Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to talk trade, security and energy with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He'll be the first Canadian prime minister to visit since 2017.

Ottawa

The Prime Minister's office has confirmed that Mark Carney will travel to China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping for talks scheduled in mid-January. The visit aims to address trade and security issues, with details of Carney's itinerary and meetings yet to be released. 

This diplomatic engagement follows recent steps to improve relations, including China's restoration of Canada as an approved destination for group tourist travel and preparatory meetings between officials. Ongoing trade restrictions on Canadian exports such as canola, pork, and seafood, as well as security concerns and international conflicts, are expected to be key topics during the visit.

Carney to talk trade, security with Xi Jinping in China

The Prime Minister's office has confirmed to CBC News that Mark Carney will be heading to China for talks next week at the invitation, pardon me, of President Xi Jinping. The CBC's Janice McGregor is in Ottawa with more. When Prime Minister Mark Carney met President Xi on the margins of the APEC summit last fall, China invited Canada to visit at a mutually convenient time this year. And it turns out that mutually convenient time for defrosting this diplomatic relationship is mid-January. The Prime Minister will fly out on Tuesday, will be in the country for three nights. We don't know a lot about his itinerary at this point, what parts of China he might visit, who he might be meeting with. This is all information to follow. But we do know a couple of things. After they had that bilateral conversation at the APEC summit, the very next week, the Chinese government put Canada back on its list of approved destinations for group tourist travel, that's a very economically valuable thing. We also know that a couple of weeks later, in mid-November, the Deputy Minister for Global Affairs, David Morrison, travelled to China to meet with his counterparts, presumably laying some more track for progress on this visit. Canada-China relations often fracture very abruptly. You think of the immediate tension after the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in December of 2018, the detention of the two Michaels. You think also of how quickly China reaches for commodity diplomacy and punishes Canadian exports like canola. After Canada takes trade actions it doesn't appreciate, such as the recent moves against Chinese steel or EVs at the behest of the Trump administration. The road back to better relations, often slow, cautious. We'll see next week if there is any progress in, for example, restoring trade with agricultural commodities with China. We know Saskatchewan's Premier Scott Moe visited China on a trade mission late in the summer. But restrictions do remain on a number of potentially valuable exports like not only canola, but pork and seafood. When a Canadian Prime Minister last visited China, that was Justin Trudeau's trip in 2017, at that point there was serious talk of a full-on trade deal. That went off the rails. No one's talking about that anymore. But we do know that China might be a very important market for Canadian energy exports, for example. Security concerns more acute than they were a decade ago. You think particularly about cyber security. Canada had a whole inquiry into potential foreign interference in our democracy. Carney may also want to discuss China's role in international conflicts, particularly this push for a peace deal in Ukraine and tensions that are escalating in Venezuela. Even if some incremental trade barriers lift next week, given the power and size of the Chinese economy, that could be economically very valuable for Mark Carney. But Canada has to tread very carefully to exert its right to sovereign economic and diplomatic relationships without sparking alarm in Washington. Janice, thank you. The CBC's Janice McGregor in Ottawa.

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Breakdown