China's ambassador to Canada Wang Di, left, greets Prime Minister Mark Carney upon his arrival at Beijing Capital International Airport, on Wednesday.Carlos Osorio/Reuters
Not too subtle: On the eve of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit, China’s state media warned that if Ottawa wanted progress in relations, it had to adopt a foreign policy separate from the United States.
“If Ottawa still chooses to subject its China policy to the will of Washington,” the China Daily said in an editorial, efforts to mend ties will be “in vain.”
A schism already exists in Canada-U.S. relations. It looks like China wants a chasm.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump is again giving Canada the back of his hand. American automakers have appealed to him to keep the USMCA, the trade pact with Canada and Mexico. But while touring a Ford plant in Michigan on Tuesday, he said that the agreement is “irrelevant” to him, that he could take it or leave it, and that Americans don’t need Canadian products.
It’s this kind of recklessness that makes it so important for Mr. Carney to improve ties with China this week and find progress on trade issues.
Opinion: Canada needs less confrontation with China and more trade
There are two economic giants in the world. Canada, a trading nation, can’t be on the outs with both.
While Mr. Trump professes not to care about Canadian trade, a Carney deal with Beijing that is seen as disadvantageous to American exporters could very well prompt him to retaliate. And at the worst of times. Formal discussions to review the USMCA are set to start next week.
At the mercy of the megapowers, Mr. Carney has to walk a tightrope between them, and it’s not the only dilemma he’s facing. On the home front, he’s under pressure from the agricultural sector to get relief from Chinese tariffs on canola products. But to do that, he’d have to relax his tariffs on Chinese EVs, a move which Ontario vigourously opposes.
The Prime Minister also faces resistance for wanting to make peace with an authoritarian dictatorship – a China that interfered in Canada’s domestic politics; that incarcerated Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig; that engages in industrial espionage; that represses Hong Kong and the minority Uyghurs; that threatens Taiwan and is sabre-rattling in the South China Sea.
But Mr. Carney is not likely to be swayed by opposition at home or in the U.S. Given the American trajectory under Mr. Trump, with his recent embrace of the Monroe Doctrine, he has little choice but to lessen our dependence on America. A rebuild of relations with China, Canada’s second-largest trading partner, is key to getting it done.
China can hardly be regarded as the most reliable of trading partners. But it isn’t tearing down the world’s free-trade architecture and imposing tariffs in blackmail fashion like Mr. Trump. Chinese interference in Canadian political affairs is appalling. But China isn’t threatening annexation. Its threats of territorial expansion are worrisome. But unlike others, it’s been almost five decades since China, with its ground attack on northern Vietnam, invaded another country.
Opinion: Carney needs to be wary of the same old China ‘reset’ mirage
Mr. Carney’s putting relations with China on a good footing would be in keeping with Canadian tradition. Given the deep freeze of the last seven years – triggered by Ottawa obeying a U.S. request to arrest Chinese telecommunications executive Meng Wanzhou – the tradition gets overlooked. Going back to the 1960s, every prime minister has sought to improve ties.
Pierre Trudeau’s government became in 1970 one of the first major Western powers to establish official diplomatic relations with China. It was viewed as a landmark moment in asserting Canadian foreign-policy independence. Brian Mulroney continued the engagement policy and strove to develop closer economic relations. The brutal 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre set relations back, but Mr. Mulroney restored ties before stepping down in 1993.
Jean Chrétien was a leading China booster, heading no less than three Team Canada trade missions there. Conservative Stephen Harper initially took a hardline ideological approach, prioritizing human rights. But faced with the global financial crisis, he changed course and pursued economic co-operation with China.
The PMs were mostly able, though not always, to get co-operation on trade matters, but made no progress with their push for human-rights reforms.
For these Canadian leaders, given the security that the friendship under normal American presidents provided, relations with China were not so vital. Today, they are. We don’t know which way Mr. Trump will turn in his relations with Canada or China. He can’t be trusted. Nor, for that matter, can the Chinese leadership, as President Xi Jinping is seen as more hardcore than his predecessors.
But rapprochement with the Middle Kingdom is a gamble Mr. Carney has to take. Economic counterbalance is needed. China can provide it.