Beijing's envoy calls for more trade with Canada as U.S. trade war continues

China's Ambassador-designate to Canada Wang Di presents his credentials to Governor General Mary Simon during ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — Beijing’s ambassador to Canada says China is interested in stepping up trade with Ottawa, arguing the U.S. is pursuing a trade war that will hurt the global economy as it struggles to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

To that end, Wang Di says Washington should not force Canada to choose between the U.S. and China.

“Unilateralism and trade protectionism have brought more instabilities and uncertainties to the world economic recovery,” Wang told reporters Tuesday, through his embassy’s interpreter.

“The international community should stand up together against this kind of behaviour.”

Wang was speaking on the sidelines of a trade-promotion event today hosted by the Chinese embassy in Ottawa.

The event brought together companies doing business in China, including those dismayed at U.S. President Donald Trump leveraging tariffs against Canada, sometimes on the grounds of Ottawa’s trade surplus with Washington.

Wang noted that China’s volume of trade with Canada continues to increase, despite tense relations in recent years, with Chinese customs data showing a Canadian trade surplus.

“We don’t think the surplus is unfair,” he told the event in English, with a grin.

“I hope that companies between our two countries can enjoy a transparent, open and non-discriminatory business environment.”

His comments came just days after China imposed a 100-per-cent tariff on Canadian canola and a 25 per cent levy on pork.

Wang stressed that these were countermeasures following the federal Liberals deciding last fall to follow the U.S. in imposing 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese electrical vehicles, citing the need to protect the North American auto market from unfair trade practices.

Ottawa also enacted a 25 per cent tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, after accusing Beijing of “abysmal” environmental and labour standards.

Wang told reporters he opposes “any country using China as a bargaining chip” in relations with other states, saying it’s up to Canada how it relates with Washington but suggesting it’s not a zero-sum game.

“We believe that when one country is developing relations with another country, it should be beneficial and helpful to the relations of all countries among the international community, instead of sacrificing other countries' interests,” Wang said.

The ambassador also said China would be willing to consider negotiating a free-trade deal, but it would require changes in Canadian policies.

The federal Liberals entered negotiations with China in 2017 for a possible free trade deal, but the talks fell apart a year later, after Ottawa insisted on including language around labour, gender and environmental issues.

Months later, Ottawa’s relations with Beijing hit a nadir when Canada detained a high-profile Chinese executive at the request of the U.S., leading to the detainment of two Canadian citizens in China and various trade disruptions.

Canada has since restricted Huawei from its 5G network, banned university collaboration with agencies that Ottawa links to the Chinese military. The federal government branded China “an increasingly disruptive global power” in late 2022, with “interests and values that increasingly depart from ours.”

Yet Wang said trade is still growing between the two countries, who have recently increased direct flights.

“China and Canada already have a relatively good foundation” for a possible trade deal, Wang said, but relaunching negotiations would require “political willingness” to change policies that have strained the relationship.

“To reach such an agreement, both sides need to work in the same direction toward the same goal,” he said.

A trade deal with China might not even be possible, due to the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term.

The deal -- which took effect in 2020 and has since been undermined by Trump numerous times -- gives Washington a veto on Ottawa signing a trade deal “with a non-market country,” language widely understood to refer to China.

Since then, trade advocates have suggested Canada encourage China to join a large Pacific Rim trade bloc dubbed the CPTPP, which includes labour and environmental standards.

Canada China Business Council president Graham Shantz said whoever forms government needs to boost communication with Beijing, arguing Canada is losing ground in job-creating fields to its peers.

He noted political trends and technological advances are making trade deals increasingly difficult to sign.

“I’d start with just talking again,” Shantz said.

Yet University of Toronto political scientist Lynette Ong urges caution in boosting trade with China, whom she said has weaponized its trading relations to extract political gains, particularly in Beijing’s 2019 restrictions on canola imports.

In a recent book chapter, she noted that China chose to restrict canola and pork instead of more exports that were more valuable to Canada like iron ores and wood pulp, which she suspects is because China would have a harder time finding other sources for those goods.

“At the core of the Chinese strategy is asymmetric interdependence that allows for its weaponization of trading relations on other countries that cannot easily pivot away from a reliance on Chinese sources,” Ong wrote.

“By pre-emptively diversifying exports of easily substitutable products that are vulnerable to asymmetrical transactions, we could reduce the leverage that adversaries might otherwise seek to exploit.”

Wang insists that China is against economic coercion, and argues unilateral tariffs undermine the global economy.

He also said that China recognizes Canada’s sovereignty, without directly noting the U.S. threatening to annex the country, and said China “will never interfere” in Canada’s relationship with the U.S.

“China firmly supports Canada’s sovereignty and territorial integrity just as China supports that of all the other countries, but of course we hope this kind of respect is mutual,” he said, a reference to issues around Taiwan and Tibet.

In January 2024, Beijing said it wanted to improve relations, but this would require Canada to have “correct cognition” about what caused the rift, and to focus on common goals instead of pointing to differences.

Wang said that since then, Ottawa and Beijing have taken steps to find common ground, and collaborate on various initiatives. But he said “groundless accusations” of foreign interference and questioning Chinese sovereignty hurt this progress.

“It is completely absurd and ridiculous to claim that China is interfering in Canada’s internal affairs,” he said.

In January, the national inquiry into foreign interference called China “the most active perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions” through diaspora communities, influencing politicians and cyber threats.

Canada has also taken part in exercises that seek to reinforce international rules around borders, which deem large swaths of the South China Sea to be international waters not owned by China and the Taiwan Strait to be open to navigable by foreign states. Ottawa has also raised concerns about democratic backsliding in Hong Kong and repression in Xinjiang.

Wang did not raise specific issues, but said some stances hurt building closer economic ties.

“Oftentimes, we see some disrespect and smearing and attacking on China’s core-interest issues, that is about China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Wang said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly revealed last week that China had executed four Canadians earlier this year. Neither government has suggested this was meant as a message to Canada, and Wang says the executions had nothing to do with the citizenship of those convicted.

“One thing that I found confusing and perplexing is that after the execution happened, a lot of people here in Canada are paying a lot of attention to the family of the criminals,” he said.

“Nobody has been talking about the human rights of the victims. And nobody has been paying attention to what has happened to the family of these victims.”

Article by Dylan Robertson.