Couldn't we just stop all trade with China?

Michael Spavor, one of "the two Michaels" who have been detained incommunicado for 830 days in China, received a "trial", of sorts, yesterday. In typical Chinese style, it lasted about two hours in closed session, no diplomats or journalists were allowed in, and the defendant was not allowed a lawyer. No verdict was made public (again the norm in China, at least in this kind of trial), but you have to know that the Canadian, detained on trumped-up charges in 2018 in retribution for Canada's arrest of Meng Wanzhou for extradition to the USA on Donald Trump's orders, will have been found guilty - after all, 99.93% of Chinese trials end in a guilty verdict. The other Michael, Michael Kovrig, gets his "trial" on Monday. Sentencing could be delayed for years, but the Canadians will probably be given life sentences.

It makes you wonder why they bother going through the motions, really. This is not justice as we know it. It was just a show trial timed to coincide with the rather nasty high-level China-US talks going on in Alaska. China just can't resist that kind of blatant showmanship.

So, all the commentators I have heard are saying, "OK, enough's enough, we have to take some concrete actions against China", not just the usual verbal expressions of disappointment and outrage. Sanctions are usually mentioned, in more or less general terms. But it's hard to see what can be done that would have any effective consequences, and that wouldn't backfire disastastrously. You can kick at the shins of a bully, but you risk a much harder punch on the nose (or worse).

So, I got to wondering what would happen if we just stopped all trade with China. Trade between Canada and China totals around $100 billion annually, and it is our second largest trading partner after the USA (or third if you consider the EU as a whole). But it is a very lop-sided trading relationship: we import about three times as much as we export, and we import mainly consumer goods and export mainly raw materials. China makes a lot more money off us than we do off them. Furthermore, China is much less reliant on us than we are on them (we are China's 16th largest trading partner).

It can be argued, though, that abandoning China as a trading partner would be expensive but not necessarily totally disastrous. We could probably source imports from other Southeast Asian countries, India, or even the EU, instead of China, but the costs would be higher, and some of those countries have their own moral and human rights challenges. And some of our natural resource and agricultural sectors would suffer a big financial hit, But, God, wouldn't it feel good to be able to tell China to stuff it!

And Canadian attitudes have changed recently. Gone is the "more, more, more" feeling towards Chinese trade espoused by former ambassador to China John MacCallum, and Canadians are now four times more like to support decreasing trade with China than increasing it.  Although the business community may not be quite so gung-ho, and a government concerned for its re-election prospects may be much more circumspect.