On the eve of Mark Carney’s departure for China, Michael Kovrig summed up the challenge facing the federal Prime Minister as he tries to revive business with this giant. Beijing uses economic coercion way of working by linking investments and access to the Chinese market to the submission of its trading partners.
“It’s ultimately about preserving your values and your integrity, and taking a strategic approach that prioritizes your overall national interests, rather than looking at relationships on a case-by-case and deal-by-deal basis,” he told The Canadian Press. Michael Kovrig was, along with Michael Spavor, one of two Canadians detained by China in 2018, in retaliation for the arrest of the head of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, in Vancouver, under an American extradition warrant relating to an alleged violation of sanctions against Iran.
According to Mr. Kovrig, “it’s a very delicate diplomatic dance to manage.”
However, this week, since the arrival of Mr. Carney in Beijing, a bunch of ministers at his side, we are witnessing not a dance, but spectacular contortions worthy of a Cirque du Soleil show of this Team Canada 2026. If no one can suspect Mr. Carney of showing a naivety equal to that demonstrated by Justin Trudeau during his first mandate with regard to China, that does not prevent him to adopt a speech similar to that of his predecessor by increasing the praise for the communist leaders and ignoring the harmful actions of Beijing which poisoned Sino-Canadian relations in the wake of the Meng Wanzhou affair. We are thinking of the suppression of the rights of its Uyghur and Tibetan minorities. To interference in Canadian elections. The systematic violation of World Trade Organization rules. Militarization in the South China Sea and threats to its neighbors. And, of course, to its coercive behavior towards all those who dare to raise its breaches of international law.
Canada may want to diversify its trading partners in order to reduce its economic dependence on the United States, but it is not clear that the solution lies in replacing one unpredictable and vengeful partner with another. Make no mistake, China has never hesitated to punish and isolate countries that antagonize it.
The Minister of Industry, Mélanie Joly, raised many eyebrows by declaring that conversations with Chinese leaders “were carried out in a more predictable and stable manner than sometimes with other countries, including our neighbor”, thus shooting an arrow at the government of Donald Trump at the very moment when Canada begins talks for the renegotiation of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
This is a 180 degree turn from the speech given by Mr.me Joly at the time when, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, she piloted Canada’s new Indo-Pacific Strategy, in 2022. This strategy aimed to strengthen our geopolitical alliances with other countries in the region in order to counter Chinese commercial and military dominance. “China is an increasingly disruptive global power,” reads the document filed by Mr.me Joly. It seeks to shape the international order to make it a more permissive environment with regard to interests and values that increasingly diverge from ours. »
Nothing has changed since then, except the upheaval in Canadian-American relations since Mr. Trump’s return to the White House a year ago. Suddenly, Canada would be ready to welcome Chinese investment in its tar sands and nuclear sector with open arms, while selling more oil, liquefied natural gas and uranium to its “new strategic partner”. While Canada had aligned its policies towards China with those of the United States under former President Joe Biden, notably by imposing 100% customs duties on Chinese electric vehicles (heavily subsidized, it should be noted), now Mr. Carney is announcing a reduction in these tariffs to 6.1% on the first 49,000 vehicles imported into Canada each year from China.
Certainly, this is a modest opening of the Canadian market: this number corresponds to approximately 3% of the total market of automobiles sold in Canada annually. This announcement nevertheless constitutes a first breach in the Canadian-American common front with regard to a commercial rival which dominates this cutting-edge industry. We can bet that China will demand other concessions of this kind in the weeks and months to come.
“Prime Minister Carney must explain how he went from declaring, before the election, that China was Canada’s “greatest security threat” to announcing, after the election, a “strategic partnership” with Beijing,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre quipped Friday.
If the agreement on electric vehicles in exchange for lower customs duties on Canadian canola products delights voters in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, it sows discontent in Ontario, where the auto industry is already suffering from the consequences of Mr. Trump’s trade war. From a strictly political point of view, Mr. Carney’s strategy may be perplexing. Ontario has 122 ridings; Saskatchewan and Manitoba combined have only 28.
However, since coming to power, Mr. Carney has continued to confuse us by making one disconcerting decision after another. Clearly, our balancing act prime minister never ceases to surprise us.
