The Current - Should Canada get cozier with China?

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Trade with the United States can seem dicey these days. Is more trade with China the answer? Or an even bigger risk?

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Thank you, Mr. President. It is a pleasure to meet you again and to meet you for the first time in my capacity as prime minister. It might not be a full thaw, but it seems like some of the chill between Canada and China is lifting. The mere fact that the prime minister met with China's president today is significant. The last time a Canadian Prime Minister officially met with the Chinese President was eight years ago. This time, Mark Carney and President Xi Jinping got together on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, and the Prime Minister sounded pleased with the result.

We now have a turning point in the relationship, a turning point that creates opportunities for Canadian families, for Canadian businesses. Of course, there is a reason. reason why Ottawa is looking towards China now. The United States has slapped tariffs on some Canadian key industries shaking the country's economy and its confidence in its biggest trading partner. Prime Minister Mark Carney says he wants to double exports to other countries and China has a big appetite for the things we've got to sell. But it hasn't been that long since Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavar were locked up in Chinese prisons or since the Hogue

investigation looked at China's foreign interference in Canada's elections, leaving some to wonder if a closer relationship with China is worth the risk. John Baird was Foreign Affairs Minister under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and worked with China at the time. John Baird, good morning. Good morning. The Prime Minister says that this is a turning point. He has agreed to make a visit to China.

We don't know when, but we did not get news immediately out of this meeting that, for instance, tariffs on EVs and canola had been lifted. If this is a turning point, is Canada turning in the right direction? I think so. I think it's imperative. I mean, diplomacy is all about engaging with other countries and other leaders where we don't always share the same values and sometimes the same interests. And a small percentage of the world's population lives in a liberal democracy like Canada.

So it's imperative that big countries like China that we're able to engage with them. So for a first meeting in eight years, that's a big step. You say engage with them, but what should the goal be? I mean, presumably stronger commercial ties, but how do we balance that with some of the concerns we were just raising? I think the Harper government in its first two or three years had a bit of a frosty relationship where perhaps went too hard on the value side, not enough on the interest side. Stephen Harper famously left China talking about Canadians not wanting to worship the almighty dollar at the expense of other things.

I think 2009, 2015, it was a much more balanced relationship where you can have direct respectful, but direct talks. You know, Canadians would expect our prime minister, whether it's Harper or Carney, to raise difficult issues. but rather than using bullhorn diplomacy at home, saying it directly behind closed doors respectfully, but forcefully is the right way to do it. We really have to repair the relationship with China. Even before Madam Meng was arrested,

we had the federal government turned down the sale of ACON construction. They put the anti-China clause in the renegotiated NAFTA. And, of course, then the disastrous trip that Mr. Carnegie's predecessor made, where at the last minute they were going to launch free trade discussions, I was very supportive of the last minute brought in a progressive trade deal, which literally Premier Lee sent him home early before the announcement could even be made. And the Madam Meng thing was obviously very bad for Canada, particularly for the two Michaels, but it was more the way that it was handled that I think got Beijing's ire. The idea that the prime minister is going

to make a visit to China, tell us about the significance of that. What advice would you offer him for that business? I think it's tremendously important. I guess the premises starts off with one one thing in this corner, he's met Xi before. He's a known commodity, which is good. But I think John Manley, the former foreign minister, and under the Kretchen government, told me, don't go to China, go regularly. So for his foreign minister, that's something that's important

because you need to build a relationship so that there's trust so that you can accomplish things. So I think a visit is a good thing. That's how you advance. That's how you advance our interests. And our interests are in trade and commerce, agricultural interests. But, you know, just about every international forum, we have to work with China.

So whether it's on peace and security, raining in Iran, whether it's on climate change, whether it's at the G20. It's imperative that we have a constructive relationship or at least we can advance those interests that we're like-minded on. And so I think a visit is a good thing. It also gives officials, you know, a date to work forward to resolutions. We didn't get any wins today. I mean, it's very much like the meeting with Trump. The meeting went well, but no results. for Canadians. But we'll see.

Well, and let's talk a little bit more about some of the issues that are on the table. And one issue that I think is interesting in terms of embodying this question of what the right balance is, the balancing act that Canada is seeking. On the economic front, is this question of the EV tariffs, right? Canada slapped tariffs on Chinese EVs was following suit with what the Americans were doing. China retaliated with tariffs on Canada on seafood, pork, canola. Canada could remove those tariffs and expects based on comments by the Chinese ambassador that China would back off too. But this comes at a time when the Canadian government is deeply worried about Canada's auto sector.

And the auto sector is saying, well, you can't allow a new flood of Chinese EVs, and that's just going to make things worse. How do you think the Canadian government should handle that? Well, with every action, there's a reaction. That's what we got when they slapped tariffs on our agricultural products. The real issue is not just the auto sector. It's that it was an initiative that President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau did together, slap the E-P tariffs on together to try to make sure that we had domestic assembly and production in North America. Well, and they suggested that Chinese government was like committing mass oversupply because of the way it controls its market.

They weren't just saying they wanted to protect the domestic market. It was good for us. They were accusing China of unfair practices to some extent. Well, now we've got the, now we've got the worst of most scenarios. got. I mean, Trojan Trump has been very clear. He wants all auto assembly to come from Canada back to the, we repatriated back to the United States. We've already seen two major facilities moving to the United States. We saw obviously the leak from Honda during the election campaign that it's Allison Planet would close. So it's like we're going to get the worst of both worlds. If you travel around the world, though, the Chinese EVs are very popular. We spent some time in

Dubai recently, and they're everywhere. And they're much more popular among consumers because they're less expensive and the value proposition is better. So if you want to flight climate change, obviously there's a major way to do it. What about another piece of this? China's been accused of trying to interfere in Canada's elections, spying, intimidating, and harassing people on Canadian soil. What do you say to Canadians who say, well, why would we want to get closer to a country who would do things like that?

Well, you know, listen, we've got a, we've got to, the government has said they want to double our trade with other countries other than the United States. So the first one, the biggest economy in the world we're in trouble with. Now it's the second economy some people don't want to engage with. We have major problems with India, which appears to be getting worse under this government, with the slapping on agricultural tariffs just this week. You know, we've got to deal with people.

We don't always share their values. And we've invested Canada under successive governments, both parties have invested in a lot in this relationship over the last 55 years and let's try to get it back on track. But go in with both eyes wide open. Don't not acknowledge that there are problems and then seek to address them. Dealing with is one thing, but of course, they're the specifics of how we do with particular concerns. China does not like some of the criticisms that have come from Canada in recent years about its actions in Tibet, its treatment of the Uyghur minority, the crackdown in Hong Kong. There are some who worried Canada

is now going to stop speaking out about human rights. Mehmet Toti is the head of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project in Ottawa. Let's listen to a bit of what he told us about his concerns. I know that my mother and three siblings already killed by Chinese government in concentration camps. That was what I was told when I was called by the Chinese state police. And millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps still ongoing. And the Chinese threat to Taiwan is still ongoing. The repression in Hong Kong still ongoing.

And the same China was regarded as a security threat to our future by our prime minister. Just seven months ago. Why then we change in 180 degrees? Mimet Toti there is speaking about a remark that Mark Carney made during the election debates when he was asked to name Canada's biggest security threat. He said China. I wonder, though, John Bair, do you think he is right to worry that his concerns are going to be pushed aside, is Canada tricycle closer to China? I think to take a balanced approach.

You know, I sat with Stephen Harper when meeting with President Xi and his predecessor. We brought up difficult issues in a respectful but direct way. I think we're more likely to have an impact if we're talking than if we're not when it comes to the Chinese. When every country is different, I think though the terms of political discourse are really important. When you, I mean, obviously what's going on with the Uyghurs and parts of China are a real deep. profound concern. But when you begin to use words like concentration camps or as the Canadian Parliament adopted the word genocide, you start to making an analogous to what happened during the Holocaust in the middle of the last century, which of course, it is not in any way.

No, I mean, there's a United Nations definition of genocide, though, that does not equivalent. We can go to a dictionary and look at the definition. But I think for most Canadians and most people around the world, when you use concentration camps and genocide, you're drawing an immediate link to the slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust, which, of course, there's nothing of that scale going on in China. Okay, we are going to leave this conversation here, but thank you for your time and your insights today, John Bear. Great to be with you.

John Baird was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2015. He's now a senior business advisor at the law firm Bennett Jones. Margaret McQuag-Johnson is a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She's with me in our Ottawa studio. Margaret, hello. Good to see you again. What do you make of what has come out of this meeting?

There's obvious enthusiasm on the part of the Prime Minister. He, in fact, said in recent years we have not been engaged. This is the first formal meeting. Distance is not the way to solve problems, not the way to serve our people pragmatic. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in Canada, and Google is helping Canadians innovate in ways both big and small. From mapping accessible spaces of the disabled community,

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That's absolutely right. And it's terrific that we are re-engaging after seven years. It's been a long time. And as John Baird says, it's great to be able to communicate and have discussions of substantive issues with the Chinese again. And so all of that is good. But at the same time, the China of today is not the China, that we saw during Prime Minister Harper.

And this is what you're seeing with the concerns of Mammatote, where, you know, in my experience on the Uyghur issues, the Jewish community is really strong in support of the Uyghurs. That's really telling. And so, you know, this is an area where we have to have a continuing concern. At the same time, it's good to get the ex-examination, economic discussions back on a firm footing, but the Prime Minister's right also to go cautiously. And we didn't see a big announcement today.

And something is in the works, and we'll see what that is. You had talked about EVs, for example. There is a real risk with EVs while our auto sector is under real stress from the United States. is due to Trump. Trump's not going to be there forever. And I think we will get to a point, you know, five years down the road where we will still have an auto sector, but not if we have been bringing in Chinese EVs that are always priced 10 to 15 percent under the market price of their competition in the new market. I want to be really explicit here about a couple pieces of this, because this relationship is so big, there are so many things happening. I wonder,

First, can you spell out for us what you believe the risk really is for Canadians if we get closer? We understand the benefit. It is selling more goods to the Chinese. It's helping our economy. What's at risk? Well, we have to look at what China's looking for for the medium to long term. Their objective is to become the prominent economic power in the world. And by 2049, the anniversary of the Communist Party taking over in China. And they're taking major steps now to go that route. They also plan to take over Taiwan. Taiwan's a democratic country. It's an ally in many ways of Canada. And so, you know, one of the things that we've been told by the Chinese ambassador is we have to be silent on Taiwan. We have to be silent on...

Canada's official policy, the one China policy, recognizes that the People's Republic, the PRC is the sole legitimate government of China. It does not endorse or challenge the PRC's position on Taiwan. That's according to the Canada-China Committee here in one parliament. Right. At the same time, we didn't, at the time when this change took place, we didn't say, you know, China's in charge now. we said, we take note of, take note is important. We take note of that's China's position. We didn't take that position ourselves.

Gradually over time, I think the understanding is that this is what China wants and therefore we kind of need to go along, but that's not our official position. So those are some of the concerns, for instance, that we develop closer economic ties and things really go sideways and it puts us in a difficult position, sideways in Taiwan. for instance. What about protecting this country? I mean, we say, oh, well, we want the prime minister to be cautious, but concretely, what kind of guardrails can be put in place? Well, that goes back to the prime minister saying that China's our greatest geopolitical risk, and that hasn't changed. We've got a Chinese national in court this month for spying

Hyder Quebec. Hydro Quebec, where the CEO, until recently, was Michael's SABIA, now the clerk of the Previ Council. So there's a lot at risk, but I think we can set up guardrails. I think EVs, in my view, should be a non-starter because of the data risk. It's not just the data from the cameras and the microphones in the car itself. It's when you plug in your phone to recharge, it's downloading the data from the phone, and all of that goes back to China. That's got to be a concern. And so we We need to look at an alternative to EVs like opening up more energy investment instead of allowing EVs into Canada. Okay, we only have a few minutes left, but I do want to talk about another issue surrounding political pressure and China.

Former Conservative MP Kenny Chu lost his seat in the 2021 election after a misinformation campaign about him on social media platforms that was tied to China. The Hugg Commission said it may have cost him his seat, although there was no way to prove it. let's listen to what he told us about his concerns. I don't think people are forgetting the kind of political interference. Some of these countries like China and India had done to Canada. And that's why in 2024 they introduced Bill C-70, including a political influence registry similar to what I advocated for. But they have never implemented it.

And it's almost like it was a political hot potato that they just toss it around until the temperature cools down and they just sweep whatever dirt under the carpet. What do you think about the fact that that foreign influence registry hasn't been set up? Do you endorse Mr. Chu's analysis there? I do. I was an assistant deputy minister in the federal government, and I know it doesn't take more than three years to design and put in place something like that. We have them in Australia, the U.K., the U.S., so we know what works. They've been working on regulations for about a year and a half now, and at least that's what they say. I think they've been ready for a long time, and the government's been nervous about when it would reveal that.

Well, and what do you do now as you are trying to get closer to China? Is that the time to stand up and say we're doing this? I think after the prime minister's trip to China would be the right time to do it. And so I think, you know, any time from now on, we should expect to see that registry in place. We've got about a minute left, Margaret, and I'd like to ask you in closing a question I asked John Baird, presuming that this visit is happening soon. We don't have a timeline, but the prime minister is going over to China. What's the best piece of advice you would offer him?

I would say focus on areas where collaboration is safe, where we know that there's low risk, like climate change, we co-chair an international research organization on climate change with China. International finance, which was apparently discussed today with the prime minister and the president, and other sectors potentially investment in energy in lieu of having a slew of cheap Chinese EVs enter our market at a time when our auto sector is under stress. But even with all these concerns, it is inevitable. that we're likely to grow a bit closer to China. We will. And there's a lot to be gained from that,

but in areas, we just have to be cautious about how we do it. Okay. Thank you very much for your time this morning. My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. Margaret McQuig-Johnston is a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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