests, Sinopec and PetroChina, are angling for further Abertan oil assets.
While Canada's anti-American conspiracy theorists are issuing crackpot missives to letters to the editor pages, wildly prophesying an American invasion of Canada to secure, of all things, water, China has been working to gain control of Canada's largest resource interests. If our wild-eyed, conspiracy-minded anti-Americans were truly concerned about control of domestic resources, their letters would be warning against China.
America is Canada's next-door neighbor and sister nation, its largest trading partner, its only remaining defense in the world, and its very kit and kin, while China is militantly nationalistic, overtly imperialistic, radically divergent and politically Communist, violently suppressing political and religious freedom. Furthermore, when an American business buys assets in Canada or elsewhere it is doing so as an independent, private enterprise; In the case of China, businesses like Minmetals are state-run, so that any assets bought by such an operation are controlled directly by the Chinese government. And then there's China's forced one child per couple policy, one result of which has been that many Chinese couples abort or put up for international adoption until they have a son, and a society in which there are many, many more men than women is not likely to produce particularly pacifist policies.
Steyn also notes that the Canadian government bizarrely continues to donate tax dollars to China for "foreign aid". In fact, the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada's federal foreign aid department, contributes more to China than to any other nation. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said as recently as last December, "No longer can China be considered simply an emerging market; it has established itself as a world power," and yet he and his government continue to consider China the top foreign aid case of the Canadian taxpayer. As a rule of thumb, if one considers a nation to be a "world power", and if that nation's state enterprises are proposing to buy out one's own largest companies, it is probably safe to strike the nation from one's roll of welfare beneficiaries.
China's state-run Minmetals recently proposed to purchase Noranda, Canada's largest mining interest and one of the world's larger producers of copper, nickel, and zinc. Two other Canadian mining concerns, Inmet and Teck Cominco, have also become the subject of Chinese designs. Only days ago, China's state-controlled National Offshore Oil bought one-sixth of Alberta's MEG Energy. And Chinese National Offshore Oil and two other Chinese state oil interests, Sinopec and PetroChina, are angling for further Abertan oil assets.
While Canada's anti-American conspiracy theorists are issuing crackpot missives to letters to the editor pages, wildly prophesying an American invasion of Canada to secure, of all things, water, China has been working to gain control of Canada's largest resource interests. If our wild-eyed, conspiracy-minded anti-Americans were truly concerned about control of domestic resources, their letters would be warning against China.
America is Canada's next-door neighbor and sister nation, its largest trading partner, its only remaining defense in the world, and its very kit and kin, while China is militantly nationalistic, overtly imperialistic, radically divergent and politically Communist, violently suppressing political and religious freedom. Furthermore, when an American business buys assets in Canada or elsewhere it is doing so as an independent, private enterprise; In the case of China, businesses like Minmetals are state-run, so that any assets bought by such an operation are controlled directly by the Chinese government. And then there's China's forced one child per couple policy, one result of which has been that many Chinese couples abort or put up for international adoption until they have a son, and a society in which there are many, many more men than women is not likely to produce particularly pacifist policies.
Steyn also notes that the Canadian government bizarrely continues to donate tax dollars to China for "foreign aid". In fact, the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada's federal foreign aid department, contributes more to China than to any other nation. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said as recently as last December, "No longer can China be considered simply an emerging market; it has established itself as a world power," and yet he and his government continue to consider China the top foreign aid case of the Canadian taxpayer. As a rule of thumb, if one considers a nation to be a "world power", and if that nation's state enterprises are proposing to buy out one's own largest companies, it is probably safe to strike the nation from one's roll of welfare beneficiaries.
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