{"id":36447,"date":"2018-02-14T10:06:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T15:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/?p=36447"},"modified":"2018-02-21T15:46:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T20:46:29","slug":"canada-china-jack-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/experts-corner\/diplomacy-trade\/canada-china-jack-austin\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Austin: Canada-China Trade Pioneer Urges Focus on Far East"},"content":{"rendered":"[et_pb_section bb_built=\u00a0\u00bb1″ fullwidth=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb specialty=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.0.95″ background_image=\u00a0\u00bbhttps:\/\/ccbc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/hero-single-event-1.jpg\u00a0\u00bb custom_padding=\u00a0\u00bb||75px|\u00a0\u00bb][et_pb_fullwidth_post_title _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.0.95″ title=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb meta=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb author=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb date=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb categories=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb comments=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb featured_image=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb featured_placement=\u00a0\u00bbbelow\u00a0\u00bb text_color=\u00a0\u00bblight\u00a0\u00bb text_background=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb text_orientation=\u00a0\u00bbcenter\u00a0\u00bb custom_padding=\u00a0\u00bb50px|||\u00a0\u00bb \/][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=\u00a0\u00bb1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=\u00a0\u00bb4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=\u00a0\u00bbBIV: Jack Austin\u00a0\u00bb _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.0.95″ background_layout=\u00a0\u00bblight\u00a0\u00bb]\n

This article appeared in\u00a0Business in Vancouver<\/em><\/a> on February 13, 2018. The Honourable Jack Austin<\/strong>, P.C., C.M.,\u00a0O.B.C., Q.C., <\/strong>is the Honourary Advisory Chair of CCBC’s\u00a0British Columbia Advisory Council<\/a>. To read the full article at BIV.com, please click on the link below.<\/p>\n

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by Chuck Chiang<\/p>\n

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Austin\u2019s work on the China file dates back to as early as 1971, when he was a deputy minister of energy, mines and resources and took part in Canada\u2019s first trade mission to China. Since then, he has spearheaded efforts like former prime minister Jean Chr\u00e9tien\u2019s \u201cTeam Canada\u201d economic outreach to Beijing in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n

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Looking back, Austin is incredulous about the pace of development in China over his tenure in Ottawa, which ended in 2007 when he retired from the Senate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn 1971, to get to Beijing, we flew to Hong Kong and took the train to the Chinese border, and Shenzhen was a little fishing village,\u201d Austin recounted from his Vancouver office. \u201cWhen we presented our passports, there were no facilities there. We were just out in the open. Walking the streets of Guangzhou, it was China from the 1800s, with two-storey buildings and people sitting on the streets doing business and living their lives. Today, any Chinese city has among the best infrastructure in the world and the finest architecture. And no one \u2013 including the Chinese \u2013 could have seen China\u2019s success in building a modern economy for a billion people in the shortest time in history.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It is exactly because of that rapid development that the Canada-China bilateral free-trade agreement \u2013 despite going through ups and downs in the past few months with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s December visit to Beijing failing to secure a formal start to talks \u2013 should continue to be among Ottawa\u2019s prime agendas, Austin said.\u00a0He urged Canadians to embrace what he envisions as a crucial link in the chain of Canada\u2019s economic well-being.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe important thing \u2013 and Canadians don\u2019t always keep this in mind \u2013 is that Canada is a trading nation,\u201d he said. \u201cWe earn half our GDP from international trade; admittedly, three-quarters of that is with the United States, but we need trade because we don\u2019t have a big domestic market\u2026.\u00a0 For a while, we thought that we can make the United States part of our domestic market through [the North American Free Trade Agreement], but that is not proving to be the case in the way we\u2019d like it to be.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo the reality for Canada is we must trade, and we must trade with those who build our economy, and that\u2019s why China is a very significant No. 2 priority in our trade strategy. We need to learn how to sell into that market, and that\u2019s why you want a bilateral agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

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>> Continue reading this article on Business in Vancouver’s website, BIV.com.<\/a><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=\u00a0\u00bb1″ fullwidth=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb specialty=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=\u00a0\u00bb4_4″][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.0.89″ prev_text=\u00a0\u00bbPrevious Post\u00a0\u00bb next_text=\u00a0\u00bbNext Post\u00a0\u00bb in_same_term=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb show_prev=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb show_next=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin\u2019s work on the China file dates back to as early as 1971, when he was a deputy minister of energy, mines and resources and took part in Canada\u2019s first trade mission to China. Since then, he has spearheaded efforts like former prime minister Jean Chr\u00e9tien\u2019s \u201cTeam Canada\u201d economic outreach to Beijing in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1687,"featured_media":36592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[157,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ccbc-in-the-news","category-diplomacy-trade"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36447"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36593,"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36447\/revisions\/36593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccbc.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}