Canada’s Carney plans to talk trade, relations during China visit

MONTREAL: Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday will begin a state visit to China, the first in eight years for a Canadian leader, with aims to talk trade and rebuild ties after years of diplomatic tensions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping invited Carney last October during a meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which Carney described as a “turning point” in the two nations’ strained relationship.

The January 13-17 trip seeks to “strengthen cooperation in the areas of trade, energy, agriculture and international security,” a Carney spokeswoman told AFP.

“It’s a huge step forward,” said Gordon Houlden, a former Canadian diplomat and director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute.

Houlden told AFP that if “some of the commercial problems that are affecting our exports had a political origin, then solving the political origin may, or should, have some positive effect on the trade.”

The last Canadian leader to visit China was Justin Trudeau, in December 2017.

Ties withered in 2018 after the arrest of a senior executive from Chinese tech giant Huawei on a US warrant in Vancouver and China’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges. China has also been accused of interfering in Canadian elections in recent years.

Carney will meet with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and business leaders for the trade negotiations, which will focus on efforts to attract new investors and secure strategic partnerships.

In the face of protectionism and attacks from US President Donald Trump, he also will seek to develop new markets in order to lessen Canada’s economic dependence on its neighbor to the south.

China is currently Canada’s second-largest trade partner, with bilateral trade reaching $118.7 billion Canadian dollars ($85.3 billion) in 2024.

“This visit is important because China is obviously an inescapable superpower,” Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s ambassador to China from 2012-2016, told AFP.

He said a deal on Chinese energy supplies and electric vehicles were possible outcomes from the talks.

But “the elephant in the room,” he mentioned, is the thorny issue of tariffs.

Since the summer of 2024, Ottawa and Beijing have clashed on trade, with Canada imposing tariffs on electric vehicles and Chinese steel, while Beijing has retaliated with levies on agricultural products including canola.

“Whatever agreements Canada has with China will be scrutinized in Washington and might have implications” for three-way talks with Washington and Mexico on a free trade agreement, set to be renegotiated this year, said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Carney’s challenge is “going to be to advance economic objectives while not sacrificing our national security and economic security priorities,” she added.

After his trip to Beijing, Carney is scheduled to travel to Qatar for a bilateral visit and then head to Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.