Fives Eyes allies urged to lessen dependence on China GlobePolitics
Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army march in front of the entrance of the Forbidden City on May 20, 2020 in Beijing, China.The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted an urgent need for Canada and its Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partners to reduce their dependence on China for crucial goods such as pharmaceuticals and electrical components, an international study of supply chains says.
The report, Breaking the China Supply Chain: How the Five Eyes can Decouple from Strategic Dependency, warns that as China has become more authoritarian under President Xi Jinping, it has increasingly shown a willingness to threaten and punish countries that question its actions. In 2010, for instance, during a feud between Beijing and Toyko over the East China Sea, China imposed a de facto embargo on the export of rare-earth minerals to Japan.
“If it was not already apparent, the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the dangers that dependency poses,” the report said. “The five powers have found it difficult to source the necessary volumes of medical equipment, either because China has commandeered such products for its own requirements or because the five powers have been forced to compete for limited supplies.”
The findings prompted 23 British Conservative MPs to demand that post-Brexit trade policy be recast to ensure strategic independence from Beijing. Jim Balsillie, co-founder of BlackBerry, said Canada needs to rethink its approach to China, particularly when it comes to technology and patents. He pointed to a Globe and Mail series two years ago that exposed how Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. was funding research at Canadian universities and keeping the patent rights.
“We have already built the beginnings of a public-health industrial base, in the same way we have a defence industrial base, in this country, and we need to build on that – whether it’s energy or areas related to cyberterrorism or a climate-change disaster: What capacity do we need to have in Canada,” Mr. Beatty said.“When we look at our manufacturing sector in particular, so much of that has been contracted out to China.
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