Analysis: Canada's leader leaves China pronouncing success, but Trump lurks in the background

Canadian leader Mark Carney met China's Xi Jinping this week. The two statesmen talked. Fractured relationships began to heal. And a third man, though he wasn't in the room, nevertheless made his presence clearly known: Donald Trump.

The American president — his policies, his approaches to international relations, his freewheeling and provocative statements about Canada — helped inform meetings 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) away between two nations working to reestablish ties stalled for nearly a decade as they grapple with the same challenge: wondering what Washington might do next.

Canada's reengagement with China, its second-largest trading partner behind the U.S., is unfolding in keeping with a term Chinese media have loved this past week — “strategic autonomy.” Essentially, it means that a nation like Canada, so intertwined with the United States for so long as unswerving allies, needs other pillars to hold up its international foundations given recent speed bumps in the Washington-Ottawa relationship.

What does such strategic autonomy look like? For Canada, it means a trading partner with whom Carney acknowledges differences in culture and “ways of life” — terms he invoked when asked about China's approach to human rights. That's one way of saying that ties between two very different countries have political and cultural limits — particularly in terms of their views of freedom.

Carney, who met with several leading Chinese companies in Beijing, says his government is focused on building an economy less reliant on the United States at what he called “a time of global trade disruption.”

“The security landscape continues to change,” said Carney, who departed Beijing on Saturday. “We face many threats. You manage those threats through alliances.”

Real results, with a larger narrative behind them

Certainly, concrete results emerged from the visit.

Canada agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Carney said. He spoke of an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1%, growing to about 70,000 over five years. China will reduce its total tariff on canola seeds, a major Canadian export, from 84% to about 15%. The Chinese side was less specific about what came out of the meetings.

As much as the deal itself, though, what it represented was significant — effectively a workaround for Canada after being treated by the United States in the past year like it has rarely been treated before. Trump hasn't struck a deal with Canada to reduce tariffs that are upsetting the Canadian economy, and he irritated many Canadians by throwing around language saying he might consider making Canada the 51st state.

Analysts from China and Canada characterized this week's outcomes as mutually beneficial, particularly given the tenor of the times — and also politically astute, even though Carney made a point of saying the agreements are preliminary.

“China is succeeding in driving a small wedge between Canada and the U.S.,” said Nelson Wiseman, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto.

China stands to gain in a number of respects. Firstly, Canada has nearly 2 million citizens of Chinese descent living there as of 2021, in addition to many Chinese nationals who are visitors or permanent residents. The nearest major Canadian city to China, Vancouver, is heavily inflected with Chinese culture. That means Beijing's approach to these relations will likely be watched closely within Canada's borders.

More significant, though, is this: China has increasingly styled itself as a global counterbalance to what it has long called American “hegemony.” This has accelerated in recent years as China's international profile and global influence rise, both because of its mammoth economy and efforts to deploy soft power through infrastructure as far off as Africa and Latin America — part of its so-called Belt and Road Initiative.

Both sides want stability amid uncertainty

China's official Xinhua News Agency, in a commentary Saturday, cited the importance of ties with Canada particularly in “a time of heightened uncertainty” — a euphemism that includes both nations' efforts to figure out the ins and outs of the Trump administration's fast-moving priorities. It cited “economic fragmentation, geopolitical tensions and resurgent protectionism” — all challenges that both nations are dealing with when it comes to Washington.

Just as noteworthy as the leaders' careful language, though, was the seeming reluctance to blow past it.

Xi was his usual oblique self in his comments. “It can be said,” he said after meeting Carney, "that our meeting last year opened a new chapter in turning China–Canada relations toward improvement." And Carney, clearly cognizant of the two behemoths he finds himself between, parried questions about Canada's U.S. relationship at an outdoor Beijing news conference in the freezing winter weather.

While he insisted that relations between Ottawa and Washington were “much more multifaceted” than with Beijing, Carney followed up: “But yes, the way our relationship has progressed in recent months with China, it is more predictable.” It was unclear if he meant more predictable than before with China or more predictable than Canada's relationship with the United States, though the reporter's question was clearly about the latter.

Rapprochement can be delicate, and that was certainly the case here. Yet in world affairs and diplomacy, predictability is a prized commodity — particularly over the past decade, as Trump and other populists upend decades of post-World War II norms in international relations.

“My guess is that the Chinese want the opposite in Canada to what Trump wants — a coherent country with a functioning economy. And of course friendlier to China, where a relatively strong Canada is more desirable than not," said Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto.

"Trump wants the opposite — a fragmented satellite that is easier to bully and extort from,” Bothwell said.

Trump did, however, commend Carney for making a deal with Beijing. “That’s what he should be doing and it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that.”

Tariffs aside, what long-term impact Carney's visit will have in both Canada and China remains unclear. Trump has been known to switch gears, and tomorrow's Washington could be sending a very different message to Canada than today's. For the moment, though, when it comes to China, Xi's government now has a stronger friend in North America than it did a week ago. And for Beijing, in all this global uncertainty, that might be more than enough.

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Ted Anthony has been writing about international affairs for The Associated Press since 1995. Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.