Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is en route to China for a pivotal visit aimed at resetting ties with Beijing and finding new economic opportunities for his country outside the US.
It will not be an easy task, with pressure on Canada to balance its goal of diversifying trade without risking damage to its relationship with Donald Trump or compromising national security and human rights commitments.
But with ongoing uncertainty over Canada’s trade future with the US – its largest customer – the country now finds itself seeking to repair strained relations to protect its economy.
Senior Canadian officials have described the trip, the first to China by a Canadian prime minister since 2017, as “consequential and historic” and part of a “bold” plan to double Canada’s non-US exports over the next decade.
Trade will be on the agenda, along with agriculture and international security, Carney’s office said. Beijing’s foreign ministry said the two countries have “shared interests” and should work to “increase people-to-people ties and cultural exchanges”.
On Thursday, Carney meets the Premier of China, Li Qiang, as well as the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, Zhao Leji.
On Friday, the prime minister is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping one-on-one, after the pair met last year on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea.
This official visit is a significant step in the rapprochement after Canada-China relations hit a low in 2018, following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on a US warrant on fraud charges related to Iran sanctions violations.
The detention in Canada of the executive of a Chinese telecom giant angered Beijing, and China subsequently arrested two Canadians on espionage charges.
All three were released in 2021 after Meng cut a deal with US prosecutors.
More recently, China has been accused of meddling in Canada’s politics, though a public inquiry on foreign interference found its impact in recent federal elections to be minimal. China has repeatedly denied allegations of foreign meddling.
Canada and China have struggled to forge meaningful ties in the past.
Ottawa views China as “an increasingly disruptive global power” that “increasingly disregards” international rules and norms, though it recognises China’s size and influence make some cooperation necessary.
The Carney government does not see this upcoming visit as a deviation from that view, senior Canadian government officials told reporters this week. But they added that Canada cannot achieve its objective of reducing economic reliance on the US without increasing trade with China.
Carney is said to be approaching talks with an eye on increasing collaboration in areas of mutual interest like energy and climate, and putting guardrails on areas where the two countries clash, like defence and critical minerals.
“I think we are approaching the relationship now with the realism that we haven’t seen for decades,” Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat, told the BBC.
Robertson added that it could result in a “healthier relationship if both sides understand where they’re coming from and what the red lines are”.
