Last Saturday, U of T held its third annual China Conference to discuss the country’s rose and its swiftly growing economy. The conference held panels on trade, fi nance, social responsibility, education, and the environment. Close to 200 people attended to hear presentations given by some of the leading experts on China.

The conference is organized yearly by the U of T Forum of China Development, a recognized student club.

This year’s conference featured former Minister of Foreign Affairs Pierre Pettigrew delivering the keynote address. While minister, Pettigrew played an instrumental role in the signing of an important bilateral trade agreement that eased the path for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

This year’s conference was titled “Made in China” to highlight “the myriad social and political issues” that surround the country.

Pettigrew named the emergence of China as one of three critical world issues for the 21st century, the others being internal struggles within Islam, and the way the U.S. uses its influence.

“A country like Canada needs to engage China,” said Pettigrew. “Because the complimentarity between Canada and China is absolutely huge, China is a resource-hungry country […] and we’re resource rich,” he said.

Pettigrew also chastised U.S. presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for speaking out against NAFTA. “Given the rise of China […] NAFTA needs to be stronger, otherwise it will become irrelevant. I agree with Obama that we need to renegotiate NAFTA, but we need to renegotiate it to deepen it, make it stronger.” Pettigrew’s mentioned that at some point China will have to open up politically if its economic success is to continue.

At one point during the Q&A period a student attempted to ask Pettigrew three separate questions, much to the ire of the audience. Someone in attendance angrily shouted out that other people were in the room and the student did not ask his third question.

“This [the conference] is a really good medium to provide exchange and gather people from diverse backgrounds, but who all have this common interest,” said Jennifer Dong, cochair of the UTCC.

“Our goal is to let people know about these issues and hopefully now that there are a lot of Chinese Canadians who have received a Western education, they know about democracy […] hopefully the students of this generation will bring some of these ideas back with them to China,” Dong said.