China Urges Canada to Break From US    01/13 06:21

   

   BEIJING (AP) -- As Canadian leader Mark Carney arrives in China on 
Wednesday, his hosts see an opportunity to peel the longtime U.S. ally away 
from their rival, at least a bit.

   China's state media is calling on the Canadian government to set a foreign 
policy path independent of the United States -- what it calls "strategic 
autonomy."

   Canada has long been one of America's closest allies, geographically and 
otherwise. But Beijing is hoping that President Donald Trump's economic 
aggression -- and, now, military action -- against other countries will erode 
that longstanding relationship.

   The government bristled at former U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to 
strengthen relations with Europe, Australia, India, Canada and others to 
confront China. Now it sees an opportunity to try to loosen those ties, though 
it remains cautious about how far that will go.

   Carney, for his part, has focused on trade, describing the trip to China as 
part of a move to forge new partnerships around the world to end Canada's 
economic reliance on the American market. Trump has hit Canada with tariffs on 
its exports to the United States and suggested the vast, resource-rich country 
could become America's 51st state.

   An attempt at diplomatic resuscitation

   The Canadian prime minister, who took office last year, is seeking to revive 
a relationship with China that was marked with acrimony for more than six years 
under his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.

   The downturn in relations started with the arrest of a Chinese tech 
executive in late 2018 at America's request and was fueled more recently by the 
Trudeau government's decision in 2024 to follow Biden's lead in imposing a 100% 
tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles. China has retaliated for both that 
and a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum with its own tariffs on Canadian exports 
including canola, seafood and pork.

   "If the Canadian side reflects on the root causes of the setbacks in 
bilateral relations over the past few years -- the previous Justin Trudeau 
government's policies to contain China in lockstep with the United States -- it 
will realize that it can avoid the same outcome by upholding its strategic 
autonomy in handling China-related issues," the state-owned China Daily 
newspaper wrote in an editorial this week.

   "If Ottawa still chooses to subject its China policy to the will of 
Washington again in the future, it will only render its previous efforts to 
mend ties with Beijing in vain," the English-language paper warned.

   The government-run Global Times said: "Perhaps it was the heavy price paid 
for blindly following the U.S. in imposing high tariffs on China that awakened 
Ottawa's sense of strategic autonomy."

   Canadian officials have said they expect Carney's trip to produce progress 
on trade but not a definitive elimination of any tariffs.

   Where could common ground be?

   Chinese experts said the two countries could find common ground over the 
U.S. military intervention in oil-rich Venezuela that forcibly brought its 
president to New York to face charges and Trump's subsequent statements that 
Greenland, a Danish territory, should come under U.S. control.

   "We can also see Canada's current state of considerable unease towards the 
U.S.," said Cui Shoujun, a foreign policy and Latin America expert at Renmin 
University of China. "If the U.S. can claim Greenland, might it then lay claim 
to Canada?"

   He also predicted that Trump's move against Venezuelan President Nicols 
Maduro would strengthen the strategic autonomy of Latin American countries to 
resist possible American interference in their affairs.

   But China remains realistic about how far countries such as Canada could 
swing in its direction, given their fears of China's growing economic and 
military clout as well as their deep historical and cultural ties with the 
United States. They also have major differences with China over its booming 
exports and the threat they pose to employment in their countries, as well as 
over human rights and Taiwan.

   Zhu Feng, the dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing 
University, cautioned against overestimating the importance of Carney's visit 
to China, "because Canada is not only a neighbor of the United States but also 
an ally."

   Trump's pressure on traditional U.S. partners may open up some space for 
China to expand relations with them, but American allies will need to balance 
that with their continuing dependence on U.S. economic and military strength. 
They may be able to reduce that dependence somewhat in the short term -- but 
it's unlikely they will be to eliminate it for the foreseeable future.