From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Scott McGregor

A recent Globe and Mail column’s push for closer ties with China overlooks the risks. Canada’s future depends on trusted democratic allies, not autocrats

The recent Globe and Mail column, “Let’s free ourselves of the U.S. and forge closer ties with China”, by Julian Karaguesian and Robin Shaban, reveals a troubling lack of historical awareness and strategic judgment.

Marketed as a call for Canadian economic independence, it amounts to an argument for deeper dependence on an authoritarian regime that uses coercive diplomacy, illicit finance and political interference to erode democratic sovereignty.

Canadians should reject the notion that closer alignment with Beijing strengthens our independence. The opposite is demonstrably true.

The authors praise China’s economic dynamism and technological progress but ignore the context in which these gains were made. They are not the result of fair-market innovation, but of systematic intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and vast state subsidies that distort global competition.

These practices are well documented by sources such as the U.S. Department of Justice’s China Initiative, CSIS’s 2023 Public Report, and a 2023 U.K. Parliament report issued under the Five Eyes alliance—a security and intelligence-sharing partnership among Canada, the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

Proposing deeper technological engagement with a regime known for embedding backdoors in products like Huawei hardware, which Canadian security agencies have flagged as a national security risk, and for weaponizing supply chains is dangerously naïve. This isn’t innovation; it’s strategic infiltration that introduces unacceptable risks into Canada’s economic infrastructure.

Equating Canada’s alliance with the U.S. to strategic subservience misrepresents the nature of cooperation in a rules-based international order. While the U.S. is imperfect, it remains our most reliable economic and security partner—anchored in shared democratic norms, integrated defence under NORAD and institutions that ensure transparency and accountability. These foundations stand in sharp contrast to the opaque and coercive practices of the Chinese state.

Beijing has made clear it does not operate as a predictable or principled partner. Its use of retaliatory diplomacy—such as the politically motivated detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, bans on Canadian agricultural exports and the expansion of United Front influence operations (covert and overt efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to sway public opinion and policy abroad)—demonstrates a pattern of intimidation.

According to CSIS and allied intelligence agencies, the Chinese Communist Party is not merely pursuing commercial access but long-term political leverage.

The ongoing 2024 Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference has only underscored how these efforts aim to compromise Canada’s sovereignty from within. To dismiss such conduct as standard trade practice is either willfully blind or dangerously misinformed.

Claims that the U.S. is an unreliable ally ignore the structural depth of our relationship. Disagreements exist, but they don’t undermine the durability of a partnership rooted in integrated supply chains under USMCA, shared strategic interests and the open debate that defines liberal democracy.

Canada’s prosperity depends on this alliance—not on transactional deals with authoritarian states.

Replacing that alliance with exposure to a regime that jails dissidents, manipulates international institutions and conducts cyberespionage on Canadian citizens is not diversification. It’s submission.

Canada should not trade the open architecture of the Atlantic alliance for Beijing’s authoritarian opacity. Strategic autonomy cannot be built on intimidation and coercion. We must engage the world, but with eyes open and principles intact.

Scott McGregor is an intelligence consultant and co-author of The Mosaic Effect. He is a senior fellow at the Council on Countering Hybrid Warfare. He writes here for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.