Cooperation And Friction:China-Canada Relations Since The End Of The Cold War

This paper shows the reasons of the cooperation and friction of China and Canada according to their interaction since the end of the Cold War.After the 1990 s,China-Canada cooperation has steadily expanded in the breadth,which main reflects in three aspects: the repeatedly escalating political relations,the deepening of economic and finance cooperation and the expanding of education and cultural relations.This can be attributed to the interaction of the international and domestic structure.The economic interest preference of the domestic actors is the key factor to promote the bilateral cooperation.The common preference of the economic interests of domestic actors as well as the growing demand of national economy promote the two governments to put the economic interests as the basic diplomatic principle.The economy becomes a booster for the development of the political relations and the relations between the two countries shows the characteristics of economization.However,the depth of their cooperation is unsatisfactory,the cooperation degree is limited and many agreements do not have substantial meaning.The scale of bilateral trade and investment is small as well.Moreover,there exist some frictions in the political,economic,cultural and other fields,which reflect in two aspects: the intensified inherent contradictions(trade friction,human rights disputes)and the constantly emerging frictions(information security,energy investment,the politicized of culture and education activities).The mismatch of state structure and social cognition is the main factor leading to the lukewarm of China-Canada relations.The former is the objective outcome of states ' heterogeneous,the latter is the subjective response to the power change.Canadians' negative cognition to China is the biggest disruptive force that is responsible for the recent fluctuation of China-Canada relations and it is also the root of the friction between the two countries.The disharmony of Canada resulted the incoherence of Canada's China policy,and Canadians' negative cognation forced the government to take the hardest line to China for the electoral interests.At present,there exist a lot of new factors of the international and nation environment which will promote or hinder the development of China-Canada relations at the same time,combined with the structure and cognitive conflicts being difficult to eliminate in the short term,the prospects of the bilateral relations will be not optimistic and remain tepid.China-Canada relations can be consolidated and developed in the future through deepening the interests link,giving play to the complementary advantages,correct understanding of conflict areas,strengthening the mechanism construction,expanding the radius of trust and accumulating the social capital.