Newman: Is the rise of state capitalism a threat to economies like Canada’s?

By:
Don Newman
/
13 February, 2012
By: Don Newman
Chairman of Canada 2020, Senior Columnist with ipolitics.ca

What a good issue to discuss with Prime Minister Harper in China trying to drum up business in the poster child country of state capitalism.
Because state capitalism is threat to economies like Canada’s if Canadians can’t figure out what is going on.
And figuring out what is going on at any given moment isn’t easy.
But prudence tells us to be careful. China in particular did not created a wide variety of state owned enterprises just because it lacks privately held pools of investment capital.
It created state owned enterprises to pursue the goals of the state. This is true whether it is overseas to lock up natural resources, or domestically to enter into joint ventures with foreign companies to acquire technology and intellectual property.
China is too big to be ignored. But doing business with China is not doing business as usual.
That is unless Canadians realize that state owned enterprises are different. And in China are the new usual.
Beware.

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