Why China sees an opening with Canada and how far Ottawa can really 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. Trump has hit Canada with tariffs on its exports to the United States and suggested the vast, resource-rich country could become America's 51st state.

An attempt at diplomatic resuscitation

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.

“If Ottawa still chooses to subject its China policy to the will of Washington again in the future, it will only render its previous efforts to mend ties with Beijing in vain,” the English-language paper warned.

The government-run Global Times said: “Perhaps it was the heavy price paid for blindly following the U.S. in imposing high tariffs on China that awakened Ottawa’s sense of strategic autonomy.”

Canadian officials have said they expect Carney’s trip to produce progress on trade but not a definitive elimination of any tariffs.

Where could common ground be?

Chinese experts said the two countries could find common ground over the U.S. military intervention in oil-rich Venezuela that forcibly brought its president to New York to face charges and Trump's subsequent statements that Greenland, a Danish territory, should come under U.S. control.

“We can also see Canada’s current state of considerable unease towards the U.S.,” said Cui Shoujun, a foreign policy and Latin America expert at Renmin University of China. “If the U.S. can claim Greenland, might it then lay claim to Canada?”

He also predicted that Trump's move against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would strengthen the strategic autonomy of Latin American countries to resist possible American interference in their affairs.

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.”

Trump's pressure on traditional U.S. partners may open up some space for China to expand relations with them, but American allies will need to balance that with their continuing dependence on U.S. economic and military strength. They may be able to reduce that dependence somewhat in the short term — but it's unlikely they will be to eliminate it for the foreseeable future.