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Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to walk an international tightrope over the next week when he departs on Friday for a series of Indo-Pacific Summit meetings, one of which involves both the United States and China.
The challenge will involve staying on the relatively good side of US President Donald Trump while carefully resetting relations with China’s Xi Jinping.
Both Trump and Xi are expected to attend the APEC summit in South Korea late next week. Carney is expected to meet Xi at the meeting in the picturesque southern Korean city of Gyeongju.
Federal officials, speaking on background before the trip, said Canada is holding a bilateral meeting with the Chinese leader at the summit, which will take place Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, but the session has not yet been confirmed.
Trump is expected to meet Xi at APEC in hopes of calming trade tensions, but the Chinese government has yet to confirm whether he will attend.
That high-stakes meeting has the potential to impact Canada and other allied nations that are seeking a middle ground between the two economic powers.
The United States and China are at odds over tariffs, technology and market access, disputes that run so deep they have the potential to color the room and side meetings; Canada’s own tensions with China give Carney influence and exposure.
The biggest trade irritants with China include Canada’s 100 per cent additional tax on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), which led to retaliatory Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola and seafood. National security concerns also remain following the investigation into foreign interference in Canada’s political system.
It is less clear whether Carney will meet with Trump, given the prime minister’s recent visit to the White House and ongoing trade talks with Washington.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to take a hard line in its dealings with Beijing.
Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of Canada’s Asia Pacific Foundation, said the challenge both Canada and many middle powers in the region will face will be to stay away from great power disputes.
“They are trying not to get caught between the United States and China, (which are) kind of two giants that are now involved in a strategic competition,” Nadjibulla said.
‘Important commercial block’
During last spring’s federal election, Carney promised to boost the economy through business diversity. The first summit that the prime minister will attend in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, among member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be key to this, Nadjibulla added.
ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
“We want to do more together as middle powers through rules-based trade partnerships,” Nadjibulla said. “It is a very important commercial block.”
Canada is working to negotiate an ASEAN-Canada Free Trade Agreement (ACAFTA) and in a joint statement a year ago the federal government said Canada’s intention was to “timely conclude” the agreement.
Despite that and the prime minister’s focus on more trading partners, federal officials acknowledged Thursday that a deal is still about a year away.
Nadjibulla said it will be a critical deal once it is finalized.
“Together they represent around 667 million people, and it is a great opportunity for us because they have a growing middle class, a growing economy, many needs for things like energy, food, obviously investment, infrastructure support, support through technology.”
According to federal documents, negotiations over ACAFTA have been complex because different ASEAN members are at different levels of development.
Federal officials, in their background report, say Carney’s goal for the ASEAN summit will be to “encourage faster and more substantial progress” on the free trade agreement.
