Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig is urging caution as Canada considers deeper cooperation with China on green technology to support net-zero goals, warning that Beijing could use increased reliance as leverage to further its interests, as it has done with the canola industry.
Kovrig’s comments come after Prime Minister Mark Carney said this week while addressing the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank in New York that Canada plans to work more with China in specific areas like climate, while keeping “guardrails” in other areas and leaving those that may involve national security “off to the side.”
Kovrig said taking a sectorial approach with China, which he called an “extremely challenging country to deal with,” is difficult, as the regime itself doesn’t take such an approach but rather “link[s] issues when it’s in China’s interest to do so” by using “leverage in one area to extract concessions in another.”…