Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly is sending her deputy to China in a bid to help thaw chilled relations with Beijing, a government source with knowledge of the trip said Monday.
Ottawa wants to “normalize bilateral ties with China” and Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison’s trip to the Asian giant “is part of that,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Dates for the trip, expected in the coming days, have not yet been announced.
Relations between Beijing and Ottawa have been tense in recent years.
The arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive on a US warrant in Vancouver in December 2018 and Beijing’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges plunged relations into a deep freeze.
More recently, ties have been tense over allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021. A Canadian public inquiry is currently assessing those claims, which Beijing denies.
Last year, Joly expelled a Chinese diplomat accused of targeting a Canadian opposition lawmaker who has been a vocal critic of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing, as well as his family.
Ottawa also has criticized a security crackdown in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.
But pressure has been mounting in the business community for the two sides to repair relations.
Australia and the United States have sought to mend fences with Beijing, with senior officials from both countries visiting China in recent months.
Joly herself has not travelled to China since taking over as foreign minister in 2021, but met with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in February on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
At that time, Joly spoke about the need to “pursue pragmatic diplomacy” with China.
Wang meanwhile said in a statement that “the current difficult situation (with Canada) is not what China wants to see,” adding that improving Sino-Canadian relations is in the “fundamental interests of both countries.”
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