In the News

China retains global goals despite domestic challenges: Analysts

Focus Taiwan, September 12, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, Vice President Research & Strategy, APF Canada

Extract: Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of the research and strategy arm of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, observed that Beijing's one key response to what it sees as the U.S. seeking to "suppress" and "contain" it was to build its own international groupings. She rebutted comments on China becoming increasingly isolated, arguing that the country had been trying to "fortify itself from the West" and "fully integrate itself" with the non-Western world. 

Canada is actively developing AI. Tsang Youren gave a speech and shared the secrets of Taiwan’s success.

Central News Agency, September 11, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, Vice President Research & Strategy, APF Canada

Extract: Representative to Canada Youren Tsang was invited by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada to deliver a speech titled "Artificial Intelligence, Automotive Chip Technology and Supply Chain Resilience - Huge Opportunities for Taiwan-Canada Cooperation" and met with Vina Nadjibulla, Vice President of the Research Strategy Department of the Asia Pacific Foundation. Their conversation attracted nearly a hundred people from the academic and business circles to listen.

The original article was published in Chinese (traditional).

As Chinese EV imports have increased twenty-six-fold to $2 billion, experts warn tariffs will harm Canadian consumers

The Hub, September 6, 2024

Featuring : Vina Nadjibulla, Vice President Research & Strategy, APF Canada

Extract: In the short term, the impact of Canada’s tariffs on Chinese EVs is likely to be minimal, said Nadjibulla. In 2023, all EV imports from China were Tesla models manufactured in Tesla's Shanghai factory, she said. “To avoid these tariffs in the U.S. and Canada, Tesla will likely change its supply routes. Therefore, the immediate impact on Canadian consumers is limited.”

China hits Canada with anti-dumping canola probe after EV tariffs

Global News, September 4, 2024

Featuring: Jeff Nankivell, President & CEO, APF Canada

Extract: "This is now China saying, okay, you've accused us of this. Well, we're going to accuse you of doing that. This was not a surprise to anybody."

China claps back on Canada’s hefty EV, steel and aluminum tariffs

The Jas Johal Show (Global News), September 3, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, Vice-President Research & Strategy, APF Canada

Excerpt:  "[China] is sending a message that they will retaliate, that they have their own measures, particularly against canola, which about $5 billion of exports was sent from Canada to China last year alone. China is essentially saying it also has options and that it will retaliate, that there will be a tit-for-tat if Canadian EV tariffs come into effect in October as announced."

It’s a brave new era of international trade, and Canada is unprepared for it

The Globe and Mail, September 2, 2024

Featuring: Karthik Nachiappan, Senior Fellow (non-resident), APF Canada

Excerpt: "Canada must adapt for an intensely competitive global economic context. Trade is no longer just trade. It is about establishing and correcting the conditions that enable countries to exchange goods and services. It is about devising appropriate rules to regulate problems and using those measures and market power to generate compliance from others.

Our trade policy must reflect and advance the ambitions of its climate transition, security concerns and interests and technological strides. Anything less will not be fit for purpose."

China is ‘Going to Retaliate’ Over Canada’s Tariff Hikes, Experts Say. How?

Global News, August 27, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, Vice-President Research & Strategy, APF Canada

Excerpt: China’s reaction, Nadjibulla suggested, may be in line with how it responded to the European Union when the bloc imposed additional tariffs on Chinese EV imports as high as 36.3 per cent.

“China could pick a sector and launch its own process to potentially then block some market access,” she said, pointing to agricultural exports as a potential target.

Canada Follows US, Imposes 100% Tariff on EVs Imported from China

Al Jazeera, August 26, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, Vice-President Research & Strategy, APF Canada

Excerpt: “The Canadian and US auto sectors are fully integrated, and it makes sense for Canada to be fully aligned and in lockstep with the US on these tariffs,” Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, told Al Jazeera. “This is consistent with Canada’s economic and national security agenda. … The question mark right now is how China will react.”

China's Coast Guard is Looking Even More Like its '2nd Navy'

Business Insider, August 26, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Excerpt: Western experts think the destroyer-esque ship being assembled in Shanghai is part of China's effort to stay ahead. 

"China is upping the ante again by bringing in the most kind of modern, advanced form of a coast guard ship," said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. "We should see it more as a naval ship than a coast guard ship."

(Read a PDF version of this story here.)

CBC News Network's Natasha Fatah Speaks with Vina Nadjibulla on Canada's Tariffs on Chinese-made EVs

CBC News, August 26, 2024 

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "This was a much-anticipated and necessary move and we didn't have a choice, not necessarily because of the U.S., but because of the threat Chinese over-capacity and industrial subsidies present to our economic security as well as our economic resilience and national security." 

Why Thailand’s real estate tycoon PM lasted only a year

CBC News, August 16, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "We're seeing these fifty, sixty million voters in Thailand keep electing progressive actors and certainly the vote for the Move Forward party was  the latest iteration of that, but that will of the people gets interrupted either by military coups or by the intervention of the court."

Bangladesh economy under pressure amid ‘uncharted’ political turmoil

Al Jazeera, August 8, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "Those that were looking at Bangladesh as an attractive China+1 strategy … this political instability puts a question mark around it and makes it more urgent to restore law and order so that supply chains don’t get further impacted."

Canada multiplies initiatives to expand footholds amidst rising geopolitical challenges

Maritime Magazine, Summer 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "We are now in a different era. This is now trade but through the lens of national security and economic security – geopolitics is very much back."

China talks of mending fractured relations but says it won’t tolerate Canadian criticism of its human-rights record

The Globe and Mail, July 19, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "Canadians should take note that Ms. Joly’s Beijing stop was sandwiched between substantial visits to South Korea and Japan, two of the most important allies for Ottawa’s Indo-Pacific strategy. It’s significant that we’re anchoring whatever stabilization or whatever dialogue we have with China, with a deepening of partnership with our democratic allies.”

Buzz kill in the Bubble

POLITICO Ottawa Playbook, July 19, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "The public relations dimension of this trip is also important. We need to make sure it doesn’t get presented somehow as Canada changing course, or correcting its “cognition” as China had put it a while ago from a different meeting"

The case for military spending, the 'half-destroyed' rules-based order and a dire warning for NZ

BusinessDesk, July 19, 2024

Avec : Yves Tiberghien, attaché supérieur de recherches, FAP Canada

Foreign Affairs Minister Joly visits China in attempt to reopen channels with Beijing

The Globe and Mail, July 18, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "It’s an effort to stabilize relations and to keep channels open, but nobody should be under any illusion that this is some kind of a change in the fundamental nature of the relationship, which is one of strategic competition."

Who are the protesters demanding an end to job quotas in Bangladesh?

Al Jazeera, July 18, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "The government needs to ensure there is appropriate education and training to match the needs of the workforce. The efforts of global businesses to expand their supply chains beyond China could be an opportunity for Bangladesh – that is where education reforms become critical."

Joly visiting China to 'pragmatically' engage amid diplomatic, interference rift

The Canadian Press, July 18, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "We need to be cautious and clear-eyed about the fact that while the tone in Beijing may have changed, the overall strategic direction of the relationship has not."

As Canadian exports to China continue to grow, is the diversification strategy working?

Hill Times, July 17, 2024

Featuring: Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy

Extract: "Trade with China will never be nonexistent, but the government should find other markets to reduce Canada’s dependence on China with commodity exports, and to increase its overall exports."