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Comment by jszymborski | Hacker News Reader

China hasn't threatened to make Canada a Chinese province so given no friendly alternative, I'd 100% buy the Chinese model.

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and a whole lot of stuff coming from the US to Canada, is just transhipped made in China products, so Canadians could do well from establishing new supply chains......aaaaand reversing that trend:)

China is the Nazi Germany of our time. USA has a long long way to go before that no matter how much you hate the orange man.

Given Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang, that is possibly the worst example you could have chosen.

First, it's not an example I'm replying directly to the question.

Second, as a Canadian, I'm primarily concerned with the sovereignty of my country. Given both powers are expansionist, I'll take the one that isn't personally threatening me.

As mentioned in my previous comment, given a choice to deal with a non-expansionist, free democracy, I'd much quicker patronize them.

China is operating police stations in your country [1,2], subverting your elections [3,4], and got you to pass a trade agreement tilted wildly in their favor [5,6]. If you're worried about real sovereignty, your top current threat is China, that will happily pull the strings while letting you have sovereignty in name only.

[1] Why are Chinese police operating in Canada, while our own government and security services apparently look the other way? - https://web.archive.org/web/20220926120429/https://www.thegl...

[2] Canada police probe alleged Chinese 'police stations' in Montreal - https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-police-probe-a...

[3] CSIS documents reveal Chinese strategy to influence Canada’s 2021 election - https://web.archive.org/web/20230217155126/https://www.thegl...

[4] CSIS documents reveal a web of Chinese influence in Canada - https://web.archive.org/web/20230227134241/https://www.thegl...

[5] Canadian governments are locked in for a generation. If Canada finds the deal unsatisfactory, it cannot be cancelled completely for 31 years. China benefits much more than Canada, because of a clause allowing existing restrictions in each country to stay in place. Chinese companies get to play on a relatively level field in Canada, while maintaining wildly arbitrary practices and rules for Canadian companies in China. - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fipa-agreement-with-china-wha...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-China_Promotion_and_Rec...

I'm under no illusion that the government of the People's Republic of China is a friend to Canada nor do I think any of my comments make it seem that way. I reiterate my commitment to patronize non-imperial free democracies.

I have a long history of fighting against equivocations of the US and China under previous administrations, but over the course of less than 100 days the US has declared literal economic war against all its allies and has made it clear that it is hostile to free democracies the world over.

> If you're worried about real sovereignty, your top current threat is China,

No, there's still only one foreign leader that's repeatedly threatened to annex my country. The one we share a border with, not an ocean.

And thanks so much for posting some articles I've already read. At this stage I'd rather have some BYD factories than Tesla.

a few years back, China did offer to buy EVERYTHING, that Alberta could produce....but not the actual place.....bet there are some realy hard talks happening right now The bottom line is that there is only so much stuff to go around on the planet, so all that CAN happen, is a big fucking game of musical chairs, but maybe thats, a good thing.

If you're more worried about bark than bite, then yours is a reasonable position to take.

I can't wrap my head around how your comment is relevant at all.

Any of those places a place in Canada?

Nor has the US. One particular person in the US has talked about that. I don't particularly see how it's justified to take it out on a country of 300 million people when the vast majority of them aren't responsible for what you object to.

The leader represents the country because the votes of the citizens put him in power. Nobody else in the US government with a similar amount of power has rejected or denied the 51st state rhetoric. This is what worries Canadians: nobody is stopping the American president. There are no checks and balances.

It's not just one guy it's THE one guy that really matters. And a majority of voters picked that guy.

I guess I’ll be the “technically” guy and point out that’s not true. Trump has more votes than any other candidate, but the majority of voters were for Harris or 3rd party.

Huh, you're right[1]. Trump only got 49.80% of the popular vote.

Of course, Kennedy (who is in Trump's cabinet, and seems broadly aligned with the MAGA agenda) got another 0.49%... and Oliver (the MAGA-adjacent Libertarian candidate) got another 0.42%. Hardly the ringing endorsement of "American's didn't really pick the guy" that Canadians want to hear.

[1] https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...

If you discount the blatant voter suppression and other forms of voter disenfranchisement. Greg Palast has an interesting article [1] on the level of disenfranchisement happening. According to the numbers calculated by him and other organizations the are _millions_ of US citizens that get their voter thrown out.

[1] https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/

It's only the president of the United States vaguely threatening war against another country. It's not like his opinion matters or anything.

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