Living with China: A Middle Power Finds Its Way

Living with China urges Canadians to adopt a forward-looking China strategy that recognizes the significance of China’s history and values for its development model of authoritarian state capitalism and managed markets. Market reforms will be key drivers of China’s long-term growth, yet Chinese policy is ambivalent about the potential dangers of spontaneous market forces undermining the Party’s central goal of political stability. The tensions between market forces and state intervention and between political and economic goals are identified in the book’s early chapters that outline what Canadians need to know about the Chinese economy. The book also examines how Chinese enterprises are going global through direct investments and participation in the dynamic but troubled Belt and Road Initiative.

In an environment of rising tensions over trade and technology – evident in negotiating the USMCA with the United States and doing business with Huawei, the China-based telecommunication giant – Canada needs a China strategy. Living with China is one of the first comprehensive volumes on a forward-looking Canada-China strategy. The recommended strategy includes more leadership from top officials, building a Canada brand, strengthening our international human capital, addressing security issues, and negotiating bilateral trade and investment liberalization. Dobson also acknowledges the importance of addressing such key issues as intellectual property protection, cybersecurity, and value differences such as respect for individual rights.

Wendy Dobson is the co-director at the Rotman Institute for International Business and a professor emerita of Economic Analysis and Policy. Dobson served as Chair of the International Steering Committee of the Pacific Trade and Development network (2010–18), acted as a trustee of the Trilateral Commission, and was a member of the International Economics Advisory Committee of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Her previous book, Gravity Shift (2009), also published by University of Toronto Press, was a finalist for the National Business Book Award in 2010.