In 2015, just weeks after being appointed prime minister and forming his cabinet, Justin Trudeau was at the G20 leaders summit in Turkey. His trip is notable for the mutual admiration he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have for each other.
But before leaving for the G20 summit in Bali next week, Mr. Trudeau has taken a different approach towards China.
He replied a Global News report that the cabinet was informed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that at least 11 candidates in the last federal election were secretly sponsored by China.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing that countries, state actors from all over the world, whether it’s China or others, are continuing to play the game,” Trudeau told reporters. aggression against our institutions, against our democracies.” “The world is changing, and sometimes in pretty scary ways, and we need to make sure that the people tasked with keeping us safe on a daily basis can do just that.”
But China’s criticism did not end there. Over the weekend, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly called China an “increasingly disruptive global power”.
She also had a word of warning.
“What I want to say to Canadians doing business in and with China: You have to be smart,” Ms. Joly said. “As Canada’s top diplomat, it’s my job to tell you that there are geopolitical risks associated with doing business with this country.”
Also this week, François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Industry, ordered three Chinese companies divest their equity In Canadian companies mining lithium and other scarce minerals, there is growing demand for things like electric car batteries.
Trudeau took office promising to mend relations with China. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, those relationships have soured, in the view of many in the Canadian business community, to the detriment of trade relations.
But the current government’s reversal of relations with China has solidified since December 2018, when the Chinese government imprisoned Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two Canadians in China, shortly after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese telecoms executive, in Vancouver, at the request of the US government.
During the 1,030-day stalemate that followed, Trudeau and his cabinet ministers cautiously criticized China, apparently fearing that it could endanger the two Canadians. But after the hostage-taking ended, the government gradually took a more positive stance.
Last month in Washington, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland called on democracies to break with other countries. ruled by autocratic governments and to move toward trading with each other, an idea commonly referred to as “making friends”.
Also in Washington last monthChampagne said Canada wants to “decouple, certainly from China, and I mean other regimes around the world that don’t share the same values.”
Global concern about China escalated last month when Mr. Xi used the Communist Party Congress to self-destruct almost absolute power while pointing out that security of the state, not economic issues, is the priority of the state.
My colleague Li Yuan wrote in this week’s New World column that members of the Chinese business community are increasingly unwilling to turn a blind eye to Xi’s takeover and what they fear. can happen.
[Read: China’s Business Elite See the Country That Let Them Thrive Slipping Away]
Tripp Mickle, Chang Che, and Daisuke Wakabayashi also examine how Apple’s relationship with China, where cheap manufacturing has turned Apple into the world’s most valuable corporation, has become a liability.
[Read: Apple Built Its Empire With China. Now Its Foundation Is Showing Cracks.]
In her speech this week, Ms. Joly announced that Canada will soon come up with a new strategy for Indo-Pacific relations. Although she did not provide details, there is speculation that Mr. Trudeau may reveal some things in the next few days at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Thailand or at the summit. G20 summit.
There is certainly no shortage of advice for governments as they develop plans.
Adam Fisher, director general of intelligence assessments at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told a House committee last week that “without a doubt, China is the top aggressor” in the world when it comes to interfering and “damaging” the political systems of other countries.
He told lawmakers that China is “interested in working within the system to corrupt it, to the detriment of officials, elected officials and individuals at all levels of government, in the industry.” , in civil society, using our free and open society for their nefarious purposes.”
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During the initial visit, Dr. Pranesh Chakraborty, pediatrician at Eastern Ontario Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Karen Fung-Kee-Fung, maternal and fetal medicine specialist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology gynecologist at the Ottawa Hospital, delivered an important drug. enzymes into the tiny umbilical cord of the fetus and Successfully prevented a fatal genetic disorder.
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I talked to Canadians about a bunch of How does the world view the state of American democracy?.
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Steven Erlanger, The Times’ chief European diplomatic correspondent, writes that Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, is being talked about in Washington as a Top candidate to top NATO.
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Rebecca Godfrey, Victorian-born author of “Under the Bridge” meticulously chronicling the story of Reena Virkwho was beaten to death at the age of 14, died of complications of lung cancer at the age of 54.
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In his review of “Her Loss,” collaboration between Drake and 21 SavageJon Caramanica, pop music critic for The Times, writes that he finds it “cluttered and out of center, more of a mood than a regime.”
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Cindy Shmerler spoke with Felix Auger-Aliassime, tennis star from Montrealafter he won his third consecutive ATP Tour title.
A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has covered Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
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