China's catastrophic earthquake last week in Sichuan province has prompted words of condolence from Canada's government, in a written press release. But there is no sign of any personal exchange with the senior leadership in Beijing. Nor has Ottawa sought to mobilize support through the Chinese-Canadian community — in contrast to our active responses to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
This is a striking symptom of something missing in the Harper government's policy toward China on other fronts, too. In our business relationship with China, public policy matters.
This is not a new idea to Canadians. Over the past several administrations, prime ministers, senior ministers and other officials, premiers and business leaders have led trade missions to China. These public expressions of support and confidence are vital. When China's presidents and premiers and Canada's prime ministers take part in these contacts, that demonstrates to Chinese business that the Canada-China relationship is important to their political leaders and that there will be political support for trade and investments. The message is clear and unequivocal.
The opposite can be just as convincing.
Members of the Canada China Business Council are often asked whether the currently cooler political relationship between Ottawa and Beijing is costing Canadian businesses. Until very recently, the answer was, "Not yet."
That is no longer true. Canadian business leaders are reporting that contracts are definitely being lost as a direct result of the chill between our most senior political leaders. Meanwhile, the presidents of the United States, France and Russia, the Chancellor of Germany and other heads of state and government in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Australia all understand that personal attention, face-to-face meetings with China's presidents and premiers, and advocacy for their global companies, are part of their job descriptions. Dmitry Medvedev, the new Russian President, this week took his first foreign trip, heading almost straight for China, with a day's stopover in Kazakhstan on Thursday; Germany will have to wait till next month.
The significance of these presidents' and prime ministers' commitment is not lost on China's leaders, its business community or its people. It leads directly to agreements signed and business opportunities concluded. At any given moment, dozens of trade missions from Canada's competitors are crisscrossing China, working at every level to cement their places on the China trade horizon.
Canada's premiers are now considering a trade mission of their own to China, as if to fill a gap, but our companies need to have confidence in Ottawa's approach, too. We cannot yet put a dollar value on the Chinese business and opportunities we have lost or let slip. The bill will arrive in due course.
DON'T MISS THE BOAT
Canada has had a privileged position with China. Every Chinese student learns about Dr. Norman Bethune. China's leaders have not forgotten that, when the rest of the world refused to do so, we sold wheat to China during the famine of 1959 and 1960, and that Canada was one of the first Western nations to recognize the People's Republic, in 1970.
We need to build on that precious heritage, but with a clear-eyed realism and a sense of self-interest.
Trade and investment between Canada and China is still growing. Our exports to China in 2007 were worth $9.2-billion and our imports thence were worth $38.2-billion. However, our market share in China is falling proportionately to those of other nations. Trade with China is barely more than 6 per cent of Canada's total global merchandise trade, compared to 80 per cent for our trade with the U.S. Though higher commodity prices and inflationary creep have increased the total value of Canadian-U.S. trade, the proportion of our trade going to the U.S. is falling, down from 87 per cent in 2002.
