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Zhao Ziwen

Trade, particularly in energy, is expected to dominate Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s talks in China next week as his country looks to reduce its economic reliance on the United States.
Carney’s five-day trip starts on Tuesday and will be the first by a Canadian leader to China since 2017.
Carney said on Wednesday that his trip was part of a broader effort to bolster Canada’s economic resilience.
“We’re forging new partnerships around the world to transform our economy from one that has been reliant on a single trade partner, to one that is stronger and more resilient to global shock,” he said.


The US accounts for more than 70 per cent of Canada’s total trade and, in 2023, bought 97 per cent of Canada’s oil exports, according to official data.
However, Carney has said he wants to double Canada’s non-US exports in the next decade.
That is in large part due to US President Donald Trump, who is seeking to tighten US influence in the western hemisphere.
Before last weekend’s US military raid on Venezuela, Trump had claimed that resource-rich Canada could be America’s “51st state”.
Jia Wang, a senior fellow and former deputy director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, said the Venezuela action was a worry for Canada.
“President Trump’s claim that he’s going to run Venezuela and also take control of its massive oil reserves, is quite concerning for Canada because Venezuela produced heavy crude oil, [which] is very similar to what Canada produces in Alberta,” Wang said.
“Since the second Trump administration, actually, before Trump got elected again for the second term, [it] really prompted many Canadians to think beyond the US, and to not only secure our borders, but also to secure our economy.”


Enter: China, Canada’s second-largest trading partner.
Relations between the two countries have been tense for a decade and hit their lowest point during the first Trump presidency.
In 2018, Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver under a US extradition warrant. This was followed by the detention in China of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
This put high-level bilateral engagement in a deep freeze for years until 2021, when a deal with US prosecutors led to the release of Meng and the Canadians.
However, tension escalated again in 2023 amid allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections and attempts to intimidate lawmakers, eventually leading to expulsion of a Chinese diplomat.
Signs of a shift were apparent late last year when Chinese President Xi Jinping told Carney on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea that China stood ready to work with Canada to “bring China-Canada relations back onto the right track”.
Wang said Carney’s talks with Xi would likely focus on trade and energy cooperation – areas in which Canada remained heavily dependent on the US.
Thomas Tianyi Liu, research fellow at the Canada-based Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, agreed, adding that Ottawa’s key concerns were “energy security, supply chain and great-power competition”.
“Against the backdrop [of Venezuela and Greenland], it is clearly in the interests of both China and Canada to move beyond signaling and focus on practical cooperation,” Liu said, referring to Trump’s comments about the US acquiring Greenland.
But there are some issues to be overcome.
Canada has a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles as well as a 25 per cent tariff on Chinese steel and aluminium.
China has put tariffs on several Canadian agricultural products, including a 76 per cent levy on canola seed imports and a 100 per cent levy on canola oil and peas.
In addition, Ottawa shows no sign of relaxing its intensified scrutiny of Chinese investments, especially in sensitive technology.
Wang, from the University of Alberta, said Ottawa might remain cautious about Chinese investment in hi-tech areas such as “AI and quantum computing”.
And, despite its desire to de-risk its relationship with Washington, Ottawa still needed to factor in its neighbour’s attitude towards China, she added.
“Canada would have to consider [the US], whatever its next steps are with other countries, especially when it comes to China. It will also have to consider the possible reactions from the US and the implications that may have of this renegotiation of North America.”
But Wang said these issues would not overshadow Carney’s trip to Beijing.
“To really secure a promising economic future and the safety of its country and of its people ... Canada has to do more to strengthen our economy by diversifying, by working with partners around the world. China is a big part of that consideration,” she said.
“At this point, there seems to be a priority shifting to securing Canada’s economic future, and working with trading partners, as important and as large as China, is part of that consideration.”


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China

Diplomacy

The Canadian prime minister will have the economy and the US on his mind when he lands in Beijing next week


The Canadian prime minister will have the economy and the US on his mind when he lands in Beijing next week.


What will top the agenda when Canada’s Mark Carney heads to China?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Canadian prime minister will have the economy and the US on his mind when he lands in Beijing next week

The Canadian prime minister will have the economy and the US on his mind when he lands in Beijing next week