Comment by seanmcdirmid
17 hours ago
Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest their to their security is China or the USA. They can tie their boat to either against the other, but they can't be allies with both.
17 hours ago
Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest their to their security is China or the USA. They can tie their boat to either against the other, but they can't be allies with both.
Can they be allies with neither? They are trying to improve relations with the EU and, most importantly, are members of NATO (where the US is also a member).
Economically not really. China and the USA are the top economies, and China is only going to get more economically powerful, alignment with one or the other in trade at least is inevitable. The EU will be making similar decisions to Canada, and I doubt Canada is going to detach from Europe.
China is completely dependant on other countries for it's economic power (mostly the US) as an export economy.
They're also staring down a demographic crash, soon (10 - 15% drop with 25% of the remaining polution over 65).
They are basically at their peak right now.
3 replies →
Real question: Is any serious person advocating Canada abandon the West for China? What's their analysis here? If anyone has an article I can read I would love to do that.
Given the shit show that is trump tarries and uncertainty, and the threats of 51st state, plenty of Canadians are very happy to turn away from the USA.
I’d be immensely happy if the Chinese EV tarries were scrapped. Given how the us has been behaving, why should we support us automakers.
>Real question: Is any serious person advocating Canada abandon the West for China? What's their analysis here? If anyone has an article I can read I would love to do that.
In Canada? Oh yes, many serious liberals are advocating ending with usa and becoming an ally with china. About a month ago: https://globalnews.ca/news/11490896/canada-strategic-partner...
Which resulted in the USA suspending all trade talks with Canada the next day.
But over the last decade, the liberals also have ordered various anti-china divestments: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article...
not to mention: https://electrek.co/2025/10/27/canada-rumored-immently-remov...
Which this 'imminent' factor never happened, but what was imminent was right before this was the announcement of various auto manufacturing moving production out of canada. Not really much to do with china, more of a screw you to the big 3.
China and Canada dont have a free trade agreement. The FIPA agreement is likely to be ended soon as it's possible.
Going from the antagonistic to a major trade deal and changing to chinese alliance would be a bizarre change though.
With the qualification that Canada has absolutely no intention of abandoning the West, merely the US. The intent of the government and people is absolutely to strengthen ties to western Europe, not weaken them.
1 reply →
Thank you I will read these!
I mean, Vancouver is heavily financially influenced by China already...
> Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest [threat?] to their security is China or the USA.
How do you get China in that list? Canada would most likely be challenged over their stake in the Arctic and Russia is plainly the greatest threat in that regard, not China. Russia has invested a great deal into arctic exploration and exploitation and pretty clearly sees the region as free real estate up for the taking. America too has a large stake in the Arctic, but has developed comparably fewer arctic capabilities than Russia. For Canada to have any chance of repelling a Russian invasion of their arctic territory would require America to help them, which under present American leadership would be a piss poor position for Canada to be in (not only because Trump has suggested annexing Canada himself, but also because he's said similar about Greenland, underscoring America's own desire to take that same arctic territory.)
Now, I don't doubt that China would also like the Arctic for themselves, but from Canada's perspective, the relative threat of China must be less than that of Russia and America.
Russia can't even invade Ukraine right, I think the world sees them as pretty washed up as far as national security goes (besides them having nukes). China is like Russia, except richer, more disciplined, and not dumb. Canada also has a higher GDP than Russia despite having a much smaller population.
Russia's arctic operational capability is world class, exceeding even America by far. America could at least try to engage Russia with submarine warfare and long range missiles, but what could Canada do themselves, muster a few hundred native locals armed with century old rifles? Canada would be forced to go to America for help, which might end up in Canada giving up some mineral rights at least, if not substantial chunks of territory in whole.
Now, however unlikely you think Russia is to actually start some kinetic shit in the Arctic, I think you're crazy to rate their threat lower than China. China being richer, more disciplined and less dumb only makes the relative threat to Canada even smaller. Russia, being relatively dumb, undisciplined, poor and increasingly reliant on oil exports to prop up their economy makes the probability of Russia daring to start shit higher, not lower.
Edit: Some of you obviously don't take this seriously, so here's a question for any of you. If Russia announces they are going to be drilling oil in arctic waters that are nominally Canada's, and declares their annexation of this territory a fiat accompli, what is Canada's move? Demand help from their NATO allies, which may or may not include America? What if America declines and demands the mineral rights to Canadian territory in exchange for chasing Russia off Canada's sea floor? Canada sure as hell can't fight Russia under the ice cap themselves. Without a credible military response of their, Canada must count on having reliable and powerful allies. Russia's desire and motive are clear, they want the arctic oil. China is dangerous in their own way, the PLAN is very dangerous, but if they're going to start shit it will be over Taiwan and if it involves anybody else it will probably be the USN and maybe the JSDF, not Canada. The real threat the PRC poses to Canada is subversion of the Canadian political system, buying and bribing their way through getting anything they want from Canada. And that's not the kind of threat you can counter with military spending.
1 reply →
"Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest their to their security is China or the USA."
I very much doubt that is true. Unless the Canadian government get's their information only from "truth" social.
[flagged]
[flagged]
The USA is a fantastic ally! When a small aircraft was recently hijacked from Vancouver international airport, guess which Air Force came to our rescue? Thank you!!
While there’s a lot of news and media about trade wars with the USA, the vast majority 85% of it remains under the free trade agreement. China does not even come close to a free and open market for us and their state sponsored corporate espionage is a real and growing danger.
Neither here nor there, but the plane was hijacked in Victoria and then flown over to Vancouver.
(Only picking this particular nit because, as a Victorian, we constantly live in the shadow of our bigger brother, so I need to shout us out when I can. And I fly out of the flying club that the plane was hijacked from, so it's a story that's particularly close to my heart.)
China didn't strongly suggest that Canada should become its 23rd or 24th province. Also, if the USA keeps dipping its feet into fascism every other 4 year election cycle, every other western democracy is going to start pumping lots of resources into a plan B
>China didn't strongly suggest that Canada should become its 23rd or 24th province.
China ransacked and then sank Nortel.
2 replies →
They might be more worried about the recent attempts to annex them.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/25/donald...
I'd imagine the threats of annexation are more concerning than the tariffs.