Canada working on new China strategy, Joly says as PM calls out Beijing’s ‘coercive diplomacy’
Global News
The details of Canada's new strategy for China, which will be tied into its plans for the Indo-Pacific region, will be unveiled in 'the coming weeks and months,' Melanie Joly said.
Canada is working on a new strategy for its relationship with an increasingly influential China, says Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly.
She made the comment during an interview with The West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson, which aired Sunday.
“There’s a growing influence of China in the world and every single country needs to take a decision as to what their relationship will be with China,” Joly said.
“That is why I was given the mandate to develop a strategy, which is called an Indo-Pacific strategy, because we need to see, yes, China, but also the region as a whole.”
The details of this new strategy for China, which will be tied into Canada’s plans for the Indo-Pacific region as whole, will be unveiled in “the coming weeks and months,” Joly added.
Her comment comes just two weeks after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called out China’s diplomatic approach during a wide-ranging year-end interview with Stephenson.
During that interview, he said like-minded countries should “show a united front” against Beijing’s increasingly “coercive diplomacy.”
“We’ve been competing and China has been, from time to time, very cleverly playing us off each other in an open market competitive way. We need to do a better job of working together and standing strong so that China can’t, you know, play the angles and divide us, one against the other,” Trudeau said.