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Canada top envoy labels China ‘increasingly disruptive’ force, Beijing responds
China-Canada Relations: The toughly worded remarks from Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, made during a keynote speech Wednesday in Toronto.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top diplomat called China an “increasingly disruptive global power” and warned that Canadians need to be “clear-eyed” about conducting business with the Asian giant.
The toughly worded remarks from Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, made during a keynote speech Wednesday in Toronto, provide a preview of the government’s long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy.
“If there is one thing that 2022 has shown, it is that the tectonic plates of the world’s power structures are moving,” Joly said according to the prepared text of her address to the Asia Pacific Foundation and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Canada has recently taken steps to distance itself economically from Chinese influence.
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Earlier this year, Trudeau’s government joined its closest intelligence allies in banning Huawei Technologies Co. from fifth-generation wireless networks. And last week, Canada ordered Chinese investors to divest from three lithium mining companies under tougher foreign investment rules around the nation’s critical minerals sector.
Joly and Trudeau are due to leave on a lengthy trip through Asia for the Group of 20 summit and other meetings at the end of this week.
The Indo-Pacific strategy -- which will be released within a month -- is meant to deepen Canada’s trading and security relationships with democracies and like-minded countries in the region. But Joly said it’s also meant to show Canada wants to “be at the table, step up our game, and increase our influence.”
She said the strategy must outline an approach to China, Canada’s second-biggest trading partner after the US.
China complained to Canada about Joly’s remarks, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Thursday at a regular press briefing in Beijing, adding that they “contradict facts, smack of ideological bias and openly interfere in China’s internal affairs.”
