China's Oppressive Penalties Game Plan

"As a farmer, and one who has grown canola and intends to again, these trade blows seem formidably painful to a bottom line that seems to be in constant jeopardy."
"The agricultural industry is the punching bag for global politics. It's the industry foreign countries target to get the attention of people whose daily lives are not immediately affected by drooping canola prices."
"Farmers are price takers. When markets are weak and when there's insecurity surrounding global trade, commodity prices dip and farmers may not be able to sell at a profit. This, put in a crude way, can mean there may be years when operations make no money."
"And for small operations unable to self-insure against such times, this can mean farm closures."
Toban Dyck, Canadian farmer, Director of Communications, Manitoba Pulse

Amid this uncertainty, canola remains a commodity shrouded in optimism in Canada. Mike Drew/Calgary Sun/QMI Agency

Canada and China have recently had a tumble into bad political, diplomatic relations. China's importation of Canadian agricultural products, and other natural resources are sizeable. China is Canada's second-largest trading partner after its geographical neighbour, the United States. It is raw resources basically that China is interested in obtaining from all its trade partners, while it supplies the world with manufactured goods.

China is also intensely involved in technology and communications, and has widespread tentacles throughout the global community in those areas. At the same time there is global suspicion based on quite good intelligence and experience, that China is an industrial, political and military intelligence-gatherer, its focus on obtaining other nations' technology on which to base their own as a stepping-stone where others do the work associated with design in advanced technology and China benefits through espionage.

The United States, Australia and New Zealand, three of the 'Five Eyes' group of shared intelligence have refused to allow China's giant technology communications giant Huawei to be involved in their 5G telecommunications upgrades, while Britain has allowed it to integrate its technology with that of its own technology-communications corporations and Canada has yet to decide. Into this mire of suspicion and pressure strode a complicating factor; the arrest by the RCMP in Vancouver of Huawei CFO, Meng Wanzhou, infuriating China.

That arrest, in December, grew out of a U.S. extradition request to Canada and Canada obliged to the letter of the law. U.S. justice wants to try Meng in an American court of law for giving false information to U.S. banks relating to U.S. sanctions on business with Iran. Beijing's reaction was to arrest two Canadians in China, charging them with espionage in an obviously cynical effort at intimidation, while insisting that Meng Wanzhou's human rights have been violated, even as she is out on bail, living in one of her luxury Vancouver homes and the two Canadians are held in isolation, subject to relentless interrogation, and denied legal advice.

Applying pressure of any and all kinds to impress upon Canada the folly of challenging China on any file whatever, Chinese students studying at Canada's universities and colleges have also recently been implicated in efforts to shut down free speech on university campuses at University of Toronto and McMaster University in Hamilton, over outspoken critiques of China's oppression of Tibet and Uyghurs in Xinjiang province. Outreach arms and China's diplomatic missions in Canada have urged Chinese students to serve their country.

Now another targeted message of non-compliance with Beijing's interests has erupted with China deciding to embargo canola imports, alleging that a shipment from the agribusiness company Richardson International Ltd. was contaminated by "harmful organisms". The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, on investigation, found no presence of bacteria or harmful pests. Billions worth of canola seed, oil and meal is imported by China from Canada annually. Over 22 million acres of canola was planted last year, with Richardson representing the largest canola exporter in the country.

Canola is unique to Canada, the very word Canola represents the contraction of "Canada" and "ola"; many vegetable oils use the "ola" suffix. Two Canadian agricultural scientists at Agriculture Canada and University of Manitoba bred the seeds in the 1970s from the rapeseed plant. Canadian farmers are holding out hope that this embargo of Canadian canola products by China will be a temporary blip, hoping that before the next harvest season the matter will have been somehow resolved, the decision reversed and he market resumed.

Canada's uncomfortable position with China arose primarily from a trade dispute that the United States' Trump administration raised over trade disparities with China. As a result of anomalous circumstances, Canada finds itself caught in the middle of the dispute between the two trade giants, either of which can afford to squeeze one another on trade far more than Canada can afford to offend either for the lashback on its trade equilibrium.