Lynette Ong: I would agree with that. If by blockchain politics you mean United States and its Western allies, I think United States have actually broken trust among a lot of allies, including Canada and European countries. So people. So countries are out there trying to pursue their own interests, often on an issue by issue basis. And in our case, China has been the second largest trading partner. I think it makes sense for for Canada to look to look to China, kind of to diversify away of our trade from the United States towards China. But I think we shouldn't stop at China. China would be the beginning of our of our diversification strategy. We should also look to Indo-Pacific and Europe.

Interviewer: All right. We'll talk about some of those potential countries making deals. But some see Canada's trade deal with Beijing as risk management under pressure and not a pivot away from the US. What are your thoughts on that?

Lynette Ong: Like the Prime Minister has put it, I think it's a way of buying insurance. Yes, it's a risk management. It's not putting all our eggs in one basket. So diversifying our eggs in many different baskets. But that also means that we are pivoting away from the United States. We are diversifying our reliance away from the United States towards a bunch of other countries. And one of them, and the largest among them would be China. So it's a bit of both.

Interviewer: Among Canadians, engagement with China remains politically sensitive, following years of hostility between the two governments, especially under Trudeau. How should Carney navigate that?

Lynette Ong: I think he has to walk a very fine, fine line. I think so far he has done pretty well, I would think. On the domestic front, we have seen a shift towards Canadians attitudes towards the United States. Under Trump, Unfavorability rating of the United States has actually gone up vis a vis Beijing. Beijing China used to be very unpopular in Canada for very obvious reasons. We have got two Canadians being detained for 1000 days, right. And I think on the domestic front, the domestic landscape has changed a little bit, has changed quite a bit under under Trump, Washington, D.C. is now more unpopular than Beijing, and that's reflected in the kind of latest public opinion poll, not only in Canada but across a lot of Western nations conducted by Pew Research. So on that front, he has got a little bit more mandate, but I think the government needs to go out there and not only sell to people that we need to pay more attention to China, but also be also be firm on China, not forgetting, you know, our commitment towards democracy in Taiwan and be able to come to trade between China and our commitments towards, you know, all the values that are still important to us, including democracy in Taiwan, human rights issues and so forth.

Interviewer: What does firm look like?

Lynette Ong: You know, for instance, I think our business with Taiwan should go according as usual, you know, should should be as usual. We shouldn't prematurely pull MPs out of Taiwan trip. Okay. Right. We should not cancel any Taiwan trade deal that we have planned. We have planned for. I think that would be prematurely kowtowing. I think that would be prematurely being you know, I think with that, we are we are signalling to Beijing that we need them more than they need us. I think that's not necessarily true. You know, I think China is at a phase where economically it's weak. Real estate use accounts for 30% of GDP growth. Its economy, its economic growth has has not recovered to the pre-pandemic level. It probably never will. And it now needs to to depend on export led growth to drive its economy. And Canada is one of those places that it looks to. But more importantly, I think because Canada shares a border with the United States, used to be closest ally of the United States, and where the instruction to arrest Meng Wanzhou came from. Not to forget that. So in the in the age of kind of great power competition between the United States and China, we would think that China naturally wants a better relationship with Canada. So in that sense, you know, I think we should go in there, you know, with all the confidence and we, we we do have cards in our hands,

Interviewer: I want to get a better understanding of the meetings that happened with Mark Carney just last month, but also the UK's prime minister, Keir Starmer. He had went but very different in terms of what had come out of it. Can you can you give us a little insight into how those two meetings would have gone?

Lynette Ong: Yeah. You know, Keir Starmer, the British prime minister of the Beijing trip, he was hammered at home. Right. But you know Mark Carney after that he went to Davos and then came back celebrated as a hero. They're two very different reception I think, you know, people would say that Britain gave away a little bit too much before the trip. He approved the mega embassy in in London with a lot of, you know, concern about potentially espionage and spies and, you know, underground tunnels and so on. So he gave away a little bit too much before he went to Beijing. So he was seen as kind of weak, giving concessions vis a vis China. Whereas us I think we have hold on to it a little bit more, more firmly. And we didn't actually give away a lot of concessions. The EV tariff reduction is actually restricted to a very small number of quarters.

Interviewer: You bring up EV. So I need to talk about some critical minerals. The Trump administration recently announced a new US trade bloc. And that would help because China owns a pretty substantial share of the market. But Canada has not signed yet. Should Canada?

Lynette Ong: I'm not sure whether US has the credibility to mobilise any country to form a trade bloc, with its recent behaviour tone towards taking over Greenland, alienating a bunch of European allies. You see what happened in Munich security conference. People are not reassured. Trust has definitely broken Rubio. Right after Munich went to Hungary and spoke to Viktor Orban. People don't know where the United States stands. So what if we enter into a trade bloc on critical minerals with the United States? They could turn around and do something against us. I think without that sort of predictability and credibility, it will be difficult to lead. And any sort of alliance.

Interviewer: With that. Canada is spearheading its own efforts to create a trading bloc between the European Union and a 12 nation Indo-Pacific bloc. This is we're talking, 1.5 billion people amongst all those nations. The US is not part of this. And I'm curious, can it succeed without the US with everything that you've mentioned?

Lynette Ong: Yeah. The proposal was between CBC and and and a bunch of European Union countries. Right.

Interviewer: And of course, Lynette, when you say CPTPP, we are talking about the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific partnership.

Lynette Ong: I think the very idea is kind of complementarity between these countries, which is more developing countries in the Indo-Pacific versus more, more industrialised nations in Europe. So if those two regions combined, I think would constitute a large proportion of the world's GDP, that would be a good counterbalance against the United States. I don't see that as kind of necessarily as whether we need the United States to succeed. But I think if there is enough complementarity and differences in comparative advantage among these countries, there's a lot of benefits to be gained. Yeah.

Interviewer: Does this present a chance? You mentioned the speech at Davos. Here's an opportunity for the middle powers. Is this a chance for them to be for Canada to be more assertive on that world stage?

Lynette Ong: I think so I think so I think Canada is in the right place to lead because we are we used to be the closest ally to the United States and now we are not. So we have there's a lot of serious damage being done to Canadian diplomacy. And I think our prime prime minister, in addition to being a political leader, he's also an intellectual, someone who could conceptualise ideas, who could articulate kind of big ideas and deliver it to common people. With a combination of the two, I think we are in a good position to lead and mobilise countries and to stand to stand firm and get middle powers, hang together to advance our interests.

Interviewer: Well, now we are going to leave it there, of course, something that we will continue to follow. Thank you so much for your insights.

Lynette Ong: Thank you for having me.