What a difference an administration change makes in Ottawa, even though both the current and preceding governments are from the Liberal Party.
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Three years ago, Canada under Justin Trudeau labelled China a “disruptive global power”. Last month, his successor Mark Carney reached agreement with Beijing to revive the strategic partnership the two nations signed in 2005, with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand saying the framework would be “renewed and refocused”.
“We must be nuanced in our diplomacy,” she told the Canadian press. “What we are aiming to do is to recalibrate the relationship, so that it is constructive and pragmatic.”
As a goodwill gesture, Beijing this month announced an end to a five-year-old ban on group travel to Canada that had outlasted the Covid-19 pandemic, shortly after Carney met President Xi Jinping in South Korea. According to a Xinhua report, Xi told Carney the two nations were showing a “trend of recovery and positive development” that should “bring China-Canada relations back onto the right track”.
It is, of course, not just the relationship with China that needs renewing, but also that with other Asian nations as Canada pivots to the region economically.
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Last month, Carney also drummed up trade and business ties with regional and business leaders at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kuala Lumpur and advocated lowering tariffs and other trade barriers.