China's state media is calling on the Canadian government to set a foreign policy path independent of the United States — what it calls “strategic autonomy.”
Canada has long been one of America’s closest allies, geographically and otherwise. But Beijing is hoping that President Donald Trump’s economic aggression — and, now, military action — against other countries will erode that longstanding relationship.
The government bristled at former U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to strenthen relations with Europe, Australia, India, Canada and others to confront China. Now it sees an opportunity to try to loosen those ties, though it remains cautious about how far that will go.
Carney, for his part, has focused on trade, describing the trip to China as part of a move to forge new partnerships around the world to end Canada's economic reliance on the American market.
The Canadian prime minister who took office last year, is seeking to revive a relationship with China that was marked with acrimony for more than six years under his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.
The downturn in relations started with the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in late 2018 at America's request and was fueled more recently by the Trudeau government's decision in 2024 to follow Biden's lead in imposing a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles. China has retaliated for both that and a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum with its own tariffs on Canadian exports including canola, seafood and pork.
“If the Canadian side reflects on the root causes of the setbacks in bilateral relations over the past few years — the previous Justin Trudeau government’s policies to contain China in lockstep with the United States — it will realize that it can avoid the same outcome by upholding its strategic autonomy in handling China-related issues,” the state-owned China Daily newspaper wrote in an editorial this week.
But China remains realistic about how far countries such as Canada could swing in its direction, given their fears of China's growing economic and military clout as well as their deep historical and cultural ties with the United States. They also have major differences with China over its booming exports and the threat they pose to employment in their countries, as well as over human rights and Taiwan.
Zhu Feng, the dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University, cautioned against overestimating the importance of Carney’s visit to China, “because Canada is not only a neighbor of the United States but also an ally.”
