Charles Burton, an associate professor of Political Science at Brock, wrote a piece recently published in The Conversation about what a recent political power play in China means for Canada.

Burton writes:

Since the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank tweeted last week that Canada is now officially a full member, it hasn’t exactly made headlines.

Yet this is ostensibly a prelude for trade talks with China in an increasingly protectionist global landscape. And admission wasn’t cheap: Chinese sources say Ottawa committed more than a billion dollars to the Beijing-based bank.

But China-watchers are more fixated on the dramatic changes rolling out after the just-completed National People’s Congress.

Among other moves, the annual Congress voted 2,970-to-0 to give President Xi Jinping a second five-year term and repealed a regulation barring him from seeking a third.

They also rubber-stamped the creation of a National Supervision Commission (NSC), empowered to detain people for months at secret locations without access to lawyers or due process.

This NSC ranks above even China’s judiciary in the newly amended Constitution. Its establishment would certainly make Chinese Congress members pause before entering a symbolic protest vote against Xi’s Machiavellian restructuring of institutions to consolidate his own power.

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