17 Chinese miners dug up Canadian xenophobia

There is no secret that Chinese want to live and work in Canada. In fact, nearly 30,000 Chinese migrated to Canada in 2011. However, while it is a tabooed racist topic to rule out visible minorities from immigration list, unions and some Canadians are more willing to jump into the topics “to protect Canada”, ruling out Chinese from doing business in Canada. In 2011, there are 39,825 foreign workers in primary industry, but unions decided that 300 Chinese miners are simply too many. In addition, several deals of Chinese acquisition of Canadian companies are either blocked or significantly delayed by the Canadian government due to political pressure. Opposition to those deals argues that Chinese purchase of Canadian companies will threaten Canadian security and intellectual properties. While few will openly criticize Chinese Canadians, many are jumped into the fray of China bashing: citing pollution, abuses of human rights, greedy, sly, senseless consumption, etc.

 

While China certainly has a lot of problems, we are talking about real money and real business here. Canadians should be rational and objective to maximize profits and mutual benefits for the good of Canadian public interest and economy. Yet, some Canadians view things very differently when the word “foreign” are replaced by “Chinese”. Somehow, it is a bad deal that Chinese companies buy tar sand mines, while Husky Energy was once owned by the richest man of Hong Kong (still partially owned by his son, Victor Li) and most of tar sand oil will eventually go to the USA, freeing up Gulf supply for East Asia buyers, aka China, at a much cheaper price (largely due to the price difference between Brent Crude Oil Futures (price benchmark of China) and West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil Futures (price benchmark of the USA)). Somehow, it is dangerous for Canadian companies to buy cables and internet equipments from a Chinese company, while most consumer electronics, daily products, toys, apple juice, etc come from China. No one complained when ATI, found by three Chinese Canadians in Markham, Lee Ka Lau, Benny Lau, and Kwok Yuen Ho, are sold to an American company in Sunnyvale, California, AMD, which almost ended Markham high-tech growth overnight. Now, no Canadians worry the lost of intellectual property to China when AMD graphic cards are quietly moved to made in China instead of Canada. Like all good stories, we love to have an antagonist, but crying wolves will just make us look stupid.