Michael Kovrig stands as he is recognized in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 24, 2023. Mandel Ngan/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Enduring tensions between Ottawa and Beijing stem from the Chinese Communist Party’s failure to understand that Canada’s foreign policy goal is not subservience to world powers but rather to defend its values, interests, and agency, says former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig.
Kovrig made the comments in an article in the July edition of the Institut Montaigne’s China Trends, a quarterly publication that analyzes Chinese policies based on Chinese language sources.
In the article, Kovrig examines how some Chinese analysts and diplomats interpret Ottawa’s actions, and how pro-Beijing voices argue that Canada should move closer to China in response to U.S. trade tensions–a move Kovrig says would be detrimental to Canada.
He argues that Beijing’s idea of a mutually beneficial relationship would leave Canada in a dependent trade role, supplying resources and absorbing China’s excess manufacturing capacity, while also expecting Canada to refrain from criticizing the Chinese regime or aligning with Washington against it.
“Chinese analysts and diplomats are saying that Canada, under pressure from US tariffs, should tilt toward China,” Kovrig said in a July 14 social media post, introducing his paper.
“The implicit deal: kowtow to the Chinese Communist Party in return for economic benefits, sacrifice Canadian manufacturing for agricultural exports,” he added. “It’s a devil’s bargain in which the long term costs would outweigh the benefits for Canada.”
Kovrig, a former diplomat and now a think tank scholar, was detained in China for more than 1,000 days along with fellow Canadian Michael Spavor as part of Beijing’s retaliation tactics for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in late 2018 due to a U.S. extradition request. The two were released in September 2021 after U.S. authorities dropped their extradition request against Meng.
In his paper, Kovrig says Beijing fails to understand that Canada’s foreign policy goals “is not subservience to great powers, but rather defending its own values, interests and agency.”
To illustrate how pro-Beijing advocates see Canada’s position, Kovrig points to an April article in a Shanghai newspaper that cites a Canada specialist from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies named Liu Dan.
“The problem,” Liu says, “is that Canada has long prioritized ideological and values-based diplomacy,” which she argues has prevented certain countries from establishing diplomatic ties with Ottawa.
Kovrig says Liu’s “transactional” perspective fails to understand that Canada’s government considers values “a core interest” because, he says, they define a common national identity that binds together a geographically, ethnically, and culturally diverse population.
Chinese View of Canadian Politics
In the same April article, Liu argues that Canada’s Liberal Party has historically had a “more rational” attitude toward China compared to the Conservative Party, adding that Mark Carney’s election as prime minister might “slightly” ease the ideological conflict with China.
Kovrig notes that the last Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, was seen by China as difficult to deal with, with a 2008 People’s Daily article saying that “Harper’s anti-China stance is well known.”
Kovrig says China’s preference for the Liberal Party, as a way to avoid a potentially harsher policy stance from the Conservatives in this year’s federal election, was evident in the support for Carney expressed by Chinese voices in the press and on Chinese-language social media in Canada.
In early April, Canadian intelligence officials identified an information operation linked to Beijing, seeking to influence Chinese-Canadian voters on Carney by spreading both positive and negative narratives. An analysis by The Epoch Times found the content was generally more positive toward Carney, and said he would deepen cooperation with China.
However, Liu says in the April article that some of Carney’s recent remarks are a cause for “concern.”
During a federal leaders’ debate ahead of this year’s election, Carney called China “the biggest security threat to Canada.” At a later campaign stop, he expanded on the remark, describing China as a major source of foreign interference and adding that Ottawa is actively working to counter it.
Then, following the G7 Leader’s Summit in Canada, Carney said all leaders called on China to “refrain from market distortions and harmful overcapacity,” and that they had “ongoing serious concerns” about China’s destabilizing activities in the East and South China Seas.
This prompted China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun to characterize the G7 remarks as an attempt to “slander and smear” Beijing, and said it amounted to interference in China’s internal affairs.
Carney has also called U.S. President Donald Trump “transformational” for his policies targeting China. As well, Carney has said as Ottawa looks for new markets to diversify trading partners in the face of U.S. tariffs, any potential partners in Asia would need to share Canadian values, adding that this wouldn’t include China.
Electric Vehicles and New Tensions
Kovrig pointed to China’s efforts to enter the Canadian auto market as an example of the broader challenges affecting the bilateral relationship.
He says Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) mandates and incentives in recent years emerged as a major opportunity for Beijing to enter the market, positioning Chinese EVs as a way for Ottawa to accelerate its climate goals while offering Canadians more affordable options.
Notably, Kovrig says, Ottawa’s EV purchase incentives have not included restrictions based on a vehicle’s country of origin, prompting one Chinese writer to ponder whether Canada was effectively making a “wedding dress” for Chinese electric vehicles.
Back in 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said Beijing should “increase the dependence of international supply chains on China and establish powerful retaliatory and deterrent capabilities against foreign powers that would try to cut supplies.”
However, China’s trade plans in Canada faced a major setback when Ottawa last October imposed 100 percent import duties on Chinese-made EVs and 25 percent tariffs on aluminum and steel products, saying Canadian industries were at risk due to “unfair” competition from Chinese producers who benefitted from China’s “intentional, state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply.”
The move brought Canada in line with the United States, which had introduced the same levies months earlier.
Then, in a move widely seen as retaliation for Ottawa’s tariffs at a time that Washington was signalling to allies to align with its China strategy, Beijing earlier this year imposed levies on Canadian agricultural and food products, saying they stemmed from a domestic “anti-discrimination” investigation the regime initiated last September.
Kovrig says Canada’s tariffs on Chinese EVs were not only a signal of “North American solidarity” but a necessary policy alignment to “prevent cut-price Chinese electric vehicles diverted from the United States being dumped in Canada.”
He said that without tariffs, Chinese electric vehicles would threaten Canada’s traditional automakers and hinder the growth of Canada’s fledgling electric vehicle industry.
On Resetting Bilateral Relations
Chinese ambassador to Canada Wang Di has advocated for a reset of bilateral relations, especially amid U.S. tariffs. In a May interview with CTV News, Wang called for Canada to set aside “normal” differences and cooperate with Beijing to push back against U.S. tariffs.
When questioned about China’s actions affecting Ottawa’s interests, including interference in Canadian democracy, the 2018 arbitrary arrest of two Canadian citizens, and the execution of four Canadians earlier this year; Wang said that while Canada and China have a “lot of differences,” both countries should seek “common ground” and that bilateral relations should be based on “mutual respect.”
He also disregarded Canada’s findings in a public inquiry highlighting China’s foreign interference as “smear and attack” attempts against Beijing.
China has been identified as “the most active perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions,” according to the Foreign Interference Commission final report, published earlier this year. The inquiry also found that Beijing “views Canada as a high-priority target.”
In an earlier interview with The Globe and Mail, Wang said all tariffs, including those Canada imposed on China, were “unfair.” He also said that to rebuild trust between both countries, “the first thing is to stop smearing, attacking and hyping up.”
Kovrig notes the advocacy for a reset in Canada-China relations also comes from Chinese media.
He points to an article for Chinese media outlet Guancha, where columnist Sun Bo wrote earlier this year that experts on Canada-China trade “believe that both sides should set aside their prejudices, engage in constructive dialogue, and resume normal trade relations as soon as possible in order to achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.”
But Kovrig says that normal trade with China is “unfeasible,” citing China’s non-market policies.
“China’s economic policies are far from normal, and ‘win-win’ has long been a joke that China wins twice,” Kovrig wrote.
Carolina Avendano has been a reporter with the Canadian edition of The Epoch Times since 2024.