The interview is entitled "Canada-China free-trade pact touted" (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/china-calls-for-free-trade-deal-with-canada-within-a-decade/article4561149/)
My observation: After 18 years of negotiations to achieve a Canada-China Foreign Investment Protection Agreement, the Chinese Ambassador now indicates that for Canada to obtain "guarantees that its companies will get greater access to investment and markets in China" that we now actually need to negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement which "might take a few years, but less than a decade." Presumably in the meantime China intends to continue to widen its 4X trade disparity with Canada while interminable negotiations work to "address" Canada's concerns. And according to the Ambassador over this period Canada's concerns over allegations of widespread human rights abuse in China will also work themselves out through "improvement and development."
After 30 years of Chinese officials urging Western patience over trade and human rights concerns, this line of argument is starting to wear a bit thin. But clearly the Ambassador hopes to continue to play to Canadian naivete and gullibility for as long as it can be sustained.
Liberace-like the Chinese regime appears to be "laughing all the way to the bank."
An edited version of the above text appeared as letter to the Globe and Mail entitled "It's wearing thin" published on September 25: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/letters/sept-25-rue-britannia-and-other-letters-to-the-editor/article4565456/
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