Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson by Andrea Mandel-Campbell

Author:Andrea Mandel-Campbell [Mandel-Campbell, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781553652250
Publisher: Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
Published: 2010-07-05T04:00:00+00:00

6 TEAM CANADA AND TEQUILA:

THE PITFALLS OF GOVERNMENT TRADE

POLICY, PROMOTION AND FINANCE

“This is a country that doesn’t think strategically.”

JOHN GRUETZNER, BEIJING -BASED

TRADE AND INVESTMENT CONSULTANT

EXACTLY ONE YEAR after coming to power as Canada’s newly elected prime minister, Jean Chrétien was at the helm of arguably the most ambitious and unprecedented trade mission in Canadian history. For the first time, the prime minister, his cabinet and all the provincial premiers had joined forces under the brash new banner of Team Canada, and they had set their collective sights on landing the biggest fish of all: China.

Like Pierre Trudeau’s official recognition of China in 1970— a full two years before the United States did so — the November 1994 trade mission was a pre-emptive strike that acknowledged the emerging powerhouse. The mission had vision and moxie, and it made a powerful statement to the world that Canada was ready to do business. And the world seemed to be listening. Chrétien and Team Canada hosted a glittering gala at Beijing’s historic Great Hall of the People, the biggest event put on by a foreign country in recent Chinese memory. “There was a real buzz in the room,” recalls Tim Reid, then president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “The atmosphere was so friendly. We were so well received.”

The Chinese were anxious to meet the people who had given them Norman Bethune, the beloved Canadian doctor who had treated the wounded during China’s bitter war with Japan, and representatives of the nation that, in open defiance of a U.S. trade embargo, shipped them wheat during the years of starvation in the 1960s. In the 1970s Ottawa arranged for two planeloads of Canadian businesspeople to fly to Beijing and exhibit their technology, a move that proved instrumental in China’s decision to end its decades of self-imposed isolation. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that companies on the Team Canada mission claimed to have sealed $9 billion worth of contracts and letters of intent with Chinese eager to do business with them.

So why is it, more than a decade later, after the rest of the world has woken up to the Chinese juggernaut, that Canada has missed the boat? Canadian exports to and investment in China remain negligible, while decades of goodwill have lost their lustre as Mao Zedong’s famous ode to Norman Bethune is eclipsed by the stampede of foreign multinationals jostling for a toehold in China.

Many argue, and rightly so, that Canadian business is largely to blame for not following up on the government’s lead. It would not be the first time. As long ago as 1920, Canada’s trade commissioner to China lamented: “Canada has had direct steamship communication with China from the port of Vancouver for more than thirty years, yet in all that time not a single Canadian business firm have established themselves or had agents in this country.”103 In contrast, the government agent pointedly noted, there were sixty American firms in China at the time.

Still, one has to wonder what kind of path Ottawa was paving for business into one of the world’s murkiest markets.

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