China, Canada should work toward strategic partnership, China's Wang says

20/7/2024 12:24

        China and Canada should promote normalising relations and get back on track toward establishing a strategic partnership, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Canadian counterpart, according to his ministry.
        
        "China-Canada relations have experienced difficulties and twists and turns over the years, which is not something China would like to see," Wang told Foreign Minister Melanie Joly in Beijing, the ministry said in a statement late on Friday.
        
        Joly's three-day visit through Saturday, at Wang's invitation, is the first by a Canadian foreign minister in seven years.
        
        Bilateral relations, established in 1970, turned icy in 2018 after Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada and China subsequently arrested two Canadians in China. All three were later released, but Ottawa's allegations of Chinese interference in Canada have kept relations strained.
        
        The last time Chinese and Canadian leaders met was in Indonesia in 2022, when President Xi Jinping criticised Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over alleged leaks of a closed-door meeting.