The Iran war shows how risky reliance on oil is.
The same is certainly true for renewables and all other critical parts of the economy.
It’s good that Canada started to build supply chains for critical minerals with democratic allies, for example. The dependence on China here is a threat to Canada’s (and all other allied states’) national security.
[Edit typo.]
While Canada should absolutely invest in domestic supply chains and self sufficiency, there’s a big difference here. Once you’ve bought and installed the solar infrastructure from China, it operates domestically. There is no threat to Canada’s national security here. Once that initial infrastructure is imported, Canada has time to figure out how to develop its own going forward.
Batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, EVs - all these are no longer just mechanical assets but rather connected systems. These connectivities create new exposure for consumers and governments in democratic states.
As one report, It’s Time to Treat China’s Connected Energy Systems As a National Security Risk, says,
Foreign automakers and energy operators relying on Chinese batteries are not just importing physical components; they are importing foreign-controlled code that dictates how critical assets operate, and that may be updated based on a vendor’s schedules, through vendor platforms, and under vendor policies.
There is ample evidence that China poses a threat to other states’ security, as well as many examples that China uses leverage for economic and political coercion.
It’s also important to note the risk of forced labour in Chinese suppky chains.
There is actually zero evidence that China poses any threats to other states. It hasn’t been at war since the 70s, it doesn’t engage in regime change operations, coups, invasions, and occupations. Pretty much all the countries that chose to trade with China have benefited from that significantly. That’s the real world.
The only ample evidence we have is that propagandists in the west are really good at manipulating opinions of people who are unable to engage their critical faculties.
It is also important to note the very real, and well documented, forced labour in Canadian supply chains.
- UN expert sounds alarm over ‘contemporary forms of slavery’ in Canada https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140437
- Systemic racial discrimination via discriminatory funding causing “Millennium Scoop” class action certified; long-term reform negotiations ongoing. https://decisions.chrt-tcdp.gc.ca/chrt-tcdp/decisions/en/item/521231/index.do?iframe=true
- Crisis fueled by human trafficking linked to resource extraction “man camps”; systemic inaction continues. https://afn.ca/all-news/press-releases/assembly-of-first-nations-afn-releases-2025-progress-report-on-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-mmiwg-calls-for-justice-highlighting-human-trafficking-crisis/#to-top
- Failure to legislate a human right to safe water and diversion of settlement funds from critical services. https://siksikanation.com/carney-government-reaches-new-low-on-first-nation-safe-drinking-water/
- Slavery charges against Canadian mining company settled on the sly https://theconversation.com/slavery-charges-against-canadian-mining-company-settled-on-the-sly-148605
The threat it faces is if it gets too big, then they will offer an alternative to USD for trading global assets. Which prevents the US from funding its massive social programs and military, or exporting its inflation.
exactly
What sources regarding China do you read?
I read mainstream western sources of course.
- Emerging countries’ debt payments to private lenders dwarf those to China https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/emerging-countries-debt-payments-private-lenders-dwarf-those-china-2025-08-11/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745021
- Chinese Investment In Africa Has Had ‘Significant And Persistently Positive’ Long-Term Effects Despite Controversy https://www.eurasiareview.com/01022021-chinese-investment-in-africa-has-had-significant-and-persistently-positive-long-term-effects-despite-controversy/
- study on Chinese investments https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745021
- The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
- China and Africa: Ethiopia case study debunks investment myths https://theconversation.com/china-and-africa-ethiopia-case-study-debunks-investment-myths-177098
- The Impact of Chinese FDI in Africa: Evidence from Ethiopia https://www.lse.ac.uk/iga/assets/documents/research-and-publications/FDI-in-Ethiopia-Crescenzi-Limodio.pdf
- Broadband, Business Formation, and Economic Growth in the Global South: Assessing China’s Impact https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/11/broadband-business-formation-and-economic-growth-in-the-global-south-assessing-chinas-impact/
Oh, what a carefully selected sample.
The vast majority of these sources provide a very critical picture of China, so if you really read these ‘mainstream Western sources of course’ you must have a very critical picture of China. It doesn’t reflect your propaganda-like posts and comments in this and your alt accounts. But at least here in this thread you have so far refrained from personal insults.
As most of your linked articles refer to Chinese investments in the Global South, there is a very good study from 2025 by the Economic Policy Institute in Kiel, Germany, about that.
Our findings reveal a previously undocumented pattern of revenue ring-fencing, where a significant share of commodity export receipts never reaches the exporting countries. Revenues routed overseas secure priority repayment for the creditor; they remain out of public sight and largely beyond the borrower’s reach until the secured debts are repaid. These findings raise new concerns about debt transparency, fiscal management, fiscal autonomy, and the quality of macroeconomic surveillance, particularly in commodity-exporting EMDEs [emerging market and developing economies].
Interesting investigation that provides new insights how exactly China takes leverage over emerging economies at Beijing’s benefit and Beijing’s benefit alone.
Addition: And, of course, Canada should not buy renewable tech, EVs, and other tech from China. The price of letting others control you energy and you tech is too high. What is true for the U.S. is also true for China. Canada should definitely seek collaboration with democratic states rather than dictatorships.
Your cherry picked article doesn’t contradict a single thing I said. And, of course, Canada should and will buy EVs and renewable tech from China because clearly even people running Canada aren’t complete imbeciles. Enjoy doing a lot of seething and coping in your future. Life is gonna get real hard for people like you going forward.
Also, might want to learn what a dictatorship is before throwing big words like that around kiddo. Pretty sure people actually living in China understand their system better than some angry racist from Canada.
- https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democracy-most-us-say-america-isnt-1711176
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230511041927/https://6389062.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6389062/Canva images/Democracy Perception Index 2023.pdf
- https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-say-people-98686
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201229132410/https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
