{"id":226771,"date":"2025-10-20T11:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T11:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/226771\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T11:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T11:37:11","slug":"resetting-relationship-with-china-will-be-difficult-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/226771\/","title":{"rendered":"Resetting relationship with China will be difficult, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand meets with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing.Gilles Sabri\u00e9\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

As the Canadian government begins to pursue a rapprochement with Beijing, experts on China<\/a> say resetting ties between the two countries would require Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> to walk a narrow diplomatic tightrope.<\/p>\n

To ultimately succeed, they say, he must somehow persuade Beijing to drop tariffs on Canadian canola without agreeing to lower restrictions on Chinese electric-vehicle imports or sideline Canada\u2019s human-rights priorities.<\/p>\n

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand was in Beijing last week in part to advance discussions on a potential meeting between Mr. Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at thawing a frigid<\/a> bilateral relationship.<\/p>\n

That face-to-face conversation could take place before the end of October and China is hoping the result will include ending the 100-per-cent tariff on Chinese-made EVs<\/a> that Ottawa imposed in mid-2024.<\/p>\n

China slapped 100-per-cent tariffs on Canadian canola oil, meal and peas in March \u2013 as well as 25 per cent on seafood and pork \u2013 in direct response to Canada\u2019s tariffs on Chinese EVs. Months later, Beijing imposed a 75.8-per-cent duty on canola seed. It has made clear that it will drop those duties in exchange for EV concessions. <\/p>\n

Opinion: I\u2019ve spent 50 years navigating Canada-China relations. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned<\/a><\/p>\n

Roughly 40,000 canola farmers across Western Canada have already lost tens of thousands of dollars each<\/a> as a result of losing access to their second-largest, $4.9-billion market.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina is essentially using our canola farmers against us, against the Canadian government\u2019s public policy,\u201d Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa\u2019s graduate school of public and international affairs, said in an interview on Sunday. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we crumple on EVs,\u201d she said, \u201cthey will do it immediately on other issues like critical minerals, access to our Arctic, our silence on Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top priority of the government should not be trying to fix the canola problem by opening up our EV market to China, said Ms. McCuaig-Johnston, who has previously spent several decades in various senior public-service roles. Rather, she said, the focus should be getting our canola exporters to build relationships with other countries in the region.<\/p>\n

Business Council of Canada president Goldy Hyder said in a statement that diversifying global partnerships, including across the Asia-Pacific, remains a priority for Canadian businesses.<\/p>\n

What Carney hopes to gain from a Canadian reset with Beijing<\/a><\/p>\n

Diversification was part of the reason Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Kody Blois, Mr. Carney\u2019s parliamentary secretary, included South Korea and Japan in a trade mission last month that was primarily focused on China. However, Mr. Moe has made it clear that any solution to Canada\u2019s canola problem with China must be led by Mr. Carney.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t going to be myself \u2013 the Premier of Saskatchewan \u2013 and the President of China that are going to stand up at the end of the mission and say we have signed a deal,” Mr. Moe said during a Sept. 4 news conference. \u201cIt needs to be the Prime Minister of Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philip Calvert, a former Canadian diplomat who is now a senior fellow with the University of Alberta\u2019s China Institute, said the public may not see a lot of concrete actions come out of any potential meeting between Mr. Carney and Mr. Xi. The point of such a meeting, he said, would be to send signals through each country\u2019s respective systems. <\/p>\n

Mr. Calvert said it is important to reset relations with China because of its sheer economic might.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be terrific closeness with China,\u201d he said, adding that he thinks it will be a \u201cmore rational, arm\u2019s-length approach that\u2019s necessary to our interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Beijing, Anand signals warming relationship with China<\/a><\/p>\n

Offering any concessions to China risks drawing the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump while Canada is engaged in crucial trade talks with its largest trading partner. Ms. McCuaig-Johnston said that during a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Carney at the White House earlier this month, both leaders agreed that the U.S. and Canada would be better off working together to compete with China.<\/p>\n

Given the economic uncertainty right now, University of Toronto economics professor Peter Morrow said it is probably helpful for Canada to engage with another large country such as China. At the same time, he said, Mr. Carney will need to be wary of making any promises to Mr. Xi that might affect his standing with Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this, sort of, who is going to blink first aspect of this,\u201d said Mr. Morrow, who is an international trade expert.<\/p>\n

Then, there are Canada\u2019s long-standing human-rights concerns with China to consider. In 2022, the House of Commons endorsed a resolution condemning China\u2019s treatment of minority Uyghurs as \u201cgenocide.\u201d However, according to Mehmet Tohti, executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, the government has since shied away from continuing such criticisms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are step-by-step backtracking from those issues,\u201d Mr. Tohti said in an interview on Sunday. \u201cI don\u2019t know how low we are going to go, but it is not a good sign for Canada or for Canadians who put human rights and ethics on the front line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: Team Canada shoots on its own net in trade talks with China<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada Tibet Committee executive director Sherap Therchin said he is not opposed to engaging with China, but said Canada cannot overlook China\u2019s record of human-rights abuses or Ottawa\u2019s $57-billion trade deficit.<\/p>\n

Mr. Therchin said that trade imbalance could be used by China to coerce Canada into censorship on other issues, such as China\u2019s so-called internal affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more China has advantage over Canada in terms of trade, the more leverage we lose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When China executed four Canadians<\/a> earlier this year, ostensibly for drug-related offences, Ms. McCuaig-Johnston said she believes \u201cthat was to send a message to our government about EVs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are just holding governments to ransom, and in that way, they are ruthless,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ms. McCuaig-Johnston said she previously held a very pro-China view and even served as vice-president of the Canada-China Friendship Society as recently as 2016. Her work with the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project\u2019s advisory board ran afoul of the Chinese government. Today, she holds a very different view of China.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Xi Jinping himself has done is change China completely,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is no longer the trustworthy partner that it used to be, and we are naive if we do not act in that context.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand meets with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-226771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}