China’s new measures in opening its financial market
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Hello and welcome to World Today, I'm Ding Hen in Beijing. Coming up: President Xi Jinping calls on China and Central Asian countries to promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

China has unveiled eight major financial opening-up measures at the ongoing 2025 Lujiazui Forum held in Shanghai. The European Union and Australia have agreed to negotiate security and defense partnership. And in Canada, a provincial leader is calling on his country to spell out a clear strategy for dealing with China.

To listen to this episode again or to catch up on previous episodes, you can download our podcast by searching World Today. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on China and Central Asia to promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The top Chinese leader made a remark in a keynote speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in Astana.

President Xi Jinping said China and accentuation countries have forged a spirit of mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, and mutual assistance. He also held separate meetings with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The leader signed the Astana Declaration and a treaty regarding friendship and cooperation. The meeting also announced the signing of 12 agreements covering Belt and Road cooperation, personnel exchange, trade, connectivity, and much more. And China is going to host the third China-Central Asia Summit in the year 2027.

So for more, joining us now on the line is Dr. Zhang Xin, Deputy Director of the Center for Russian Studies, East China Normal University. So thank you very much for joining us today, Professor Zhang Xin. First of all, why do you think China and Central Asia can, as President Xi Jinping said, can forge mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual benefit, and mutual assistance?

There's a historical precedent for a relatively peaceful intercultural interaction between today's China and this area today called Central Asia. This is in Chinese an area we used to call Xiyu.

Western region. There's historical ups and downs, but overall this is a symbol of ancient Silk Road, intercultural interaction. So that lays down some historical foundation for today's bilateral relation of mutual respect and mutual trust.

But I think more important is the practice over the past three strong decades, particularly since these five Central Asian countries gained independence since the early 1990s. Through these more than three decades of practice on both Central Asian side and China's side, I think it's a very clear realization only through

cooperation uh build on built on mutual respect mutual trust can we gain a both peaceful and prosperous uh central asia as well as uh china so i think the the practice in the past three three decades is a um

Just convince us that this is the only way to go. And also in multiple policy spheres, we already see some fruitful achievements in economic collaboration, especially trade. But I think more and more Central Asian countries and China move on and even expanded their

sphere of collaboration, multiple policy spheres. So I think the practice just convinced everyone this is the only way to go. So more specifically speaking, how do you think China-Central Asia cooperation has developed since the first summit in Xi'an, China, two years ago?

I think the first major significant outcome from the previous summit, the first summit of this kind,

left a very strong, I would say long-lasting influence, is that the setup of the first summit in Xi'an really showcased both the willingness and the commitment of China and the Five Central Asian countries to forge a relation that genuinely built on particular mutual respect and mutual trust.

The five Central Asian countries are different sizes, different economic scale and political influence. Some are more resourceful, some are much less. Some are much more popular, some are relatively speaking very small countries. But the setup, the first summit really showcased that, particularly from China's perspective, it treats these five Central Asian countries really on equal footing, and it showed

very high degree of respect for the national leaders from these countries, but also unique cultures from each country and then try to build a Genuine a mutual respectful relation between all five countries in China. I think this is actually a very important long lasting impact of the summit two years ago and then since then there

There are some quite noticeable progress. I would highlight maybe two or three policy spheres. One is further enhance the connectivity. The most important example in that sphere is the final completion of negotiation of a multilateral major railway project between China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The negotiation has been going on for quite a long time. We've met some barriers one way or another, but since the previous summit, we finally reached a significant progress in these physical connectivity. And I think the benefits from this multilateral railway would manifest itself very clearly in the years to come. And then another part is, I would say, in the

human and multicultural cultural sphere, transcultural interaction sphere. We've seen significant inflow of, for example, students from Central Asian countries. I'm actually teaching a quite a large group of Central Asian countries in my own home university. And then also

I think that just the past two years, the interest in Central Asia from China and the interest of China from Central Asian countries, I think, significantly increased. That's also a very important progress we have achieved during the past two years.

China has decided to establish three cooperation centers, one on poverty reduction, one on education exchange, and one on desertification prevention and control. In the meantime, plans are also underway on the Chinese part for a cooperation platform on smooth trade.

Do you think these planned facilities will make China-Central Asia cooperation more, for example, more results-oriented, more efficient, and more deeply integrated? Those are all very timely decisions to develop existing cooperation.

collaboration between China and five Central Asian country in these three important policies here on, as you mentioned, on the more efficient, more integrated, but also more coordinated in a manner. I think it's also important to point out these cooperation centers focus on three specific policy sphere.

Those are all things that China and its five Central Asian countries have been doing over the past two decades. But now I think it's received a much higher level of joint attention and will receive more policy resources on both sides through the establishment of these cooperation centers. And those cooperation centers, as I just mentioned,

will very likely increase the level of policy coordination on these six countries' national level, particularly for larger countries, China, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, to form these collaborations on a much more coordinated level.

So during the summit in Astana this time, we also saw these top leaders expressing a joint commitment to consolidating the multilateral trading system based on the rules of the World Trade Organization. So how do you think China and Central Asia can jointly safeguard this multilateral trading system?

This is a little bit tricky, I would say, because the current situation in terms of WTO as the most authoritative, most influential international regulatory body over world trade, that fact is actually significantly weakened over the past 10, 15 years. And its overall policy agenda

promoting free trade on a global level has come met so much resistance on different fronts.

both from developed countries and some developing countries. So in this – against this backdrop, on the one hand, I think the joint commitment, as you mentioned, between China and Central Asian countries, particularly to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, if I'm not mistaken, these two countries recently bid for WTO membership.

of course, shows the joint commitment of preserving WTO's overall role as the legitimate, authoritative, international governing body of free trade. And by way of that, this shows a commitment and an interest to jointly safeguard the overall multilateral trading system. So whether these commitments from China and Central Asian countries, maybe together with some other international actors, can help

somewhat revive WTO to help WTO go back its original route and to play its supposed doomed role. I think it's a desirable policy outcome, but this will be very, very difficult

The joint commitment, the interest there is probable, but I think to achieve that is extremely difficult and will need joint efforts from more than China and Central Asia. I take your point. So China and Central Asian countries have, basically speaking, institutionalized the dialogues between the two sides.

At the end of the day, from the Chinese side, what do you think China is ultimately pursuing by forging closer ties with Central Asia? Especially the point you make about institutionalized dialogue. The Astana Declaration we see this time, and especially the signing of the treaty between the 5th century Indian country and China are all permanent.

permanent uh friendly cooperation and uh good neighborly uh friendly neighborhood yeah i think this is particularly important given the increasingly volatile situation we see in the the heartland for eurasia continent starting from ukraine all the way through middle east and the middle east is a closely geographically closely tied with central asia

I think this declaration and the Treaty on a Permanent Good Neighborhood is, as you said, institutionalized that kind of relation.

between Central Asia and China. So this is a very important policy choice. And I think Chinese state put a lot of resources to achieve that. Partly, of course, it is for China's own benefit, a prosperous and safe, secure, peaceful Central Asia is in every way in China's own interest. This is...

goes without any say. And then, of course, in the long run, the

the institutionalized dialogue and interaction of good neighborhood and friendly cooperation also bring benefits to China and five Central Asian countries in whole. And this is also serves China's long strategic vision that the security only can be achieved, long-term sustainable security can only be achieved through

genuine development. So this development security nexus is a very important part of China's overall vision for global development, for global security. In this case, the institutionalized dialogue between Central Asia and China.

I think in the year to come, will become a very important part of implementing this development security nexus in the benefits for both China and Central Asian countries. Thank you very much for joining us. Dr. Zhang Xin, Deputy Director of the Center for Russian Studies, East China Normal University.

Coming up, China unveils eight major financial opening-up measures at the ongoing 2025 Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai. We'll be back.

You are listening to World Today. I'm Ding Hen in Beijing. The People's Bank of China has unveiled eight measures to further open China's financial market. The measures include establishing an intra-bank market transaction reporting system and a digital yuan international operations center. Licensed personal credit agencies will be introduced in order to provide diversified credit services to financial institutions.

In the meantime, Shanghai's Lingang New Area will launch a pilot program for offshore trade financial services. Other measures in the same package include optimizing free trade account functions, innovating currency policy tools, and promoting yuan foreign exchange futures transactions. The Central Bank of China announced these measures at the 2025 Lujiazui Forum held in Shanghai.

So for more, joining us now on the line is Professor Liu Baocheng, who is the University of International Business and Economics. Thank you very much for joining us. Hi, Dan. It's always a pleasure. So first of all, Professor Liu, why is there a need for China to create a database for interbank market transaction reporting? Well, the creation of such a centralized database for interbank market transaction reporting

It's there to reflect a broader effort to enhance financial transparency, improve the capability for risk management,

and also to strengthen the regulatory oversight by different organizations. So when China's financial market becomes more and more complexed and also interconnected with the rest of the world, particularly in the opening process where more of the foreign financial institutions, they participate in great strides.

to work with China in real time. So therefore, a very comprehensive and transparent interbank transaction data becomes critical for them to detect some of the systematic risks

and to monitor liquidity flow. And also it's there to conduct more of the targeted monetary operation, which is there to build better alignment with the Chinese policy drive.

So I could also see that this practice is also aligned with international best practices in building better transparency and it is also instrumental for PBOC which stands for People's Bank of China as the central bank to build a modern data-driven regulatory framework to be able to facilitate some of the

the early warnings and that's there to serve the more prudent management, both which are essential in safeguarding the financial stability

and also is there to promote operational efficiency. I see. Now, some people say this plan to build an international operations center for digital yuan is aimed at expanding the international use of the digital yuan at a time when global trade tensions triggered by Washington's trade policies

are prompting global investors to seek every possible alternative to those dollar-based investments. What is your take on this? I very much agree because the internationalization of RMB or Chinese yuan is the long set, the strategic ambition for China. So therefore, this is not

a mere technological initiative, but also is there to serve as a strategic response to the increasingly fragmented global financial landscape. And China sees, among many other countries, that the U.S. is there to continually weaponize the dollar and also the SWIFT system through the

control and excessive intervention in the transaction and tariff. So therefore, the countries and companies are actively exploring alternatives to reduce their pressure to the dollar-centric system. So by establishing an international operations center,

China aims to offer the digital yuan as a credible, transparent and efficient cross-border settlement tool, especially to render a better service for the Belt and Road partner countries and also many other global south markets that trade increasingly heavily with China. So this move can really generally chip away

at the dominance of the US dollar in specific sectors such as trade finance, energy settlement or digital payments. And particularly when and where China is playing a dominant role in the trade transactions.

And also that this also very much in alignment was the Chinese spread of many of the subsidiaries and branches around the globe for the financial settlement center and also the bank services.

Then with regard to promoting yuan foreign exchange futures transaction, Professor Liu, do you think this is going to serve China's bigger policy goal of keeping the Chinese currency, the yuan exchange rate relatively stable or basically stable and fending off external shocks or risks?

The answer is yes. By promoting the UN foreign exchange futures, we identify a key instrument to achieve greater exchange rate stability and resilience,

Foreign exchange futures, they provide market participants with the tools to hedge against the currency volatility, which is going on today and getting even more and more tough. So enhancing that's also there to enhance the price discovery and reduce the speculative shocks in the in

in a spot market. So by deepening the direct market, China can also improve liquidity and offer foreign investors more of the stable channels to manage the RMB exposure, which in turn is there to support the greater usage of Chinese Yuan in the cross-border investment, trade and other financial operations.

So it is very much in line with Chinese policy approach, which is managed flexibility to the exchange rate policy, where market forces play a bigger role, but also that the oversight and the regular framework must be there to provide the cushion and guard against the disorderly fluctuation of the entire financial market. Hmm.

The final question before we let you go, when we talk about China's step in further opening the country's financial markets, what do you think China is ultimately looking for nowadays? Are we talking about drawing foreign investment or attracting foreign talent or something else?

I can summarize the three major objectives China is pursuing. It is there to provide a modern, resilient, transparent financial market system. So the priority is to stabilize the Chinese financial market per se, based on which China will be able to create more of the policy tools to attract investors

foreign capital to participate into the Chinese, the high quality growth strategy. And also is there to serve more of the talent to continually to boost a healthy Chinese financial market in connection with the rest of the world. So the emphasize is there to build a rule-based

Thank you very much for joining us today. Professor Liu Baocheng from the University of International Business and Economics.

Coming up, EU and Australia have agreed to negotiate security and defense partnership. You are listening to World Today. I'm Ding Han in Beijing. We'll be back after a short break.

You are back with World Today, I'm Ding Hen in Beijing. China's electric vehicle makers have surged ahead of the competition in global EV sales. The Global Automaker Rating from the International Council on Green Transportation says Chinese carmakers are dominating the zero-emission vehicle space. China now accounts for more than 11 million EVs sold annually over half of global EV sales.

Companies including Geely and SAIC have already hit 50% EV sales targets, meeting their obligations a full year early. The report by the Council is also confirming a big milestone. In 2024, Chinese EV maker BYD surpassed Tesla in global battery EV sales for the first time.

For more, my colleague Zhao Yang spoke with Dr. Yan Liang, professor of economics with Willamette University. So Yan, first, what do you think are the highlights of this latest global automaker rating? Well, to me, there are two major highlights. One is that you see the Chinese EV manufacturers are really the leaders in this industry. The Chinese manufacturer occupied the top five positions in the so-called EVs.

ZEV, the zero emission vehicle, the class coverage, which means they provide a lot of varieties of zero emission cars, such as the battery electric vehicles and the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

And then they also occupy five out of six, the top positions for EV sales shares. So with the exception of BYD, that it's a non-Chinese manufacturer that make it to the top six, the rest of the five are all Chinese manufacturers. So that really shows the Chinese manufacturers are the leaders in this industry.

And second, I think what is encouraging from this report is that it shows that the vast majority of automakers demonstrated enhancements in their technological performance, including energy consumption, charging speed, and driving range.

So now I think what they need to work on are green steel and battery cycle reuse, these kinds of technologies. But overall, I think it is an encouraging picture that I think with the leadership of China, and of course with Tesla as well, we're seeing improvements in this zero emission vehicles. And how significant is China's milestone accounting for over half of the global EV sales?

Right. So China's EV sales is 11 million and as you said it counts for half of the global EV sales. And I think this is very significant because we know that China is a growing vehicle market. So the fact that China can very quickly increase the EV shares from just maybe 2% back in 2020 to now over half in its own domestic market, actually more than half

in its domestic market. I think this in and of itself is very significant. It helped to accelerate China's green transition when it comes to transportation industry. And so that really helped to reduce China's own carbon emission. But more importantly, I think with China's technological improvement and

as a fact that china has this vast manufacturing capacity it really helped to contribute to the global green transition and the green transportation industry so i think this is really significant as a way to really accelerate this process of transitioning to the zero emission cars and i think china really make a very significant and unique contribution in this process

And for China's competitive edge, what has enabled Chinese automakers like BYD, like Geely to achieve such rapid progress in the EV development and sales? Well, I think

there's really a host of factors that allow the Chinese EV makers to be so successful. For one, I think we cannot forget that the government has played a very important role. I think back in 2009, the Chinese government already began actively promoting EVs, and that is very early in this EV sort of development history. So

For China's own interest, when it comes to climate change, when it comes to energy security, it makes a lot of sense for China to, the government to support the EV industry. It also provides public funding for green energy R&D. It helped build public infrastructure like the highways, but more importantly, like the 3.2 million public charging stations. So all of these really helped promote the EV adoption

in China. And second, I think very importantly is about entrepreneurship and the innovations. As you mentioned, many of these car makers, for example, BYD, they have already started to develop the battery technology as early as 1996. So this is decades long of innovations and also efforts to promote the battery technology, the EV technologies.

We also know that now BYD has really making a lot of progress in terms of their fast charging technologies, like they can just charge five minutes and the car could last for 470 kilometers and the hybrid could achieve the longest range of over 2000 kilometers. So I think all these innovations, also the

you know, the design and the very user friendly user experiences from the very good design cars. And all of these help to promote EV adoptions in the Chinese market. And last but not least, I think the Chinese consumers, they're technological savvy and they're also very readily embrace this new car, this new technologies.

So I think all of these are really helpful when it comes to how China is able to really dominate in this EV space. And what does China's EV development mean for the global supply chain, especially surrounding the batteries and semiconductors?

Right, so I think this is very important as many economists or politicians when they talk about China's dominance in the EV industry, they always see this as a zero-sum game. But I think the matter of fact is that as China develops all these technologies and to be able to mass produce cars at a very affordable prices, it really helped to create a lot more demand

for EVs. And so that means China is able to make the cake a lot bigger. And so other companies are able to enter the space and compete and to provide the best quality and the lowest price for the consumers. And so that really helped to accelerate the adoption of the EVs. So like I mentioned, because the Chinese battery technologies is so advanced,

Now, I think China has a lot to contribute through overseas investments, joint ventures in developing countries like Thailand, like Mexico, like in Brazil, and so on, Hungary.

through all these joint ventures, China is able to not only provide the best cars to the local consumers, but they're able to transfer technologies and share some of these technologies with some of these recipient countries' local firms. So I think in a way, technology is what economists would call it's an endogenous.

the more that China is able to develop its own technology and share with the rest of the world for the rest of the world to learn, the more technologies are going to advance. So I think this is good for not only China, but also for the rest of the world.

both in terms of developing the best cars, the best products for the consumers, but also when it comes to climate protection. And as China's EV brands expand globally, how are they being received in overseas markets, especially in Europe and in Southeast Asia?

well i think the chinese evs are really popular again because they are known for very high quality very good in terms of their technological performances when it comes to for example battery charging speed also their road range and also many of the design of the cars are very driver friendly very high safety standards and so on so forth and also they have many different varieties of

cars, you know, from very high price range to very affordable price range. So I think, you know, these varieties of choices, good performances really, you know, made them very popular, especially for the younger generation, for the young consumers. But again, the difficulties right now is there are a lot of protectionist, you know, policies, especially in these high income countries like European countries, as well as in the United States.

So I think the consumers lose out in this situation. And like I mentioned earlier, this is not good for their own domestic car makers either. So hopefully, you know, the Chinese and the EU counterparts are actively negotiating, I

I think hopefully they will come to a favorable kind of outcome very soon when it comes to the EV market assets and also when it comes to these investment standards and so on and so forth. And I think that would really not only benefit the consumers, but also very good for the climate.

Yan Liang, professor of economics with Willamette University, talking with my colleague Zhao Yang. Coming up, EU and Australia have agreed to negotiate a new security and defense partnership. This is World Today. We'll be back. You're back with World Today. I'm Ding Han in Beijing.

The European Union and Australia have agreed to begin negotiations on a new security and defense partnership. The proposed pact is aimed at boosting cooperation in defense industry, cybersecurity and counterterrorism, but without any military deployment commitment.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are calling this particular move a step towards stronger ties in an era of global tensions.

The two sides have also reaffirmed a joint commitment towards reviving their free trade negotiations that somehow stalled back in the year 2023. For more, my colleague Song Rui-Hsing spoke with Professor Joseph Siracusa, Professor of Global Futures with Curtin University in Australia.

So first of all, Professor Siracusa, for our audiences who may not know, what does the Asia-Pacific region mean to the European Union in terms of economic interests and geopolitical competition? A couple of years ago, maybe 10 years ago, European defence analysts and American analysts and some Australians started talking about the Pacific region as the Indo-Pacific. That is, they tried to think in terms of the Indian Ocean,

and the Pacific Ocean. Of course, Australia is situated in the Southwest Pacific, and they started to think about it as one strategic region. And of course, it isn't, but that's how they think about it. And Europe has been looking for an opportunity to spread its wings, that is to get involved in Indo-European negotiations of security. In fact, this is the French idea of sort of...

extending NATO now all the members of the European Union are members of NATO uh NATO of course is um run by the United States they're afraid to do anything there so they're trying to stretch themselves this way and so uh the European Union which consists of these 27 Nations uh they have some kind of a security arrangement or some kind of a deal with the South Koreans last year

and with the Japanese this is about these are security cooperation and partnerships that do not have military obligations that is there's no clause that says that one has to go to the rescue of the other of course what we're looking at in Europe the European Union is looking for a way to uh to grow to extend its influence and they're sort of

trying to figure out how the world works without the United States. Now, the Australian interest in the European Union offer negotiations for security and defense is about trade. It's about making things together. It's about sharing intelligence. All these things, you know, they could do without this arrangement. So it's not a hard and fast security agreement. But what it suggests to me is,

at least from Australia's position, that it's reprioritizing their own defense. I think Australian defense planners are counting a little less and less on Donald Trump's reliability, and so they're turning to Europe. Now, in this country,

which started out as a British colony, there are millions of people whose roots are in Europe. So making connections with Europe is easy for Australians. They feel very comfortable there. Though Australia has tenuous ties, security ties with Japan and South Korea and the like, Europe is very comfortable. Now, when we talk about Europe, we're not talking about the United Kingdom.

I mean, Britain, of course, was the great and powerful friend of Australia up until the Anzus Alliance in 1951. But Britain's not part of the EU, and therefore it's not part of this arrangement. Yeah, like you have mentioned that Australia is currently kind of trying to reprioritize its defense. And do you think the AUKUS has, I mean, has become an, let's say, obstacle in this broad context?

Well, I think AUKUS, as it was envisaged, that is the transfer or sale of three to five Virginia-class submarines to Australia and then design some nuclear subs, powered subs with the British. I don't think it's going to come to pass that way. That deal was struck a couple of years ago by Boris Johnson and a former prime minister here in Australia.

Scott Morrison and Joe Biden. Well, you notice all three of them are gone. And so there is a little less interest, but you know, the undersecretary of defense in the United States, his name is Bridge Colby. He's very pro-Australian, but he's trying to tell them with this review

that we can't give you Virginia-class submarines, new or used, because the American boatyards are not replenishing the fleet to a year. They have procurement for two Virginia-class submarines a year. The boatyard is only producing 1.8. Some people say even 1.2. In other words, America's Virginia-class is not getting the replacements it wants. So how can they give anything to Australia? So the review is about...

I'm sorry we can't help you. Now, the AUKUS arrangement in this country was touted as a very important deal, $368 billion, over 30 years, all kinds of new industries and the like. But I think it's going to fall flat on its face.

I've read a piece of statement which is about Europe and Australia commit to security and defense partnership. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, quote unquote, Europe and Australia's enduring friendship enters a new chapter today. How do you interpret this meaning of the new chapter?

Well, she's trying to make the best of a bad deal. I mean, she is invited to the G7 as a guest of the G7, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney. And, you know, she's saying that Europe has a future in Australia. Well, Europe is already here. Europe is highly invested in Australia. As I say, Australians have European connections. You know, what she's trying to do is she's trying to revive European defense strategy. You know, there are 490 million people in Europe.

That's not even Britain, as a matter of fact, who are worried about how to defend themselves against Russia or anything in the future. And they're sort of looking outside of Europe for partners. I mean, to call this partnership a security and defense partnership

There's really a little bit of violence on the language, actually. It's neither of those things. You know, it's about cooperation, sharing, maybe defense industries coming together. But Australia has a very small industrial base. It's always going to have to get its weaponry from somewhere else. And what kind?

You know, there are 27 million Australians, only 73,000 in the Australian Defense Force. Half of them are sitting at desks. It's not like Australia is a major power. Australia has always worked with a great and powerful friend, the British before the United States. And as the United States became

It's slightly unreliable. Some Australians, particularly the critics, are looking over the horizon and see, well, who else can we team up with? Can we trust the Quad? Not really. Can you trust the South Koreans? Well, they're going to have their own trouble if there's a war somewhere else. And so they're looking to Europe for, I think, security. This is kind of a security blanket. It's more psychological than real. Right.

Since June 2018, Australia and the EU have been negotiating a free trade agreement, but agricultural lobbies have complicated efforts to reach a deal or, let's say, secure a final deal. So what is the current status of the free trade negotiations? And why is there renewed momentum now after so many years? Well, the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albin,

He is hoping that this talk of a partnership will bring results, positive results in a hurry. And one of those is the free trade agreement, which they've been working on for years. He's hoping that the free trade agreement might be hurried along a little bit, might be the first dividend of this new way of looking at each other.

And you're right, there are all kinds of entrenched interests involved that don't want to do certain things, particularly agricultural people. So, you know, it's got really nothing to do with the defense security proposal right now, but he's hoping that it will be a dividend as these talks progress.

So last September, Professor, Australia suddenly announced the cancellation of a multi-billion dollar submarine contract with France, opting instead to purchase nuclear-powered submarines from the US and the UK. And now they are going to negotiate security and defense partnership. So what does this mean and how do you view the timing? Well, when the August agreement was reached,

or just before it was reached, the French were told that the nuclear submarines, power submarines that the Australians were going to buy from the French, that the deal had fallen through, okay?

And that announcement you're reading is the final legal settlement. You know, Australia paid, I guess, millions of dollars to get off the hook legally because, you know, sort of a nuisance fee. And I don't know. I don't think the French boat builders are going to be too excited about getting into bed with the Australians again because the Australian defense industry here, the Australian Defense Department, badly burned the...

the French building people, security people there. So, you know, they probably have very hard feelings. I mean, you can't trust somebody who's reneged on their debt. And so they're still very sore about that. Professor Joseph Syracuse joining us from Curtin University in Australia, speaking with my colleague Sun Rui Xin. You are listening to World Today. Stay tuned.

You're back with World Today, I'm Ding Han in Beijing. In Canada, Manitoba Premier Webb Kinney is urging the Canadian federal government to spell out a clear strategy for repairing ties with China. The provincial leader says it's important for Canada to have a strategy given the rise of China. Kinney has emphasized the need for "guardrails" in dealing with countries including China.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang recently held a phone conversation with his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney. The two leaders agreed to regularize channels of communication between Beijing and Ottawa. So for more, joining us now on the line is Ina Tengen, senior fellow with Taihe Institute and the chairman of the Asian Narratives Substack. Thank you very much for joining us, Ina.

Good to be here, Tim. So why do you think Manitoba's provincial leader is so eager to see the tensions between Beijing and Ottawa resolved? What's at stake for his province here? $1.6 billion in trade. They're in a very, very difficult situation. They're trying to figure out exactly how they're going to get it. But you notice there was an article published

And he made statements in it. And he still goes back to this idea that somehow China is a bad nation. And this is one of the main issues that's at stake here. If you go back through history, I mean, there were legendary heroes that were associated with Canada.

Canada was seen by the Chinese people as real humanitarians. Dr. Henry Norman, who was, you know, he's still celebrated today because of his work, just being a doctor. And then you had, you know, just...

prior to Trudeau's term, Canada was one of the few countries that did not turn its back on China during a very, very tough time. There was a real shortage of food and they sent food. And this became the basis of the relationship. Things started to sour when the U.S. decided that it needed to contain China.

You know, just around the end of the Obama era, you know, this pivot to Asia and things like that. And you start seeing the rhetoric pile up. And then it really went off the rails when they grabbed Meng Wanzhou at the, you know, under pressure from Donald Trump, basically kidnapped her.

And, you know, they say, oh, but you took two two guys named Michael. Well, it turns out that one was a spy and the other one was his handler. And how do we know that? Well, he sued the government and was very successful, apparently, in getting the money based on he said I was an unknowing asset that was being handled by your security team.

So, you know, Canada has to get over this idea that somehow China is a bad actor. What China has done with the Belt and Road Initiative has helped countries throughout the world. And Canada should be paying attention to what is being done instead of what Washington is saying. Yeah, indeed. So, yeah. And to put what you said into another perspective, I guess, back in 2022, Ottawa,

had a reversal of its previous policy of avoiding confrontation with China by rolling out an Indo-Pacific strategy. Of course, that's a copy of the name from Washington that called out China as an quote-unquote increasingly disruptive global power. Of course, that was not a constructive step in retrospect. Now,

Of course, I mean, between the two sides, there are drastic differences in terms of their understanding of, say, democracy or human rights. Now, the provincial leader of Manitoba has talked about ensuring that Canada's engagement with China is happening in a way that will serve Canada's domestic interests. Is that possible, realistically speaking?

Well, yes and no. If you say if I go up to you and say, I think you're an evil criminal, but yet let's do some trade. I mean, it's not going to go far. I mean, the fact is, I reject this idea that Canadians and Chinese have different ideas of human rights. That's nonsense. That's a false narrative that's being pushed by a nation where it wants to contain China. Yes.

The fact is that Canadians value a ballot box and they value their free speech and things like this, and so does China, but in a different way. China has whole process democracy and they speak through actions. You cannot deny what China has done for its people, how it's lifted it up, extreme poverty. These are things that aren't, these are similar to what Canadians believe. They're socialists. They

They have uniform healthcare. This is something where they actually agree, but the rhetoric from Washington continues to be so negative. So in terms of what he's saying, yeah, he's saying, well, what's good for me? But if you're going to have a relationship with somebody, it has to be built on trust.

And I would urge people in Canada to go back to the early days and remember what trust really was. What they built in China instead of trying to

you know listen to the uh the rhetoric of a nation as I keep saying Washington says repeatedly we need to contain China we're preparing for war we'll do anything to take them down including lying about you know the effect of vaccines to Filipinos who are our allies resulting in thousands of deaths and when confronted and said hey why did you do that he said well we didn't really think about the Philippines but

we would do it again to get at China. So why would you believe anything coming out of Washington that's negative about China? So hopefully now there can be a reset in this relationship between China and Canada. Now, the final question before we let you go, and we still have about one minute, Ina, a clear message we have heard from Canada's new prime minister is that his country must reduce its trade and economic dependence on the United States.

Can China help Canada achieve this particular goal? That's Canada's decision. I mean, if they want to go towards China, that's fine. China's not saying you either go with us or go with the U.S. They're saying, look, be part of the multilateral, multiholar world. So, yes, if...

Canada can put away all the rhetoric. Yes, they can, in fact, join the rest of the world instead of relying on an unreliable, untruthful partner. It's no longer a partner. And, you know, they have to take the blinkers off. They have to see the way the world is based on actions.

And that's exactly what China can show them. So, I mean, it's China who's put together the RCEP, well not put it together, but joined the RCEP. They're the ones who are trying to join the TPP or TCTPP. They're the ones who put the Belt and Road together. I mean, they put a trillion dollars over 10 years into it. These are the types of actions that Canadians have to look at now that Washington has shown its true face.

Thank you very much for joining us. I'm a Tengen Senior Fellow with the Taihe Institute and a chairperson of the Asian Narrative Substack. Unfortunately, that's all the time for this edition of World Today. I'm Dinghe Lin Beijing. To listen to this episode again or to catch up on our previous episodes, you can download our podcast by searching World Today. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.