La politique étrangère du Canada envers la Chine de 1984 à 2015 : l’impact de la centralisation de la prise de décision et l’influence des élites
This thesis offers an in-depth process tracing analysis of Canada’s foreign policy towards China from 1984 to 2015. Based on more than thirty semi-structured interviews, primary documents and secondary sources, it is shown that foreign leaders and political, social and business elites with close ties to Canadian prime ministers have been able to influence their foreign policy ideas. These ideas in turned shaped Canada’s foreign policy towards China. Canada established official relations with the government of China in 1970 with a policy of positive engagement. In the mid-1980s, Brian Mulroney’s progressive-conservative government developed a new strategy to help Canadian firms benefit from China’s economic reform and open-door policy. After an interruption of this policy in the wake of the Tiananmen Square crisis, Jean Chrétien’s and Paul Martin’s Liberal governments implemented a policy based on trade, constructive engagement on human rights issues and high-level political contacts between leaders of both countries. Influenced by new elites with a negative view of China, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government brought an abrupt change in Canada’s policy towards China in 2006. From 2008 to 2012, Chinese leaders and Canadian business elites developed new ties with Stephen Harper in order to bring back a more positive approach.  However from 2012 to 2015, right-wing conservative elites that feared Chinese involvement in the Canadian economy would encroach on Canadian sovereignty complicated once more relations with China. The evolution of Canada’s policy towards China is the consequence of foreign policy decisions dominated by the premier minister. An important contribution of this thesis is to demonstrate how certain Canadian elites were able to secure an influence on Canada’s China Policy by developing and maintaining close ties with Canadian prime ministers. As part of the Foreign policy analysis (FPA) literature, this thesis also contributes to Sino-Canadian relations studies and Canadian political studies by offering a theoretical model embedded in Elite theory and making use of foreign policy ideas as an analytical tool for understanding political decision-making.
Canada Chine China foreign policy decision-making prime minister elites ideas