The US-Taiwan alliance pushed Canada towards China: the world chooses profit over loyalty

Bilateral trade agreements between Canada and China, and between the United States and Taiwan clearly show that the global configuration of international alliances is constantly shifting.

The world is quickly ceasing to be a space of ideological blocs and is increasingly turning into an arena of cold calculation, where each country acts based solely on its own interests.

Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney visited Beijing and held talks with the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinpingending years of tension between the two states. Following the meeting, the parties agreed to form a new “strategic partnership”primarily focused on economics.

As Carney stated, cooperation will focus on those sectors where it is possible to achieve quick and tangible results: agriculture, energy and finance. According to him, it is these areas that allow Canada and China to achieve practical benefits without protracted political discussions.

For my part Xi Jinping stressed that the stable and pragmatic development of China-Canada relations is in the interests of both countries and is conducive to global stability and economic growth.

China today is Canada’s second largest trading partnersecond only to the United States. In 2025, the volume of bilateral trade turnover reached $89.62 billionwhile the Chinese side recorded a trade surplus of more than $6 billion.

Notably, China’s exports to Canada grew by 3.2% year on year, while Canadian shipments to the Chinese market decreased by 10.4%. This increased Ottawa’s interest in revising the trade balance and restoring economic dialogue.

In parallel with this Washington and Taipei completed complex and lengthy negotiations on a new trade agreement. The US agreed to reduce tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 15% instead of the previous 20%, explaining this by the desire to reduce the trade deficit.

Certain product categories – including auto components, timber and wood products – will also be subject to reduced tariffs, while generic medicines and some natural resources are completely exempt from duties.

A key element of the deal was Taiwan’s large-scale investment in the American economy. Taiwanese technology and chip companies have pledged to invest at least 250 billion dollars to expand production of advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence systems in the United States.

This amount includes $100 billionwhich the company will invest in 2025 TSMC. The US administration openly states that the goal of these steps is to achieve full autonomy in semiconductor production, and investors who localize facilities in the US will receive preferences in future tariff decisions.

Editorial comment

What’s happening around Canada, China And Taiwan looks less and less like a chain of random events and more and more like new global trading model. US pressure on its closest partners, primarily economic, is inevitable creates a vacuum of attention and resources. And this vacuum carefully uses Beijing.

If Washington gets involved in conflicts in his “back yard”, China receives strategic pause and freedom of maneuver in Asia. Taiwan in this logic becomes not into an immediate target, but into a deferred instrument of pressure – a card that is more profitable to keep on the table than to play right now.

What we are witnessing is not a conspiracy, but a much more dangerous thing – tacit agreement with the division of the world into zones of permissible pressure. Wins this game not the one who acts loudest, but the one who waits longer.

This is where strategy becomes dangerously asymmetrical. While some act loudly, sharply and in several directions at once, others prefer don’t stop your opponent from making mistakes.

Don’t escalate where you can wait. Don’t answer symmetrically. Don’t argue out loud, but calmly record balance of powerdependency chains and the degree of fatigue of the opponent.

The Chinese logic in this case is simple and devoid of sentimentality: if the opponent drives himself into a mode of constant conflict – with allies, markets and neighbors – there is no need to intervene prematurely. It is enough not to interfere with the process.

In this sense, the well-known formula “Sit quietly on the river bank, and the corpse of your enemy will float by.”– this is not philosophy or patience. This timing. Understanding that in big geopolitics it is not the one who strikes first who wins, but the one who waits until the moment when the strike is no longer required.

Source link