China’s Economic Miracle Was Built on Mass Displacement. If you think the CCP will treat foreigners better than its own people, when it extends its power over you, please think again: Dimon Liu's warning to Canadian Parliament, warns Dimon Liu Dimon Liu, a China-born, Washington, D.C.-based democracy advocate who testified in Parliament to the Canada’s House of Commons committee on International Human Rights on December 8, 2025, about the human cost of China’s economic rise.

Liu argues that the Canadian government should tighten scrutiny of high-risk trade and investment, and ensure Canada’s foreign policy does not inadvertently reward coercion.

Liu also warns that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] could gain leverage over Canadians and treat them as it has done to its own subjugated population—an implied message to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has pledged to engage China as a strategic partner without making that position clear to Canadians during his election campaign.

...

If you have ever wondered how China managed to grow so fast in such a short time, Charles Li, former CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has the answers for you. He listed 4 reasons: 1) cheapest land, 2) cheapest labor, 3) cheapest capital, and 4) disregard of environmental costs ... “The cheapest land” because the CCP government took the land from the farmers at little to no compensation. “The cheapest labor,” because these farmers, without land to farm, were forced to find work in urban areas at very low wages ...

One well known incident of eviction occurred in November 2017. Cai Qi, now the second most powerful man in China after Xi Jinping, was a municipal official in Beijing. He evicted tens of thousands into Beijing’s harsh winter, with only days, or just moments of notice. Cai Qi made famous a term, “low-end population” (低端人口), and exposed CCP’s contempt of rural migrants it treats as second class citizens.

“The cheapest capital” is acquired through predatory banking practices, and through the stock markets, first to rake in the savings of the Chinese people; and later international investments by listing opaque, and state owned enterprises in leading stock markets around the world.

Chinese Communist officials often laud their system as superior. The essayist Qin Hui has written that the Chinese communist government enjoys a human rights abuse advantage. This is true. By abusing its own people so brutally, the CCP regime has created an image of success, which will prove to be a mirage.

top 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] 1.ceramics926@kopitalk.net 5 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

I appreciate the information here. I just wish to point out if we're talking about human displacement, Canada and the US can be accused of the same upon its indigenous populations, the practice of slavery, and a history of segregation/apartheid.

If one is highlighting this mechanism/issue to discuss the real costs of industry and economic development, I think it's a worthy issue. Were there better alternatives to what the European and Western powers ended up doing to others? I certainly hope so.

But if one frames this so called displacement as a moral issue to pretend a better or superior position, then this is delusional. I'd rather defer to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and suggest that the world should aspire to do more.

[–] Isolde@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago

This is a confusing stance. You want the world to do more but are disparaging the warning someone with information is giving to a country so they are not roped into abuse.

You don’t know if there were better alternatives to what western and European powers did to others? I really do hope that you, as part of the world are contributing to the solution in some way, because it really does sound like needless culpability.

[–] Scotty@scribe.disroot.org 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

You may have misinterpreted the article. This is about Canada's possible future trade ties with China and the threat of political and economic coercion for all Canadian people.

There were certainly better alternatives in the past. Canada (and the rest of the democratic world) must deal with this. This is an issue of its own.

It has nothing to do with Canada-China relations and the fact that Canada must not get dependent on a dictatorial government that will exploit Canadian people, not matter who they are.

As an addition, there is a report published just yesterday by Genocide Watch, a rights group, that finds China at extermination and denial stages in Uyghur genocide:

The Chinese government continues its campaign of Mass Detention in Reeducation Camps, where Uyghur Muslims face Forced Assimilation and Cultural Genocide through CCP indoctrination and Uyghur language bans.

The entire report makes a devastating read. This happens now, in 2025.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 2 points 13 hours ago

This is whataboutism. The fact that Canada fails to be perfect in all regards doesn't excuse anything done by other countries.

[–] Prove_your_argument@piefed.social -2 points 15 hours ago

All of the horrible things you describe have been what humans have been doing to each other since the dawn of time.

Many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas for instance practiced blood sport, ritual sacrifice and they also slaughtered their neighbors in wars. Whenever there is an organized concentration of power, atrocities are committed. The smallest nations and the briefest periods exist all over where less terrible things have happened, but it keeps continuing now... like it always has.

I'm not justifying anything. I think humanity as a species is truly horrific. We're capable of awful things, no matter how demure we may appear on the surface.. and once anyone starts getting that power the things they are willing to do simply changes. Maybe one ruler can be benign, or even two... but it never lasts. History can be forgotten, history books can be re-written, the scale of the atrocity may be different... but it's always there.

We don't really deserve anything but extinction as a species. There's no observable path forward where we will change for the better either.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Trade is essential. It is not really optional.

So, the trick is to find the best trading partners.

I would rather not trade with China. That said, China is currently a better bet than the United Staes.

China is more conservative and takes a longer view. They want stability. They offer consistency and determinism. The United States in contrast offers chaos.

Of course China will act in their self-interest. But at least they believe that a stable and dependable global trade system is in their best interest. They will be predictable. You can anticipate their interests and plan around them. As such, they make a far better trade partner than the US.

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 3 points 13 hours ago

That's not really a reason not to trade with China, that's more of a reason why they should make sure they demand necessary consumer rights when they trade with China, like open hardware and software, and prevent high risk predatory practices and investments from coming over.

[–] shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Now is not the time to fall for fearmongering.

I surmise that much of this alarmism around China is to promote continued dependency on the US.

Look at where a friendly relationship with the US has left Canada.

Canada is strong enough to stand on its own two feet. It doesn't need to be a vassal of the US or China.

But it absolutely can do business with both countries in ways that are domestically beneficial. In fact it would be wise to.

Every empire commits human rights abuses. The US was built on and is expanding their abuses now. The West had no issue building empires on human and drug trafficking (colonialism). Morality is absolutely a factor when we think about who we do business with but it certainly is not the only factor. If we claim it to be the only factor then we are hypocrites.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 2 points 13 hours ago

China is a lucrative enough market that some trade with them is inevitable, alas (and, to be honest, Canada as a whole probably can't support itself if it limits international trade to countries that have had fairly clean human rights records for the last fifty years or so—it's just too small a fraction of the world). We just have to be careful that we don't get in so deep that we can't easily pull out again.

Please let the people in positions of power in this country have learned something from the consequences of the current US administration's antics. We can't afford to put all of our eggs in one basket, no matter how large or tastefully decorated that basket is.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 2 points 13 hours ago

A good warning to have about any trading partner, as we're seeing with America right now.

It's possible to trade with a country without giving them undue power over us, though.