China is an ideal partner for Canada to seek trade diversification, with the energy sector to play an important part in strengthening bilateral ties, according to an expert.
Alex He, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), made the comments in an interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN) as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney concluded an official visit to China from January 14 to 17 -- the first by a Canadian leader in eight years.
During the visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Carney and emphasized that China and Canada should build a partnership grounded in mutual respect, shared development goals, trust, and cooperation. Xi called for strategic efforts to open new prospects for bilateral ties.
The two sides issued a joint statement following the meeting, agreeing to advance their new strategic partnership and deliver outcomes in the areas of macroeconomic engagement, economic and trade cooperation, energy, finance, people-to-people ties, and cultural exchanges. The two sides also signed eight cooperation documents, consolidating the momentum of improvement in bilateral relations.
He said that for scholars or experts in Canada, Carney’s visit to China concluded with unexpected positive outcomes.
"To be honest, I think it has exceeded my expectation and I think it exceeded most of the scholars or experts in Canada expectation. Judging by the analysis of most of the experts here before Carney visited, people just had a very conservative estimation that maybe they'll reduce half of the tariffs, but it turns out the result is more positive than most of the experts expected. Canada is facing an unprecedented negative international environment, especially because of the tariffs exerted by the Trump administration. So Canada faced tremendous pressure economically," he said.
"So that's why our Prime Minister Carney wants to diversify our trade with countries beyond the U.S., and China is an ideal target country for Canada to realize its policy goal in diversifying trade. And energy is a very important part of this, so we see from the joint statement between the two countries, between the two leaders. And Canada has an ambition to increase 50 percent its energy exports to China. And it is already happening now. I think the oil exported to China has already increased through the newly expanded TMX pipeline, and also, LNG export to China has already increased since last year. So this is a very good sign, and this is a very foundation for our bilateral relationship," said the expert.
China ideal partner for Canada's trade diversification push: expert
