China FM urges Canada to work together to eliminate ‘interference’ amid trade negotiations

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi told his Canadian counterpart Anita Anand their two countries should work to “eliminate interference”, as they met on the sidelines of a security conference on Saturday.

Wang, who met a slew of Western leaders during the Munich Security Conference, has been eager to paint Beijing as a more stable partner compared to the increasingly unpredictable United States.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took office last year, visited China in January as part of his global effort to broaden Canada’s export markets and decrease trade reliance on the United States.

Under a preliminary trade deal announced, Beijing is expected to reduce tariffs on Canadian canola imports and grant Canadians visa-free travel to China.

But the United States – Canada’s traditional ally and largest trading partner – has threatened to impose 100-percent tariffs on Canadian products if the deal were to go ahead, saying it would allow China to “dump goods”.

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Beijing’s top diplomat Wang told his Canadian counterpart Anita Anand on Saturday that their countries should jointly counter “interference”, without naming the United States.

“China is willing to work with Canada to eliminate interference, restart exchanges and cooperation in various fields,” Wang told Anand, according to a readout from Beijing’s foreign ministry.

China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was detained on drug charges in 2014, a Canadian official told AFP in February.

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China–Canada ties had nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians – Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig – on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory.

But on Saturday, Wang hailed Carney’s visit to China as “fruitful” and said the two countries should build a healthy and stable “new type of strategic partnership”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not ben edited by Firstpost staff.)