China-Canada Strategic Partnership

In 1970, leaders of China and Canada made the strategic decision to establish diplomatic relation, which opened a new chapter of the relations between China and Canada. Canada is one of the earliest western countries that established diplomatic relation with China. More than 40 years have passed, no matter how the international situation and strategic landscape changed, the relationship between China and Canada maintain a good momentum to put forward. In recent years, a lot of encouraging developments have been made in our relations. Both countries enjoy a frequent high-level visits, a continuous increase of trade and investment and a more active people-to-people exchange. The width and depth of our relations have reached a new level. In 2011, the trade volume between China and Canada have reached 47.45 billion US dollars, which is more than 300 times bigger than it in the beginning of establishment of the diplomatic relations. In the first half of this year, the bilateral trade volume is nearly 25 billion US dollars. China's accumulated investment in Canada is more than 23 billion US dollars. Now, the visits between China and Canada each day is more than 2000, which is even more than the total number of a year when we established diplomatic relations. A lot of important agreements have signed or closed negotiation in recent years, including China-Canada Approved Destination Status Agreement，China-Canada Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement and China-Canada Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.

7 years have passed since the establishment of China-Canada Strategic Partnership in September 2005. Now the strategic partnership have been more mature, shows great vitality and face an important opportunity to put forward, which lies in the following aspects:

First, the strategic meaning of the China-Canada Strategic Partnership has been more prominent. The international strategic focus is moving to the east. The recovery of global economy is full of uncertainties. China is the biggest developing countries and Canada is a developed country with the largest territory. We are the second and tenth largest economies in the world. Both counries are in Asia-Pacific region. We share a wide range of common interest in promoting domestic and global economy, in maintaining regional and global peace and stability and in coping with various kinds of global non-traditional challenges. To further deepen China-Canada Strategic Partnership is beneficial to the long-term interests of two nations and their people. Besides, it also have great positive influence in the peaceful development and common prosperity in our region and world at large.

Second, the mutual-beneficial character of China-Canada Strategic Partnership has been improved. There are great complementarities between the economy of China and Canada, which shows great potential for us to cooperate with each other. Now US economy is in lack of strong driving force and the sovereignty debt crisis in Europe is getting worse. As an export-driving economy, Canada faces a lot of challenges. In Canada, a series of effective measures have been taken in coping with the financial crisis, which make Canada the first G7 country that walked out of the recession. However, in a long-term view, the economy of Canada will inevitably influenced by the bad economic situation in Europe and America. Canada should develop new markets to diversify its trade and make full use of export as a driving force for its economy. With a large population and huge market, China is the second largest import country in the world. In the implementation of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, China is trying its best to increase its domestic consumption and transform its development pattern. China's import is expected to reach 10 trillion US dollars. This is the need of China's development, and it also offers great opportunity for other countries like Canada. China is in need of the preponderant resources, products and techniques of Canada in its urbanization and industrializtion. China is now the largest energy consumer in the world. Its need of energy will keep growing in the long process of realizing the goals of modernization. Canada is endowed with rich energy resources and it has developed a mature system in related sectors. Most products of energy in Canada is for export, which may make it a reliable energy resources supplier for China. China and Canada can build a long-term and stable energy resources strategic cooperation partnership. We should further enhance the relations between China and Canada, expand the trade and investment and broaden our cooperation in areas like energy resources. This is a response of our mutual needs. It is a mutual beneficial choice and serves our strategic partnership.

Third, the advantages of China-Canada Strategic Partnership have been increased. There is no fundamental conflicts of interests or any historic disputes between China and Canada. Instead, we share the same or similar ideas in many regional and international issues. We have many strategic cooperate points. People from both countries are traditionally friendly to each other. Since the establishment of diplomatic relation in 1970, China-Canada relation is always in the front row in China's relations with other western countries. All of the administrations of Canada pay a great attention to the relations with China and stick to the One China Policy. There are some twists and turns in our relations when the Conservative Party came into power in the early 2006. But with the efforts of both sides, our relations have returned to the right track and show a good momentum.The Conservative government led by Prime Minister Harper adopt a more active and practical China policy and reaffirm the China-Canada Strategic Partnership established during the rule of Liberal Party. This means that both the Conservative Party and Liberal Party are in support of the China-Canada Strategic Partnership. People-to-people exchange between China and Canada is expanding. More than 1.4 million overseas Chinese in Canada can be a strong bond between the two countries. Also, there are a lot of scholars full of wisdom, as you present here today, who have a good knowledge of the situations of both country, support the friendship between China and Canada, and make great suggestions for the development of the bilateral relations. There will be a bright future for China-Canada Strategic Partnership.

Fourth, leaders from both countries reach the consensus of further develop China-Canada Strategic Partnership. In December 2009, Prime Minister Harper paid his first visit to China. During this visit, both sides issued the China-Canada Joint Statement which guides the long-term development of our bilateral relations. In October 2010, President Hu Jintao paid a visit to Canada, the two sides reaffirmed the China-Canada Strategic Partnership and brought the bilateral relations to a new stage. Last February, Prime Minister Harper visited China again. During this visit, both countries reaching important consensus in further developing China-Canada Strategic Partnership. Besides, leaders from both countries also had a lot of meetings in multilateral occasions. The frequent high-level exchanges have strengthen our strategic mutual trust, set our goals on enhancing China-Canada Strategic Partnership and share our common political willing. And this is of great importance in further developing China-Canada Strategic Partnership.

China-Canada Free Trade Agreement

Economic and trade have become the most active part of China-Canada relations. The trade volume between China and Canada has increased 30% each year. In the first half of this year, the trade volume between China and Canada is nearly 25 billion US dollars. Until 2011, Canada invested more than 12000 programmes in China and nearly 8.4 billion US dollars have been actually made use of in a wide range of areas like manufacturing, energy mining, financial legal service and transportation. According to incomplete statistics, companies from China have invested more than 23 billion US dollars in Canada. Cooperations in traditional areas like resources and energy have been deepen. Meanwhile, emerging areas including machine manufacturing, telecommunication, finance, agriculture also enjoy a sound increase.

However, compared with our economy size, the scale of our cooperation remains small. Trade between China and Canada is only 1% and 6% of foreign trade as a whole in China and Canada. This is not a satisfying number for our strategic partnership. There's a lot of room and great potentialities for the economic and trade cooperation between China and Canada. It's encouraging that both sides have realized the fact and are making joint efforts in enhance the bilateral economic and trade relations. Especially in the Prime Minister Harper's visit in last February, the negotiations on the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement has been concluded. Not long ago, both sides announced the finish of the study on China-Canada economic complementarities and issued the research report. By analysing the global supply chains and many important cooperative areas, the report shows several complementarities between the economy of China and Canada.

All this shows that the economic and trade cooperation between China and Canada is now enjoying a good policy environment and great public support. Businessmen from both countries also have a positive attitude toward the cooperation. There are great potentials and advantages in the bilateral trade and investment cooperations, which will bring real benefits to the two countries and their people. Now, it's natural and logical for us to launch the discussions on the Free Trade Agreement between China and Canada. The establishment of China-Canada Free Trade Area will be helpful to promote the further opening of goods and service markets. It will also be good for the two countries to develop an all-round cooperation, broaden our cooperation areas and improve the levels of cooperation. It may also make the economy of China and Canada in a more favorable position in the new round of global competition.

Asia-Pacific region is becoming an important driving resources of the increase global economy. In this background, the discussion of FTA between China and Canada is in line with the call of our time. China have signed 10 FTAs with countries and districts like ASEAN, Singapore, New Zealand. 5 Free Trade Areas is under negotiations between China and other countries, including the China-Australia Free Trade Areas. At the same time, China has finished the joint research on Regional Trade Arrangement with India and the joint research on FTA with South Korea. There is also a joint research by governments. industrial sectors and academic agencies on the FTA among China, Japan and South Korea. There are a lot of route maps for the cooperation in Asia-Pacific region, including TPP. But Rome is not built in one day. All of them require long and arduous negotiations. Beginning with bilateral FTA arrangement is a relative easy and sound way. FTA between China and Canada will also face a lot of important difficulties like the problems concerning agricultural products. However, once we launch the research and negotiation, it will be beneficial to out bilateral economic and trade relations. It will also increase our weight in the negotiations of regional cooperation frameworks.

During Prime Minister Harper's visit in last February, leaders from both countries exchanged their views on how to promote the research of FTA in the next step and reached consensus. According to the Joint Lists of Achievements, the discussion of deepening economic and trade relations will be launched after the finish of study on the China-Canada economic complementarities. In my view, now the government of the both sides share the common political willing. Three is a more mature policy framework for bilateral economic and trade cooperation. People from industries and commerce show greater enthusiasm. And there is a larger public support. So, to launch the China-Canada FTA research and negotiation is of high necessities and great possibilities.

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