Canada TARGETS 3 Chinese Companies!

Hello everyone and welcome to Geopolitical Trends. My name is David Oualaalou. As always, so good to be with you guys. Canada has ordered now 3 Chinese companies to exit the lithium mining market. That is an unusual decision for the Canadian government. So in this video, I'm going to provide you insight as to Why? And I will conclude this with a key question for you to think about this topic. But before I delve deeper, please, if this is your first time, uh, watching this video here or joining the channel, please make sure to subscribe and smash that notification button so you will be notified every time I upload a new video. And by the way, I truly enjoyed the live stream with you guys for those who came from, you know, Australia and Sweden, Tanzania. It was fun. I enjoyed it. And we're gonna do another live stream towards the end of the month. I'll let you know about the timing and all that stuff. So let's dive deeper into this topic. It came under my radar, as a matter of fact, last night. And I was like, hmm, what is going on in Canada for them to make this decision? Well, here is the thing, just for you to know. Canada has ordered 3 Chinese companies 2 days ago, or 3 days ago, that is, you know, to divest— get this, guys— to divest their investments in Canadian critical minerals, citing national security. For national security, Canada has now ordered these companies. Do you see the trends here? Didn't we have something here back in 2019 in the United States? When at that time former President Trump— excuse me— has said the same thing about, uh, ordering U.S. companies not to buy stocks in the Chinese market. So do you see the trends here? So China, in response— of course China will have to push back— accused Canada of using national security as a pretext and said that divestments order broke international commerce and market rules, and rightly so, because you can't just willy-nilly say, oh, it's because of national security, we're gonna have to cancel you. No, at least give the other country a courtesy. You know, this is to me, at least in my opinion, where diplomacy comes in. You can't just be barking orders at other countries, thinking you are better than them. You know, at least sit down and have a conversation. Well, apparently Canada couldn't do that. You know, that reminds me of a case of the former Huawei financial chief officer, and I will tell you about it in a second here. So, but here's the thing, as countries compete to shore up some sort of reserves of materials needed for to transition per se— this is what Canadians saying because of the transition of to a cleaner economy. You know, they're just using a pretext. They didn't like— they Canadians didn't like the fact that China is moving forward. And I am not here to defend China, I am here to state the facts, you know. And they want to push back for that because the West as a whole is not liking how fast and the pace by which Asia as a whole is moving forward economically. Like I said last time, the growth, economic growth, that is global one, is not in the West, is in the East. This is why you are witnessing now countries wants to jump on the wagon with the BRICS, for example, and SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and ASEAN. Mainly ASEAN is 4 Asian nations there. But you can just see where the trends are. And Canadians now creating this pretext to kind of reduce the ability for China in this case to move forward. So, well, what happened is that, uh, uh, by the time Ottawa, the capital of Canada, announced this, stock market took a dive slightly in this Chinese, uh, company's performance. So the 3 companies, as I said, have been ordered to divest their investments. And the companies are— and I'm gonna pronounce them, I hope you'll forgive me for if I mispronounce it. So it's the first one is— let me get the names here correctly, you know— Sinoman, which is based in Hong Kong. It's called Sinoman Rare Metals Resources Ltd. The second one is Jiangxi Lithium International Ltd., also based in Hong Kong. A third one is Zhenji Mining Investments, which is in Jiangsu Ltd. So I was surprised, literally, because the action of the Canadian government breaks the protocol of how international cooperation or even international protocol for how you deal with countries. If there is a misunderstanding, you sit down and can talk about and figure out the issue. Like I always say here, you don't have to agree with me, you know, but that doesn't mean we can't have a conversation. So the Canadian government ordered the divestments after, and it says, and I put this in quote, rigorous scrutiny. And of course, yeah, right. Would you trust the Canadian government, you know, based on what their prime minister is doing with the policies they're embarking on and all that? No, no, this is a, this is a sham in my opinion, because it's easy for them to sell it under the pretext of national security and intelligence. That's always the easy way, you know. As one who worked in Washington, DC, you You kind of understand how the game is worked, so. And they argued that Canada continues to welcome foreign direct investments. I don't think so. Companies now around the world will have to think twice. Because if Canada didn't like what you're doing, they're gonna say, well, we're gonna have to force your company to diversify. Okay, well, how come Canadian government only doing this to the Chinese but not, let's say, German companies? Or US companies or Polish companies or whatever. You got the idea. So, and the government, the Canadian, that is saying, we will act decisively when investments threaten our national security and our critical mineral supply chain, both at home and abroad, end of quote. I'm just laughing out of absurdity because that's how absurd this, you know. And when Canadian government now saying to the, for example, the company Cenoman, uh, they was asking— they, the Canadian government, was asking Cenoman to sell its investments in Power Metals Corporation. They also were asking Gen Z Lithium to divest in investments and they were asking the third company, Zhanjie Mining, required to exit Ultra Lithium Inc. This to me spells trouble. Why? Because it's unreasonable. And this is exactly what the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said. The Canadian government was using national security as a pretext to block, and I quote this, to block normal cooperation between Chinese and Canadian companies. And of course, this will be damaging to global supply chain. And we all know what's going on between, for example, the United States and China regarding the chip, the tensions that's going on. You all see where this is going. So what China end up saying is they are urging Canada to stop this unreasonable targeting of Chinese companies in Canada, that is, and provide the Chinese companies in Canada with a fair, impartial, and non-discriminatory business environment, end of quote. And this is by, by Zhao who told— who stated this. And it makes more sense because why would you target companies specifically? Yeah, you might disagree, but that doesn't mean all of a sudden you are coming up with some lies about the intelligence and national security matters and all that to justify an action that doesn't deserve that. You know, it just— because here's the thing. What do you think? China is going to just sit idle and watch? They're gonna— they, like the government in Beijing, is gonna have to defend the Chinese companies, and rightly so, because China will have to defend the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese companies. It's the same thing the Canadians are doing. So, but here's the thing, the lithium prices, you know, have risen by more than 200% in the last year, just last year by itself. And I will of course provide you a link to these stats, you know. And if this is, by the way, your first time watching this vid or coming on this channel, please remember to subscribe and hit that notification button so you'll be notified every time I upload a new video. So, and I thank you for your support. So 200%, that's no small matter, just within a year. And all this because of— is driven by supply constraints that are expected to endure. You're all aware of the trade tensions between the United States and China. I will only get worse now that the US saying that they want to block the, uh, as far as microchips. But I'm sure China is gonna have to think of a plan B. If not, they already have one. So, uh, Rystad— Rystad is an energy forecast primarily in lithium minerals supply. It says that they will be about 8.5% short of the total lithium demands by 2025. So that's how it's going to be. So the latest reaction from Ottawa underscores, in my opinion, the global competition of critical, uh, infrastructure or, uh, rare earth minerals like lithium. It's very, very, very important. But like I always say, things don't happen in a vacuum and things don't happen randomly. You always have to look out for the trends. What am I referring to here? I'm gonna take you back a few months ago to February 2022 of this year. What happened? Well, what happened was 3 US lawmakers blasted Canada, uh, and I put this in quote, 'complicit approval,' end of quote, that allowed the sale of a Toronto, uh, of a Toronto-listed lithium mining company to Chinese state-owned— you all see what happened, you know— are urging the Biden administration officials to investigate the acquisition. Why would we care? If China and Canada wants to cut a deal, they can cut a deal, which to me personally spells out troubles for— is it Canada, a sovereign state? You know, I'm not laughing out of laughing. I'm, I'm like, you know, starting to feel like, you know, If country is saying that we are sovereign, is it just on papers? It appears to me that Canada couldn't make a decision on its own. It has to be told by the United States what to do. It's no different than Australia. It's no different than New Zealand. It's no different than Japan. It's no different than South Korea. You got the idea. Or even the EU for that matter. You all know what's going on with the energy crisis in Europe., and European Union couldn't do squat about it. Why? Because they couldn't say no to the United States, you know. And we all witnessed the trip of Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, to China, because he's looking at it from a perspective of, hey China, can you help me out here? Well, see where this is going. So, so when— and I am reminded here of the case of uh, Meng Wanzhou. As I said at the beginning of this video, I will tell you a few things about it because I, I covered this a lot on the other channel, uh, and, and Meng Wanzhou, for those who do not know, uh, she is, uh, the Huawei, uh, chief financial officer and the deputy chair, you know, who was arrested in Canada on December 1st in Vancouver. That's when she was arrested. So of course the details of her arrest back then have not been released by the Canadian. Why? Or by the Canadian government. Why? Because the US told them not to. Straightforward. And why is this? Because it was a leaked memo from the White House at that time that was sent to Canada to arrest Meng Wanzhou on her, uh, uh, travel. She was just crossing through Vancouver to head out to, uh, a Latin American country at that time. So apparently Canada couldn't say no, we can arrest somebody, because the detention itself was illegal, you know. And to me, this is another argument to make the point of, you know, why those countries can't stand on their feet per se by deciding, hey, We're not gonna sanction anybody, or we're not gonna cut off any ties with anybody, whatever. We'll sit down and talk. Well, apparently they couldn't if they are being ordered to do so. So here is my question for you for today about this topic: was Canada ordered to act against Chinese companies? Let me repeat the question for you. Was Canada, based on what I said, ordered to act against the Chinese companies? Let me know what you think. I will be interested in your feedback. And as always, remember, geopolitics impacts your daily life in more ways than one. Till next time, guys. Bye-bye.