It’s setting off alarm bells in the White House for good reason: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new “strategic partnership” with Beijing is bigger than just the diversification and freeing up of trade in Canadian food exports and Chinese electric vehicles that he claims. As Brian discusses with longtime China-watcher Sandra Watson Parcels, there are details of the pact that haven’t been widely covered. And it risks making Canada increasingly vulnerable to Beijing’s coercive power tactics while putting us on the wrong side of the urgent effort necessary to preserve the western-backed global system from the threats of a rising revisionist power. There’s a case for trading with China, Watson Parcels says, but not on terms like this. (Recorded February 2, 2026)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices