Scotty

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10180652

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As Canada seeks to renew and strengthen its defence industrial base and deepen Indo-Pacific engagement, the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) will depend on strong partnerships with leading technology ecosystems.

To accomplish its mandate, the DSRB should include Taiwan. Without Taiwan’s participation, it will struggle to achieve its objectives, given the island’s centrality to “non-red” dual-use technologies and its growing appetite to finance that ecosystem.

...

Canada’s interest in the DSRB also aligns with Ottawa’s growing Indo-Pacific engagement, including exercises, defence agreements, advanced sensing, and dual-use technology cooperation. This includes Canada’s role in leading the air component command at RIMPAC this year, its new status of visiting forces agreement with the Philippines, and growing defence ties with Australia and New Zealand.

...

The Canadian government recognised Taiwan’s importance in dual-use technologies by establishing the Taipei hard tech Canadian Technology Accelerator program earlier this year. This program focuses on dual-use technologies that are key to Canada’s defence-industrial sovereignty, including drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), autonomous mobile robots, and advanced communications, such as 6G.

If Canada is already investing diplomatic, military, and technological efforts in the region’s defence ecosystem, excluding Taiwan from the DSRB would leave out one of the most important nodes for advanced manufacturing and dual-use technology in the Indo-Pacific.

...

The question is not whether Taiwan can fit neatly into existing diplomatic categories, but whether Carney’s government can use the DSRB to truly finance the trusted democratic industrial capacity needed without engaging one of the world’s most important advanced-manufacturing and dual-use technology ecosystems.

To ensure it can, the Carney government should advocate that the DSRB include flexible participation mechanisms for places like Taiwan. Doing so would help the DSRB accomplish its goal, help Canada realise its strategic priorities, and help small and medium-sized democracies to advance their sovereignty and strengthen their economies collectively.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10180652

Archived link

As Canada seeks to renew and strengthen its defence industrial base and deepen Indo-Pacific engagement, the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) will depend on strong partnerships with leading technology ecosystems.

To accomplish its mandate, the DSRB should include Taiwan. Without Taiwan’s participation, it will struggle to achieve its objectives, given the island’s centrality to “non-red” dual-use technologies and its growing appetite to finance that ecosystem.

...

Canada’s interest in the DSRB also aligns with Ottawa’s growing Indo-Pacific engagement, including exercises, defence agreements, advanced sensing, and dual-use technology cooperation. This includes Canada’s role in leading the air component command at RIMPAC this year, its new status of visiting forces agreement with the Philippines, and growing defence ties with Australia and New Zealand.

...

The Canadian government recognised Taiwan’s importance in dual-use technologies by establishing the Taipei hard tech Canadian Technology Accelerator program earlier this year. This program focuses on dual-use technologies that are key to Canada’s defence-industrial sovereignty, including drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), autonomous mobile robots, and advanced communications, such as 6G.

If Canada is already investing diplomatic, military, and technological efforts in the region’s defence ecosystem, excluding Taiwan from the DSRB would leave out one of the most important nodes for advanced manufacturing and dual-use technology in the Indo-Pacific.

...

The question is not whether Taiwan can fit neatly into existing diplomatic categories, but whether Carney’s government can use the DSRB to truly finance the trusted democratic industrial capacity needed without engaging one of the world’s most important advanced-manufacturing and dual-use technology ecosystems.

To ensure it can, the Carney government should advocate that the DSRB include flexible participation mechanisms for places like Taiwan. Doing so would help the DSRB accomplish its goal, help Canada realise its strategic priorities, and help small and medium-sized democracies to advance their sovereignty and strengthen their economies collectively.

...

Archived link

As Canada seeks to renew and strengthen its defence industrial base and deepen Indo-Pacific engagement, the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) will depend on strong partnerships with leading technology ecosystems.

To accomplish its mandate, the DSRB should include Taiwan. Without Taiwan’s participation, it will struggle to achieve its objectives, given the island’s centrality to “non-red” dual-use technologies and its growing appetite to finance that ecosystem.

...

Canada’s interest in the DSRB also aligns with Ottawa’s growing Indo-Pacific engagement, including exercises, defence agreements, advanced sensing, and dual-use technology cooperation. This includes Canada’s role in leading the air component command at RIMPAC this year, its new status of visiting forces agreement with the Philippines, and growing defence ties with Australia and New Zealand.

...

The Canadian government recognised Taiwan’s importance in dual-use technologies by establishing the Taipei hard tech Canadian Technology Accelerator program earlier this year. This program focuses on dual-use technologies that are key to Canada’s defence-industrial sovereignty, including drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), autonomous mobile robots, and advanced communications, such as 6G.

If Canada is already investing diplomatic, military, and technological efforts in the region’s defence ecosystem, excluding Taiwan from the DSRB would leave out one of the most important nodes for advanced manufacturing and dual-use technology in the Indo-Pacific.

...

The question is not whether Taiwan can fit neatly into existing diplomatic categories, but whether Carney’s government can use the DSRB to truly finance the trusted democratic industrial capacity needed without engaging one of the world’s most important advanced-manufacturing and dual-use technology ecosystems.

To ensure it can, the Carney government should advocate that the DSRB include flexible participation mechanisms for places like Taiwan. Doing so would help the DSRB accomplish its goal, help Canada realise its strategic priorities, and help small and medium-sized democracies to advance their sovereignty and strengthen their economies collectively.

...

Canada has reached a ​deal to become an observer to an advanced fighter jet ‌program being pursued by Japan, Britain and Italy, a senior Canadian-based source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

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Canadian defense officials are due to make a ​formal announcement on Tuesday of next week at the ⁠Farnborough International Airshow in Britain, said the source, who requested anonymity ​given the sensitivity of the matter.

The three countries launched the Global ​Combat Air Programme (GCAP) in 2022 to field a next-generation stealth fighter by 2035, led by Britain's BAE Systems, Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Italy's Leonardo.

Any Canadian ​involvement would mark GCAP's first expansion beyond its three founding ​members.

Although observer status is an initial step that does not entail any financial ‌commitments, ⁠Canada could deepen its cooperation later, depending on how the project turns out.

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[The move] represents another step in Canada's efforts to diversify its defense spending ​away from the United States and forge closer ​European ties.

Last ⁠December, Ottawa said it would join the European Union's Security Action for Europe initiative, which will give Canadian defense companies expanded access to ⁠the European ​market.

GCAP is one of two major ​Western sixth-generation fighter projects, alongside the U.S. Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance program.

..

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10160735

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As the rubber boat he was on rocked through choppy waves, fear washed over Chinese dissident Dong Guangping, who had gone without sleep for two days.

The 68-year-old knew he was taking a huge risk trying to flee China by sea, but even then, he had underestimated the challenges of this journey.

He was badly sunburned, his phone was running out of battery, and his portable charger had gone flat. Apart from the sky and the sea, there were no landmarks around him. He could only hope that the digital compass would get him to South Korea before his phone went flat.

"Not being able to navigate would have been terrifying. I could have drifted back towards China," Dong told BBC Chinese nearly two months after his perilous escape.

Forty hours after setting out from China's eastern Shandong province, Dong was rescued by the coast guard and fishermen in Korean waters on the night of 27 May.

He was briefly detained in South Korea but has since resettled in Canada, where his family had been living.

...

"I can never survive in China," said Dong, who spoke to BBC Chinese in a video call from Toronto.

"If I didn't leave, I will never be at peace for the rest of my life. I had to show the Chinese Communist Party I was capable of leaving. They cannot stop me, they cannot control me."

...

Dong, a police officer-turned-human rights activist, has been jailed in China several times for his activism.

In 1999, Dong was fired from the police force after 13 years because he signed a petition to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the brutal Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Then in 2001, he was imprisoned for three years for "inciting subversion of state power". He was jailed again in 2014 for participating in another Tiananmen commemoration event, according to Amnesty International.

Dong had fled China four times previously but was sent back each time. "But I have always held fast to one conviction: I must get out into the free world," he tells BBC Chinese.

...

In September 2015, he travelled to Bangkok with his wife and daughter, where they were granted refugee status by the United Nations and approved for resettlement in Canada.

But days before they were scheduled to leave for Canada, Thai authorities deported Dong to China, where he was jailed for "inciting subversion" and "crossing the national border illegally". He was sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

...

In May this year, with just a few hours of sailing practice, Dong started his journey in Weihai, Shandong, in a 3.3m long rubber dinghy equipped with an engine.

The poor weather conditions at sea prompted him to reroute and head towards South Korea, which is a closer destination.

...

Dong was sent to a refugee centre in Incheon and later granted political asylum in Canada.

He is not the first Chinese dissident to flee across the sea to South Korea.

In 2023, another Chinese activist Kwon Pyong fled to South Korea on a jet ski. He was initially detained on immigration charges but later resettled in the US.

Speaking about the moment when he found out his flight to Toronto was confirmed, Dong said he was "overcome with emotion holding the air ticket".

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10160735

Archive link

As the rubber boat he was on rocked through choppy waves, fear washed over Chinese dissident Dong Guangping, who had gone without sleep for two days.

The 68-year-old knew he was taking a huge risk trying to flee China by sea, but even then, he had underestimated the challenges of this journey.

He was badly sunburned, his phone was running out of battery, and his portable charger had gone flat. Apart from the sky and the sea, there were no landmarks around him. He could only hope that the digital compass would get him to South Korea before his phone went flat.

"Not being able to navigate would have been terrifying. I could have drifted back towards China," Dong told BBC Chinese nearly two months after his perilous escape.

Forty hours after setting out from China's eastern Shandong province, Dong was rescued by the coast guard and fishermen in Korean waters on the night of 27 May.

He was briefly detained in South Korea but has since resettled in Canada, where his family had been living.

...

"I can never survive in China," said Dong, who spoke to BBC Chinese in a video call from Toronto.

"If I didn't leave, I will never be at peace for the rest of my life. I had to show the Chinese Communist Party I was capable of leaving. They cannot stop me, they cannot control me."

...

Dong, a police officer-turned-human rights activist, has been jailed in China several times for his activism.

In 1999, Dong was fired from the police force after 13 years because he signed a petition to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the brutal Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Then in 2001, he was imprisoned for three years for "inciting subversion of state power". He was jailed again in 2014 for participating in another Tiananmen commemoration event, according to Amnesty International.

Dong had fled China four times previously but was sent back each time. "But I have always held fast to one conviction: I must get out into the free world," he tells BBC Chinese.

...

In September 2015, he travelled to Bangkok with his wife and daughter, where they were granted refugee status by the United Nations and approved for resettlement in Canada.

But days before they were scheduled to leave for Canada, Thai authorities deported Dong to China, where he was jailed for "inciting subversion" and "crossing the national border illegally". He was sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

...

In May this year, with just a few hours of sailing practice, Dong started his journey in Weihai, Shandong, in a 3.3m long rubber dinghy equipped with an engine.

The poor weather conditions at sea prompted him to reroute and head towards South Korea, which is a closer destination.

...

Dong was sent to a refugee centre in Incheon and later granted political asylum in Canada.

He is not the first Chinese dissident to flee across the sea to South Korea.

In 2023, another Chinese activist Kwon Pyong fled to South Korea on a jet ski. He was initially detained on immigration charges but later resettled in the US.

Speaking about the moment when he found out his flight to Toronto was confirmed, Dong said he was "overcome with emotion holding the air ticket".

...

Archive link

As the rubber boat he was on rocked through choppy waves, fear washed over Chinese dissident Dong Guangping, who had gone without sleep for two days.

The 68-year-old knew he was taking a huge risk trying to flee China by sea, but even then, he had underestimated the challenges of this journey.

He was badly sunburned, his phone was running out of battery, and his portable charger had gone flat. Apart from the sky and the sea, there were no landmarks around him. He could only hope that the digital compass would get him to South Korea before his phone went flat.

"Not being able to navigate would have been terrifying. I could have drifted back towards China," Dong told BBC Chinese nearly two months after his perilous escape.

Forty hours after setting out from China's eastern Shandong province, Dong was rescued by the coast guard and fishermen in Korean waters on the night of 27 May.

He was briefly detained in South Korea but has since resettled in Canada, where his family had been living.

...

"I can never survive in China," said Dong, who spoke to BBC Chinese in a video call from Toronto.

"If I didn't leave, I will never be at peace for the rest of my life. I had to show the Chinese Communist Party I was capable of leaving. They cannot stop me, they cannot control me."

...

Dong, a police officer-turned-human rights activist, has been jailed in China several times for his activism.

In 1999, Dong was fired from the police force after 13 years because he signed a petition to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the brutal Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Then in 2001, he was imprisoned for three years for "inciting subversion of state power". He was jailed again in 2014 for participating in another Tiananmen commemoration event, according to Amnesty International.

Dong had fled China four times previously but was sent back each time. "But I have always held fast to one conviction: I must get out into the free world," he tells BBC Chinese.

...

In September 2015, he travelled to Bangkok with his wife and daughter, where they were granted refugee status by the United Nations and approved for resettlement in Canada.

But days before they were scheduled to leave for Canada, Thai authorities deported Dong to China, where he was jailed for "inciting subversion" and "crossing the national border illegally". He was sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

...

In May this year, with just a few hours of sailing practice, Dong started his journey in Weihai, Shandong, in a 3.3m long rubber dinghy equipped with an engine.

The poor weather conditions at sea prompted him to reroute and head towards South Korea, which is a closer destination.

...

Dong was sent to a refugee centre in Incheon and later granted political asylum in Canada.

He is not the first Chinese dissident to flee across the sea to South Korea.

In 2023, another Chinese activist Kwon Pyong fled to South Korea on a jet ski. He was initially detained on immigration charges but later resettled in the US.

Speaking about the moment when he found out his flight to Toronto was confirmed, Dong said he was "overcome with emotion holding the air ticket".

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10121466

Archived link

Canadian companies that disclose their climate-related risks and impacts have a considerable advantage over those that don’t when it comes to attracting financing from European institutional investors, according a recent report for the Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University (opens pdf).

...

European investors increasingly need credible sustainability information to meet their own reporting obligations, and Canadian companies that lag on climate disclosure risk shutting themselves out of European capital markets altogether.

...

Under the EU’s sustainable finance rules, financial market participants are required to disclose sustainability indicators, such as greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint, biodiversity, water, waste and social factors. The data must be collected either directly from investee companies or through research that may include third-party data and experts.

When investing in jurisdictions that operate under a mostly voluntary reporting regime, like Canada, disclosure has unique value to European institutional investors because it helps them meet their own reporting obligations.

...

Several major capital hubs are already strengthening their sustainability disclosure regulations, including Japan, Singapore, Australia, Chile and Mexico. In the U.S., California and New York are among several states pressing ahead with their own emissions-reporting rules despite the federal pullback on climate policy.

Savvy Canadian companies have so far been able to retain the interest of European institutional capital through voluntary disclosure. But Canadian securities regulators have the opportunity to follow Europe’s example and mandate climate disclosures for larger Canadian public companies.

...

Climate change doesn’t care about whether sustainability is in fashion, and the risks are growing. Among other benefits, expanding disclosures could help keep Canadian firms competitive in international capital markets going forward.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10121466

Archived link

Canadian companies that disclose their climate-related risks and impacts have a considerable advantage over those that don’t when it comes to attracting financing from European institutional investors, according a recent report for the Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University (opens pdf).

...

European investors increasingly need credible sustainability information to meet their own reporting obligations, and Canadian companies that lag on climate disclosure risk shutting themselves out of European capital markets altogether.

...

Under the EU’s sustainable finance rules, financial market participants are required to disclose sustainability indicators, such as greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint, biodiversity, water, waste and social factors. The data must be collected either directly from investee companies or through research that may include third-party data and experts.

When investing in jurisdictions that operate under a mostly voluntary reporting regime, like Canada, disclosure has unique value to European institutional investors because it helps them meet their own reporting obligations.

...

Several major capital hubs are already strengthening their sustainability disclosure regulations, including Japan, Singapore, Australia, Chile and Mexico. In the U.S., California and New York are among several states pressing ahead with their own emissions-reporting rules despite the federal pullback on climate policy.

Savvy Canadian companies have so far been able to retain the interest of European institutional capital through voluntary disclosure. But Canadian securities regulators have the opportunity to follow Europe’s example and mandate climate disclosures for larger Canadian public companies.

...

Climate change doesn’t care about whether sustainability is in fashion, and the risks are growing. Among other benefits, expanding disclosures could help keep Canadian firms competitive in international capital markets going forward.

Archived link

Canadian companies that disclose their climate-related risks and impacts have a considerable advantage over those that don’t when it comes to attracting financing from European institutional investors, according a recent report for the Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University (opens pdf).

...

European investors increasingly need credible sustainability information to meet their own reporting obligations, and Canadian companies that lag on climate disclosure risk shutting themselves out of European capital markets altogether.

...

Under the EU’s sustainable finance rules, financial market participants are required to disclose sustainability indicators, such as greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint, biodiversity, water, waste and social factors. The data must be collected either directly from investee companies or through research that may include third-party data and experts.

When investing in jurisdictions that operate under a mostly voluntary reporting regime, like Canada, disclosure has unique value to European institutional investors because it helps them meet their own reporting obligations.

...

Several major capital hubs are already strengthening their sustainability disclosure regulations, including Japan, Singapore, Australia, Chile and Mexico. In the U.S., California and New York are among several states pressing ahead with their own emissions-reporting rules despite the federal pullback on climate policy.

Savvy Canadian companies have so far been able to retain the interest of European institutional capital through voluntary disclosure. But Canadian securities regulators have the opportunity to follow Europe’s example and mandate climate disclosures for larger Canadian public companies.

...

Climate change doesn’t care about whether sustainability is in fashion, and the risks are growing. Among other benefits, expanding disclosures could help keep Canadian firms competitive in international capital markets going forward.

Opinion piece by Charles Burton, a former diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing, a senior fellow at Sinopsis.cz, a China-focused think tank based in Prague.

Archived link

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When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Canadian counterpart Anita Anand for bilateral talks this spring, he said our relations must be based on “setting aside differences and seeking common ground.” But experience shows that Beijing never sets aside any differences. Rather, China expects Ottawa to simply abandon any non-trade concerns in return for greater access to the Chinese market.

In this instance, the carrot was Mr. Wang speculating that if bilateral relations maintain “a momentum of development, and our policies remain stable and positive,” trade could grow 50 or even 100 per cent, “because China will soon become the world’s largest market, and the Chinese market is opening up to Canada more and more.”

When then-Chinese president Hu Jintao visited prime minister Paul Martin in 2005, the leaders elevated relations to a “strategic partnership” and promised to double bilateral trade within five years.

Eleven years later, premier Li Keqiang told then-prime minister Justin Trudeau that China would double trade with Canada by 2025, along with settling a dispute over canola and talks on free trade.

The promises never materialized, and Beijing’s mercantilistic regime – which strictly controls the economy to maximize state wealth and power – will never give Canada access to any significant share of China’s internal markets. Beijing sustains its economy with exports, not imports.

...

So it seems Prime Minister Mark Carney was played earlier this year when he let China export a quota of EVs into Canada under preferential tariffs for several years, in exchange for a nine-month reduction in China’s punitive tariffs on Canadian canola meal.

China’s Foreign Minister and its ambassador to Canada have been clear that if we want China to keep buying our canola after the agreement expires in December, we better comply with seven new conditions that Canada has agreed to for revising the Canada-China Strategic Partnership.

These “co-operative mechanisms” – including a Political and Security Consultation Mechanism, and a National Security and Rule of Law Dialogue – are blatantly designed to tip any dialogue in China’s favour.

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These restrictions on dialogue will nicely defuse Canadian outrage at China’s violations of international law, its influence and transnational repression programming in Canada, and our efforts to stop the transfer of sensitive technologies to China’s military-industrial complex.

Canada has further allowed itself to be caught in a web of Chinese coercion. For example, facing pressure from the threat of further U.S. tariffs, Canada recently tabled legislation prohibiting imports of goods produced by forced labour. But Beijing is weaponizing a specific clause in that legislation, which allows Ottawa discretion over blacklisting geographic regions alleged to be complicit in forced-labour production. China wants Canada to exempt supply chains tied to Uyghur and Tibetan regions, and will likely attempt to leverage this by stalling negotiations under the Canada-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Roadmap, which was completed during Mr. Carney’s visit to China in January.

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The real question is this: How many more times will Ottawa be flim-flammed by Chinese politicians dissembling about huge economic benefits if we give them what works so well in their favour?

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10100672

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Kia announced that prices for the PV5 will start at CAD 46,995 ... in Canada when it goes on sale in Q4 2026. All trims also qualify for the Electric Vehicle Affordability Program, offering up to CAD 5,000 toward the purchase.

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So far, it’s been a hit. The PV5 is already among Kia’s top-selling EVs in Korea. In Europe, the PV5 accounted for 9% of light commercial electric vehicle (eLCV) sales in the first few months of the year.

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