Canada PM hails strategic partnership with China to adapt to ‘new global realities’

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China as he held talks in Beijing with President Xi Jinping, the first visit by a Canadian leader in eight years.

Addressing Xi in the Great Hall of the People, Carney said: “Together we can build on the best of what this relationship has been in the past to create a new one adapted to new global realities.”

Carney announced on Friday that Canada and China had reached a preliminary trade deal aimed at reducing tariffs, including a commitment to import 49,000 electric vehicles from China at preferential tariff rates.

Engagement and cooperation would form “the foundation of our new strategic partnership”, Carney said, adding that agriculture, energy, finance offered opportunities for the most immediate progress.

Canada and China had been locked in years of diplomatic spats after the retaliatory arrests of each other’s citizens and a series of tit-for-tat trade disputes.

But Carney has sought to reset ties as part of a broader effort to reduce Canada’s reliance on the US, its principal economic partner, after President Donald Trump sharply raised tariffs on Canadian goods.

Carney’s state visit, the result of careful diplomatic calculations, underscores the strain of Canada’s trade war with the US and the urgent need to expand exports to offset mounting economic pressure from its neighbour and largest trading partner.

During the visit, the two sides signed an agreement to cooperate on clean energy and fossil fuels, reopening ministerial-level talks that had reportedly been frozen for nearly a decade.

The agreement opens the door to Canada importing more clean-energy technology from China and raises the prospect of increased Canadian fossil fuel exports to the Chinese market, part of Carney’s push to double non-US exports. In 2024, only 2% of Canada’s crude oil was exported to China.

Additional agreements were signed covering forestry, culture and tourism.

Welcoming Carney, Xi said China-Canada relations had reached a turning point at their previous meeting on the sidelines of the Apec summit in October 2025.

“It can be said that our meeting last year opened a new chapter in turning China-Canada relations toward improvement,” Xi told the Canadian prime minister.

He added that “the healthy and stable development of China-Canada relations serves the common interests of our two countries”, and that he was “glad” to see efforts in recent months to restore cooperation.

Relations between Beijing and Ottawa withered in 2018 after Canada’s arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, on a US warrant, prompting China’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges.

In the years that followed, the two countries imposed tariffs on each other’s exports, while China was also accused of interfering in Canada’s elections.

Carney has sought a strategic pivot, and Beijing has signalled its willingness to get relations back on “the right track”.

The Canadian prime minister, who on Thursday met China’s premier, Li Qiang, is also scheduled to hold talks with business leaders to discuss trade.

Canada, traditionally a staunch US ally, has been hit particularly hard by Trump’s steep tariffs on steel, aluminium, vehicles and lumber. In October, Carney said Canada should double its non-US exports by 2035 to reduce reliance on the US.

However, the US remains far and away its largest market, buying about 75% of Canadian goods in 2024, according to government statistics. While Ottawa has stressed that China is Canada’s second-largest market, it lags far behind, buying less than 4% of Canadian exports in 2024.

Officials from Canada and China have been in talks to lower tariffs and boost bilateral trade, though an agreement has yet to be reached.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report