China and Canadian Official Development Assistance: Reassessing the Relationship
China and Canadian Official Development Assistance: Reassessing the Relationship By Bruce Muirhead Professor of History Associate Dean of Arts, Graduate Studies and Research, University of Waterloo Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo February 2009 2 Introduction Well-known Canadian comedian, Rick Mercer, now of the Rick Mercer Report, but best appreciated by Canadians during his time on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, perhaps put it best for most of his countrymen when, during one of his patented “rants,” he emphasized: There’s no doubt about it; Canadians support the idea of foreign aid. We are a First World nation – it’s part of our job. But at the risk of sounding like a moron, what the hell are we sending money to China for? China has one of the largest economies on earth and we’re sending them $60 million a year in foreign aid. This is a country that might as well own the trademark on the phrase “emerging superpower.” … Wouldn’t our $60 million in aid be better off going to Sudan – which, you know, doesn’t have a space program? Because as it stands now, I don’t know what the Chinese word for “sucker” is, but I bet when Canada comes up in conversation, that word gets used a lot.1 Mercer’s perspective is lent credence by statistics and interpretations offered in any of the hundreds, if not thousands, of books now being published on the China “phenomenon.” For example, the BBC’s Duncan Hewitt in Getting Rich First: Life in a Changing China, notes that sales of passenger cars in the country has quadrupled
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