East Asian Business Immigration to British Columbia (BC): The Asianization of Immigration, 1997 East Asian Trade Initiatives, and Post-1997 Business Immigration Decline

East Asian Business Immigration to British Columbia (BC): The Asianization of Immigration, 1997 East Asian Trade Initiatives, and Post-1997 Business Immigration Decline

For more than a century, Canadian economic development strategy has solicited immigrant entrepreneurs to promote both overseas trade and domestic output and employment. This paper shows how initially Canada solicited business immigrants from, and oriented its trade towards, France, the United Kingdom and the United States but latterly, since the 1980s, has increasingly sought East Asian immigrant entrepreneurs and stronger trade relations with Pacific Rim countries.1) However, at the very point that this strategy appeared to be succeeding, the financial and industrial crises in East Asia contributed to slower economic growth in Canada, to a severe reduction in the number of business immigrants from Hong Kong and East Asian Business Immigration to British Columbia (BC) : The Asianization of Immigration, 1997 East Asian Trade Initiatives, and Post-1997 Business Immigration Decline 135 Taiwan, and to a noticeable increase of such immigration from Korea and China. However, Canada’s transpacific focus may shift, once again, with the emergence of discussions about Tafta (Transatlantic free-trade area).