Joly warns Canadian firms of ‘risks’ of business with China, says new policy imminent
Global News
'What I would like to say to Canadians doing business in and with China: you need to be clear-eyed,' Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said.
Canadians should consider the “geopolitical risks” of doing business in China, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly warned Wednesday amid growing expectations for the policy reset she confirmed will be coming “within a month.”
During a talk for the University of Toronto’s Musk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Joly made some of her sharpest comments about the Chinese government to date — and laid out a pledge to shift Canadian policy on the country.
“What I would like to say to Canadians doing business in and with China: you need to be clear-eyed,” Joly said.
“The (decisions) you take as businesspeople are your own. As Canada’s top diplomat, my job is to tell you that there are geopolitical risks linked to doing business with the country.”
During her speech, Joly detailed Canada’s plans to deepen its ties to the Indo-Pacific region — and to take a tougher approach to threats emerging from that part of the world. The “full, funded” Indo-Pacific strategy, she said, “will be launched within a month.”
The announcement comes on the heels of reporting from Global News of a campaign of foreign interference that China has allegedly been waging in Canada.
On Monday, Global News reported that Canadian intelligence officials warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that China has allegedly been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference, which included funding a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election.
Speaking on Wednesday, Joly assured Canadians that the government “will do more to tackle foreign interference.”