Carney lays out security 'guardrails' for China as Canada looks to build up relationship
CBC
Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun to lay out publicly what he sees as boundaries when dealing with China, as his government wades into a new relationship with the economic giant.
Carney, who earlier this year called China one of Canada's biggest security threats, has more recently spoken openly about resetting the relationship with Beijing as the Liberal government seeks more trading partners in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war.
In a year-end interview with CBC News, he was asked by chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton if he sees risks in Canada aligning economically with China.
"The question is how deep is the relationship and how clear are the guardrails around that relationship," he said.
"There are areas, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, defence, where clearly the security threats are such that we would not have a deep relationship with China in those areas."
Carney said outside of the European Union and the United Kingdom, he doesn't see Canada having "deep relationships with many countries in those areas" — even Canada's once closest ally.
"We have a strategic question for our country: how deep those relationships are in those areas with the United States, given our deep integration already with the United States and given the shifting trading relationship," he said in the interview.
Carney's proposed guardrails will be closely watched as he casts a wider net for trading partners — a key pillar of his agenda.
"Never have all your eggs in one basket. We have too many eggs in the American basket," he said.
"We would like to maintain that relationship and grow others, but we absolutely need to grow others. And the 's' is a capital 's' at the end of others."
The prime minister said that list includes China and India, two countries the Liberal government had a fractured relationship with under Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau had pursued more trade with China early in his leadership, but talks soured in 2018 after the arrest of Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant in a corruption case.
Canadians Michael Kovrig, a diplomat, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur who worked in North Korea and China, were detained in China days later on spying and other charges. Beijing denied the detentions were linked to the Huawei case.
The public inquiry investigating allegations of election meddling that wrapped this January called China "the most persistent and sophisticated foreign interference threat to Canada."
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