China, better ally than the United States, believes Couillard

Photo archive Pascal Huot
China is becoming a better ally than the United States on the issues of free trade and fight climate change, believes Couillard.

Patrick Bellerose

Wednesday, 24 January 2018 07:52

UPDATE
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 07:56

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HANGZHOU | Since the coming to power of Donald Trump, China is becoming a better ally than the United States on the issues of free trade and fight climate change, says the prime minister Philippe Couillard.

Sunday, at the launch of the economic mission, which brings the prime minister in China, the ambassador of Canada, John McCallum, stated in a speech that “in some areas of important policies such as the environment, global warming, free trade, globalization, the policies of the government of Canada are closer to [the] policy of the government of China that they [do] are of [the] policy of the United States!”.

“And I believe that because of this political situation with Donald Trump, the Chinese are now more interested than before to do things with us,” added the envoy of Justin Trudeau.

Administration Trump

Philippe Couillard echoed the remarks of the ambassador McCallum. “A few years ago, the states-man of the world – or the individual State of the world – which would have spoken of the opening of markets, typically, is the president of the United States of America,” he stressed. Now, this is no longer him, it is the contrary, he speaks of restricting markets. And the leader who speaks of opening up markets, this is the chinese president.”

Same observation in the area of climate change, where China has become more active than the american administration, considers Philippe Couillard. He cited the interest of his chinese contacts to the carbon market and the electrification of transport. “I don’t hear a lot about in the United States currently it” shows there.

Philippe Couillard said that the rapprochement between Quebec and China is limited to these two aspects. “Of course, the companies are very different,” he said. This is not universal, what I just said.”

Cultural exchanges

The asian giant remains a one-party dictatorship in which the rights and freedoms are violated. Despite all that, the first minister refuses to criticize the political authorities on their record of human rights, promoting greater interaction between the two cultures.

“When I saw the other day at the dinner table, the chinese scholars that were with our academics, when I saw today the announcement of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi… this is how it’s done move the people coincidentally”, he says.