Canada is playing long game with China
Journalism, like politics, depends on short memories. But many journos appear to be counting on their readers’ suffering instant memory erasure in their critique of the Trudeau China strategy. Last month they were flailing him for preparing to “sell out Canada to the Red Chinese.” This month, they are attacking Trudeau for failing to make the sale.
One might be equally skeptical of the claims of the long-retired diplomats and academics, recalling their time when China was not the ascendant power in the world, claiming they would have done it better in their day. China today is at the height of its power in a millennium. That makes negotiations a little different than anytime before.
Serious poker players know that you play the hand you are dealt. You cannot fold every weak hand. You play it as well as you can and wait for the next round. Serious trade negotiators understand that setting out an ambitious agenda is to deal yourself a weak hand. You merely make it easier for the other side to roll their eyes and say no. But only a big agenda can deliver big rewards, albeit at the cost of greater risk of failure.
Just as the Mulroney government did in the original NAFTA talks, the Trudeau trade team made big asks of its European partners in the CETA talks, and it indulged in some creative brinkmanship to win — and did. It did it again at TPP2, insisting on changes to the Harper-agreed deal at the 11th hour. NAFTA2 is negotiating with a crazy person, so no strategy can offer any guarantee.
The trade team has adopted the big agenda, long-game strategy with China. To demand a big comprehensive economic agreement, including mandatory provisions on the environment, labour and social rights, is attacked by some as imposing our values. Not true. China is signatory to several international agreements on all these protections. Like Canada, it has not yet implemented many of them.
Would Canadians accept an agreement that did not guarantee strong environmental protections? No. Does it offer the potential to collapse the deal as an intrusion on sovereign domain? Perhaps, but no Canadian government that signed such a deal could defend it, or probably survive politically.
Going to Beijing without the assurance of a final deal on an agenda was inevitable.
Beijing wants a reprise of the narrow traditional Australian deal, one that has come to bite Australian politicians badly. That was never going to happen. Ottawa knows the value of a big economic agreement with a respected G7 country to China. It would be a big first, setting the stage for others.
It also knows that the gap with China on a necessary agenda started out very wide. Now Canada waits for its next cards, and prepares a new round of talks to continue slow progress toward a potentially big win.
Did government fail to make the odds against success — given the gap in goals — clear? Yes. Did the PMO fail to manage expectations, allowing speculation about a full launch of comprehensive negotiations to get out of hand? Yes.
Should they have refused to come to Beijing in the absence of a guaranteed victory? Of course not. This is exactly how high-level bargaining between serious and mutually respectful partners takes place. Sometimes one side even walks out. As we did in the FTA, and in CETA. No one walked this week.
Each side put the best face on the small advances made. Neither attacked the other for failing to make greater progress. Nowhere in the state-controlled media in the first 48 hours was there any criticism of Trudeau. Coverage continued to froth about the “new golden age” in Canada/China relations.
Chatting with the team following nearly 72 hours of intense negotiation, one member chuckled at the critical coverage received from the Canadian media and said, “We know we made real progress this week. You can’t brag about that until you get to the finish line. Our partner would be understandably angry. They’re already unhappy about how popular Trudeau and Canada are in China. We don’t need to add any friction just to make the Canadian media purr.”