# Carney’s Beijing Bet, the Arctic Squeeze, and the Race for Rare Earths

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-bureau-podcast-6621098/carney-s-beijing-bet-the-arctic-squeeze-and-the-race-for-rare-earths
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-bureau-podcast-6621098/carney-s-beijing-bet-the-arctic-squeeze-and-the-race-for-rare-earths.md
Podcast: [The Bureau Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-bureau-podcast-6621098)
Published: 2026-01-21T13:23:35+00:00
Episode link: https://www.thebureau.news/p/carneys-beijing-bet-the-arctic-squeeze
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/185293207/435f2a0daf513178cdf0e4ab4bd00c6c.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-bureau-podcast-6621098/episodes/carney-s-beijing-bet-the-arctic-squeeze-and-the-race-for-rare-earths
Duration seconds: 3797

## Resource

OTTAWA — In this podcast interview with Jason James of BNN, taped shortly before Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Beijing trip, I lay out why I expected the visit to deepen long-running elite commercial ties between Chinese Communist Party-aligned networks and Canadian industries — relationships that have shaped Liberal Asia policy for decades. We cover a lot of ground, including heightened tensions over Greenland; Elbridge Colby’s “strategy of denial”; the United States’ race to prepare for potential conflict with China and Russia; and the parallel race to secure critical minerals in the Western Hemisphere—aimed at breaking Beijing’s decades-old effort to dominate rare-earth supply chains essential for munitions and advanced weapons. We discuss how the fast-moving headlines and heated rhetoric of 2026 have convinced many Western citizens that President Trump is the biggest threat to world peace. I understand where those concerns come from, but I don’t believe that is the right interpretation of world events. A better reading, I tell Jason, comes from a 2023 clip in which President Xi Jinping, after meeting President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, is heard saying: “Right now there are changes—the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years—and we are the ones driving these changes together.” The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-bureau-podcast-6621098/episodes/carney-s-beijing-bet-the-arctic-squeeze-and-the-race-for-rare-earths/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-bureau-podcast-6621098/carney-s-beijing-bet-the-arctic-squeeze-and-the-race-for-rare-earths.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.