Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said they hope to find common ground and maintain communication despite tensions across the Pacific.
But one senior analyst says the path to improved relations that Beijing hopes for may not be possible for Canadians.
“This is a positive development. We need regular dialogue at the highest levels,” said Bina Najibullah, vice-president of research at the Canada Asia-Pacific Foundation.
“That’s important, but not because we need some kind of normalization or intimacy. That’s not the goal.”
The two ministers met on Thursday, four months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was impossible to get closer to China, due in part to concerns about foreign interference.
Ms. Jolie requested the call, and her office said it was part of her promise to take a pragmatic approach to diplomacy and continue dialogue with countries with which Ottawa disagrees.
Statements from both countries acknowledged that diplomatic tensions persist, but suggested the other side was causing the tensions.
Both countries remained committed to maintaining open communication channels.
The two also discussed the conflict between Israel and Hamas, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and cooperation in the fight against climate change.
Both countries have tasked authorities with taking next steps, including expanding exchanges between Chinese and Canadians and cooperating on trade and biodiversity.
Najibullah said this was a positive sign that both countries wanted further action, noting that this was the first ministerial meeting since April 2022.
In March 2023, Jolie also clashed with her then-Chinese counterpart Ching Guan during a summit in India, although that meeting was not formally arranged.
The lack of dialogue makes Canada an outlier compared to its Western allies and other G7 countries, which have regular high-level interactions with the Chinese government.
After years of diplomatic tensions between the two countries, a new statement was released pledging further communication.
The Chinese government detained Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig from late 2018 to fall 2021, and imposed a multi-year embargo on some imports from Canada, which was linked to Huawei’s Meng. It is widely seen as retaliation for Chief Financial Officer Wanzhou’s arrest in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant.
China also rejected the language of Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which at the end of 2022 labeled the country an “increasingly destructive global power” that “increasingly disregards” international rules and norms.
Last year, Beijing excluded Canada from a move to ease restrictions on overseas group travel, saying Ottawa had “exaggerated” allegations of foreign interference.
In an English translation of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Thursday reading published in state media, Wang reportedly said that the two countries have significant influence in the Asia-Pacific region. He insisted that there were no conflicts of interest or historical disputes between the two countries.
Najibullah said these are all positive signs that China is looking to improve relations with Canada as the country emerges from a difficult economic year and seeks to improve relations with several countries.
“It’s good for Canada to be recognized as an influential country in the region. It means our Indo-Pacific strategy is clearly having an early impact, because that’s exactly what it’s meant to be. ,” she said.
But he said Joly’s statement changes the trajectory of Canada’s China policy, including pursuing closer economic ties with other Asian countries, given Canada’s view that China is a destructive world power. He said it was not.
China presents ways to improve relations with Canada
Wang also listed three ways Ottawa could improve relations, some of which Najibullah said would be difficult or impossible for Canadians.
The first is about “correct recognition,” which Canada acknowledges has caused a diplomatic rift, but Wang did not elaborate on how.
The Liberal Party disagrees with this characterization, arguing that China has different values and is disrupting the world order. Wang said China does not challenge international rules, but rather seeks development.
“This is a very strange idea, and it’s essentially telling Canada and Canadians how to think about China and that in order to have a good relationship with China, we need to have the right mindset,” Najibulla said. It’s a thing,” he said. “I think that’s very troubling.”
The second is “mutual respect,” which includes recognizing Taiwan as part of China and working constructively “to ensure that differences do not dominate bilateral relations,” Wang said. Ta.
The third is to focus on “win-win cooperation,” such as “pan-security of economic issues” and avoiding the politicization of trade.
“This is a veiled reference to our policy of de-risking and diversifying from China,” Najibullah said.
