Cooperation would serve West better rather than constant confrontation: China Daily editorial

With Canada reportedly set to release its own "Indo-Pacific strategy" next month, it seems increasingly like the good old days of generally constructive engagement between China and the Western developed nations is being frozen in a time capsule.

This doesn't have to be the case. But it is happening anyway, mostly as a result of a paradigm change in the West's perception of China. Canada is just the latest to recalibrate its approach to relations with China based on this.

In a Wednesday speech at the University of Toronto, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly portrayed China as "an increasingly disruptive, global power" that seeks to reshape the global environment against the "interests and values" of the West.

Citing "serious concerns" about China allegedly undermining global security, commerce and peace, she said that "Canadians doing business in and with China" need to be "clear-eyed" about the "geopolitical risks linked to doing business with the country".

Judging from what Joly said, the strategy her government is expected to announce will be very like that of the United States and the European Union — cooperate with China when it is a must, such as on climate change, but challenge it on everything else.

While such an approach appears to have grown into a Western consensus on how to deal with present-day China, which as Joly noted is very different from "the China of 1970", it is inherently problematic considering the difficulties in implementing it in the real world. An important reason being that labeling the country as a "disruptive" actor on the world stage is at odds with reality.

But China's rapid development since the 1970s has been like part of a continental ice shelve or glacier breaking off, and in its emergence as an iceberg displacing and rearranging the ice sheet that had already formed. This has moved the Western countries' cheese and they are, to say the least, displeased.

That doesn't allow for constructive interaction. It is a pressing imperative for both Beijing and Ottawa, as well as many other Western governments, to find a way to prevent relations from deteriorating further, and then secure some kind of common understanding so that they can again start discussing cooperation.

With the West trying to contain China's development, their taking a fresh look at bilateral ties and making corresponding adjustments is inevitable. But that should not preclude engagement and dialogue based on mutual respect.

Yet that entails a degree of mutual trust. Something that is evidently lacking at the moment. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had to point out on Tuesday that China has "no interest" in Canada's internal affairs following allegations from the Canadian government that it was attempting to influence Canadian domestic politics.

The West's paranoia is becoming increasingly hysterical and dangerous.