Chinese foreign minister’s visit to Canada a ‘positive sign’: trade minister

OTTAWA — A planned visit by China’s foreign minister to Canada this week — the first such visit in 10 years — offers a positive sign about the state of the Canada-China relationship, International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu said Tuesday.

Wang Yi arrives in Canada on Thursday for a three-day visit that will include meetings with both Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Prime Minister Mark Carney. The last time a Chinese foreign minister visited Canada was in 2016.

Wang and Anand are expected to discuss the recently updated Canada-China Strategic Partnership, trade, investment and global security, says a statement released by Anand’s office last week.

“It shows that our relationship is growing in the right direction,” Sidhu told The Canadian Press.

Carney, who travelled to Beijing in January, told reporters Wednesday he looks forward to the minister’s visit and will meet with him personally.

He said the visit will offer a “valuable exchange of views.”

Relations between the Canadian and Chinese governments deteriorated after the detention of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou by Canada in 2018 and the subsequent detention of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in China.

In January, after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Carney secured tariff relief for Canadian agricultural sectors, including canola and seafood. In exchange, Canada agreed to drop the 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs into the country at a reduced tariff rate of 6.1 per cent.

Sidhu, who visited China last month, said he met with EV companies and had conversations about Canada’s supply chains.

“We welcome Chinese EVs to Canada, but we want you to make those in Canada, eventually using Canadian supply chains, using Canadian workers,” he said. “The Chinese have done this with Spain, with Hungary, with the U.K., with many like-minded partners and we’d like them to do the same thing here in Canada.”

Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, told The Canadian Press the planned visit is “significant.”

“We’ll see what the discussions are like, especially when it comes to investment, to sensitive areas like EVs, batteries,” she said.

Nadjibulla also said the fate of Taiwan could come up during the visit. Beijing’s envoy recently told The Globe and Mail that while he was optimistic about warming relations between Canada and China, official visits by Canadian lawmakers to Taiwan — which China claims as part of its territory — risk setting back that progress.

Conservative MP Michael Chong met with Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te earlier this month. He said the meeting was meant to assert Canadian sovereignty in the face of Beijing’s warnings to Canadian lawmakers.

“I’ll be paying attention to how the two sides are framing the overall strategic partnership,” said Nadjibulla. “It’s the first visit in 10 years, so it is very significant and we should be paying attention to how they talk about the implementation of the strategic partnership.”

The federal government is looking to diversify its trade relationships and has set out to double non-U.S. exports over the next decade.

Carney’s government also has boasted about signing 20 strategic trade and defence agreements around the world over the past year.

The prime minister has travelled to 25 countries on 17 international trips since March 2025, including China and India, two countries that have had strained relations with Canada in recent years.

As part of the government’s diversification plans, Sidhu is leading a trade delegation to Japan next month.

He said “sign-up has gone through the roof” and that it will be Canada’s largest-ever trade delegation to the Indo-Pacific.

“You can see the demand from Canadian businesses on exporting to non-U.S. markets and it’s huge and we’re going to help fulfil that appetite by taking businesses there and opening up some doors in Japan,” he said.

“There’s a lot of conversation around clean tech, around defence, around agri-food and many other key sectors. Japan wants to do more with Canada, we want to do more with Japan, we’re both strong economies.”

Opposition MPs have called on the Liberal government in recent weeks to disclose the full text of a memorandum of understanding between the RCMP and China’s Ministry of Public Security.

NDP public safety critic Jenny Kwan said in an open letter earlier this month that she wants to know if safeguards are in place to prevent Canadian information from being used against dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists or diaspora communities.

She said public statements indicate the memorandum concerns co-operation on transnational crime, cybercrime, narcotics and corruption, and the establishment of bilateral law enforcement working groups.

Carney said Wednesday the government doesn’t make a habit of releasing security agreements with other governments “for reasons of operational security.”

“That is standard practice for this government, previous governments as well,” he said. “So, I don’t see a reason to change that in this circumstance.”

A release from Global Affairs Canada says more than 1.7 million Canadian residents are of Chinese origin, and tourism flows and ongoing cultural exchanges enrich bilateral linkages.

It also says China remains a critical commercial market for Canadian businesses, with merchandise exports reaching $34.4 billion in 2025 and overall two-way merchandise trade in 2025 reaching $125.1 billion.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2026.

—With files from Jim Bronskill and Sarah Ritchie

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press