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Joe Varner: Canada needs to pay attention to China's military purges before betting on Beijing

Sweeping purges in the PLA’s Rocket Force and nuclear command reveal deep instability Ottawa cannot ignore

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On Sunday morning, when Mark Carney declared that Canada’s historic closeness with the United States now represents “weaknesses,” he opened the door to a fundamental rethinking of Canadian foreign policy. But if diversification means turning toward China, Canadians deserve a clear-eyed assessment of the risks, not just the opportunities. That assessment becomes far more complicated when viewed against what is now unfolding inside China’s military leadership.

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There is a tendency in Ottawa and other Western capitals to view China’s ongoing purge of senior military leadership as a familiar exercise in political control by Xi Jinping. That reading is too narrow. What is unfolding inside the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is not simply discipline imposed from the top. It is an indicator of stress within the system itself. It raises fundamental questions about trust, reliability and the cohesion of China’s most sensitive military capabilities. At its core, this is about confidence, and the erosion of confidence inside a nuclear-armed great power carries consequences that extend far beyond China.

Joe Varner: Canada needs to pay attention to........

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