Minister of Innovation, Science and Commerce Francois-Philippe Champagne speaks during a press conference in Ottawa, on October 26, 2021. (Photo by LARS HAGBERG/AFP via Getty Images)
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Western nations need to decouple from China and other authoritarian regimes to boost their collaborative supply chain resiliency, Canada’s Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne told a business audience on Oct. 21.
“If you want resilience in the North American supply chain, Canada has to be part of the equation. Because what we want is a decoupling, certainly from China and I would say other regimes in the world which don’t share the same values,” he said.
“We’re coming to a day and age where citizens—and you see it with trade agreements that have been framed around the world—people want to trade with people who share usually the same values.”
Champagne made the remarks in Washington D.C., at an event hosted by the Canadian American Business Council themed “Canada: Strategic Partner of Choice for the World.” The event was co-hosted by the Embassy of Canada, the Washington International Trade Association (WITA), Canadian American Business Council (CABC), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Foreign Trade Council.
Champagne said Canada should build stronger industry collaborations with the United States in light of the U.S. government recently introducing the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, reducing dependency on China for electric vehicle technology while reviving domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The CHIPS Act also bars American tech companies from building factories in China for the next decade and denying Chinese firms access to U.S. technologies in relation to semiconductor chips.
“When I talk to my American friends, it’s always ‘How can we innovate more together? How can we manufacture more together, and how can we sell more together to the rest of the world,’” Champagne said.
“There’s never been any competition between our two countries, for me, we’re complementary,” he added.
‘Friend-Shoring’
Champagne is not the only federal minister who has recently called for reducing trade dependency on China.
Speaking to an audience in Washington on Oct. 11, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said it’s important that Western countries set an example by embracing a “friend-shoring” policy, shifting commercial relations from adversarial regimes to friendly partners and like-minded democracies.
Their remarks align with Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s soon-to-be-released Indo-Pacific Strategy, which is to “deepen diplomatic, economic and defence partnerships and international assistance in the region,” according to Joly’s mandate.
Joly said last month that the Indo-Pacific strategy is to be released after a major national conference of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), saying that the conference will shape the strategy, reported Global News. The CCP’s national Congress concluded on Oct. 22.
In a Sept. 30 interview with the Washington-based think tank, Atlantic Council, Joly was asked whether Canada considers China or Russia to be the greater security threat.
She said in response that Canada is an Indo-Pacific country, though historically it hasn’t considered itself to be one and had focused mainly on the transatlantic relationship.
“We need to turn west [towards China],” Joly said.
“We know we’re dealing with a very much assertive China under [Chinese President] Xi Jinping, we know also that we have to make sure that we recognize the importance of international rules.”