Trading With China Is Inevitable. Trading Without Guardrails Is a Choice
Canada does not lack trading partners. What it lacks, increasingly, is clarity about leverage.
That matters, because trade is not just commerce. It is power, memory, and credibility. When governments treat it as a reset button instead of a ledger, they invite outcomes they later pretend were unforeseeable.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent visit to China was framed as a pragmatic effort to diversify Canada’s trade relationships in an uncertain global environment. That instinct, on its own, is not unreasonable. Canada is too exposed to a single market, and any serious government has an obligation to reduce vulnerability.
But diversification is not the same thing as substitution. And engagement is not the same thing as strategy.
Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper had this to say about the advice he's given the current government on trade.
Engagement with China is neither avoidable nor undesirable. But engagement without clarity, reciprocity, and institutional memory sounds a lot more like trading away the farm and getting an IOU in return.
Canada’s relationship with China has not been strained because of misunderstanding or insufficient dialogue. It has been strained because of actions that remain unresolved and largely unaccounted for. The detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Credible allegations of foreign interference. Persistent concerns around intellectual property, market access, and political pressure applied beyond China’s borders.
Highest on the list has to be the untold and continuously denied human rights abuses of the Uygur people and the appalling working condition in Chinese factories.
Canada was once a nation that cared about these things and cared about putting political pressure on trading partners to fix them as a cost of doing business.
Not so anymore, it seems.
Those facts do not disappear because a visit concludes or a tariff is adjusted. They remain part of the operating environment, whether acknowledged or not.
The risk here is not that Canada is talking to China. The risk is that we are doing so without clearly articulating what has changed, what has not, and what guardrails remain in place. When trade is pursued as a gesture rather than a framework, it weakens Canada’s position rather than strengthening it.
Make no mistake, it's been weak for a long time.
Trade relationships work best when both sides understand the terms, the limits, and the consequences of breach. That requires more than optimism. It requires consistency and the willingness to say no when reciprocity does not exist.
This is not an argument for confrontation. It is an argument for coherence.
A serious China strategy would clearly separate commercial engagement from political concession. It would establish non-negotiable standards around transparency, security, and market access. It would explain to Canadians not just what deals were reached, but what risks were assessed and how they will be managed.
It would also recognize that trust is not rebuilt by pretending it was never broken.
Canada’s economic future depends on attracting investment, securing supply chains, and expanding exports. That future will not be strengthened by treating trade missions as reputational resets rather than exercises in leverage.
The question is not whether Canada should trade with China. The question is whether Canada is prepared to do so with its eyes open, its interests defined, and its memory intact.
If the answer is yes, then engagement can be productive.
If the answer is no, then we should not be surprised when the costs arrive unexpectedly, while accountability never does.