通常情况下，一些小小的信号反而能反映出很大的变化。在中国的旋风之旅中，迅猛的发展趋势好几次让我停下脚步。近三十五年以来，中国从贫困的大农村转变为全球经济超级巨星，让我眼前一亮。
在这次的旅途中，有三件事最打动我。
- 政治、经济和中国公民角色之间的相互作用力比一些加拿大记者愚蠢的冷战言辞更为微妙和更具希望。
- 从只能模仿、靠廉价劳动力和污染的工业巨头正在加速发展转型为 21 世纪的创新领导者。
- 中国在全球舞台上的重要性以及与二十国集团双边关系发展中的复杂性。
中国现在作为全世界的发明创新先驱者，给我最早的冲击是在上海汽车展。中国汽车生产厂商展出了56辆概念汽车，全部都是电动的，其中有些居然还是无人驾驶的。十年之前，还有些人在嘲笑中国的努力。现在，中国已经成了电子化汽车的新兴世界领导。
在以前的历史中，中国的服务声誉比亚洲其他地区而言更加接近英国，那就是就是客户总是错误的 。但是今天，北京和上海地铁系统的动画数字地图、无瑕疵的英文公告和乐于助人的工作人员将使多伦多 TTC 执行官脸红。
中国的移动支付基础设施的增长速度超过世界上任何一个国家。消费者可以从中国本地版本的 Twitter 等程序上搜索、支付和跟踪从食品到大型家电采购等一切产品。每天数千万笔交易。据说这项服务是无可挑剔的。
那些仍然以 20 世纪 60 年代冷战思想来观察中国警务、法律和民间社会的记者，其实从来没有真正看到过一个斯大林作风的警察局。那些嘲笑贾斯汀·特鲁多总理与这个世界新兴超级大国进行“浪漫”交往的人，也同样是傻瓜。
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不，中国的确不是民主国家。是的，中国对公民的个人权利和主权的做法往往让人非常困扰，当然这不是我们的事情。但现在普通中国公民的私人和社会空间比任何时候都要大，而且还在进一步扩大。我们肯定要看这是否达到我们对权利和自由的期望水平。
特鲁多肯定认识到加中关系是我们下一代是否能够经济繁荣所面对的挑战。
我们必须把重点放在与中国建立更广泛的联系上。如果我们要保持繁荣，明天加拿大和中国的经济关系必须像今天和美国一样紧密交织在一起。现在越来越多的加拿大机构正在加快速度发展：学术交流、研究合作伙伴关系、对国内市场的企业投资，以及令人眼花缭乱的高层贸易往来。
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英文原文：
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduces Chinese Premier Li Keqiang after speaking to a business luncheon in Montreal last September.
Canada and China, a rapidly evolving relationship: Sears
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It’s often small signals that reveal massive changes taking place just beneath the surface in a community. On a whirlwind trip to China, several cues to developing trends stopped me in my tracks. Having been a visitor for almost 35 years, I have had my nose to the glass at China’s transformation from impoverished agricultural police state to global economic superstar on many occasions.
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On this trip three things hit me.
- The interplay of forces in politics, the economy, and the role of the Chinese citizen is far more nuanced and hopeful than the silly Cold War rhetoric of some Canadian journalists would lead one to believe.
- The transformation from copycat cheap-labour polluting industrial giant to 21st century innovation leader is accelerating.
- The sophistication of China’s evolving role on the global stage and in its bilateral relations with G20 nations cannot fail to impress in terms of pure self-interested statesmanship.
Canada’s relationship with this always-confounding people and culture is rapidly evolving, but we are struggling to keep up with the changes.
On China as an innovation leader my cue was, strangely, the Shanghai Auto show. Chinese manufacturers presented 56 concept cars — all electric and many self-driving. A decade ago there were a few laughable Chinese efforts. China is an emerging world leader in electric autonomous vehicles.
Historically, China’s service reputation has been closer to that of the U.K. — that is, the customer is always wrong — than to the rest of Asia. Today, the animated digital maps, flawless English announcements, and helpful staff on the Beijing and Shanghai subway systems would make a TTC executive blush.
China’s mobile payments infrastructure is growing faster than any in the world — consumers search, pay for and track delivery of everything from food to major appliance purchases in the local version of Twitter by the tens of millions daily. The service is reportedly impeccable.
Those journalists who see China through a 1960s Cold War lens on policing, law, and civil society have either never seen a real Stalinist police state up close, or are merely promoting an agenda. Those who dismiss and sneer at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “romantic” engagement with the world’s emerging superpower are similarly just fools.
No, China is not a democracy. Yes, China’s approach to rights and to the sovereignty of the individual citizen are often deeply troubling, and certainly not ours. But the private, social, and civic space for the ordinary Chinese citizen is greater today than at any time in its history, and expanding. That is surely the more relevant test of progress than whether they have arrived at our level of expectations of rights and freedoms.
Trudeau is surely right in recognizing that the Canada/China relationship is the quintessential challenge for our children’s economic prosperity.
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We must keep our focus on building deeper and broader connections with China. Canada’s economic ties to China tomorrow must be as dense and interwoven as are ours with the U.S. today, if we are to secure prosperity. More Canadian institutions are moving faster to ensure that than ever: academic exchange, research partnerships, investment in the domestic markets of each country by businesses from the other, and a dizzying round of high level ministerial and trade missions.
Our new ambassador last month — his first — hosted a premier, two federal and half a dozen provincial ministers, each with China-focused business and academic delegations. He has already raised Canada’s profile at the official level. He will be a star in the Chinese media. John McCallum is funny, unassuming, and has a teenager’s enthusiasm for his career-capping gig. He makes it clear that half his job is pushing Canadians to understand the essential place China has in our future.
To those in the Canadian academy and the media who think the best way to seize attention and to sell newspapers is hyperventilating about all the things that China does not get right, give your head a shake. Yes, we will continue to push our vision of rights and the rule of law. But no, we will not allow a relationship important to both countries to be derailed by endless public finger wagging.
Sadly, Canadians who want a more honest portrayal of the fascinating changes taking place in China, and tales of the rapidly growing partnerships with Canadians, will need to find those stories beyond the mainstream Canadian media.
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来源：https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/04/30/canada-and-china-a-rapidly-evolving-relationship-sears.html
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作者：Robin V. Sears
Robin V. Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a Broadbent Institute leadership fellow, was an NDP strategist for 20 years.
