Prime Minister Mark Carney’s coming visit to Beijing represents a fundamental miscalculation in Canadian statecraft. Before engaging with the People’s Republic of China, Canada urgently needs to forge a comprehensive strategic partnership with Japan.
The sequence matters profoundly. Carney should visit Tokyo first, sign substantive deals—encompassing agriculture, critical minerals, energy, student exchanges, technology cooperation, cybersecurity, and maritime security—and then approach Beijing from a position of strength.
Instead, Canada appears poised to repeat decades of failed engagement by arriving in China empty-handed—and therefore vulnerable.