Hello.
It’s a pleasure to be here for my first visit to China as Prime Minister.
I would first like to thank President Xi and Premier Li for their invitation and for the hospitality they have shown us here in Beijing.
This has been an historic and productive two days, during which I have met with President Xi, Premier Li, Chairman Zhao, as well as business and investment leaders across a number of key sectors. And I am pleased to announce we have made significant progress in a number of key areas.
It has been eight years since a Canadian Prime Minister visited China. In that time, the world has changed drastically.
The technological evolution and the energy transition are accelerating at an unprecedented pace.
The global trading system is undergoing fundamental change.
The effectiveness of our multilateral institutions, on which trading powers like Canada and China have greatly relied, has been diminished.
This is a rupture, not a transition.
What we do now, how we position ourselves in the world, will shape our future for decades to come.
Canada can thrive in this new system. But to do so, we must be ambitious – we must work at speed and scale to find new partners, diversify our trade, and attract unprecedented levels of new investment. And we must be clear-eyed.
That means we have to understand the differences between Canada and other countries, and then focus our efforts to work together where we are aligned.
It is with this approach that Canada is forging a new strategic partnership with China.
China is the world’s second-largest economy, our second-largest trading partner, and our third-largest investor.
Two-way trade amounts to nearly $120 billion each year.
Four hundred thousand careers across Canada – farmers in the Prairies, manufacturers and engineers in Ontario and Québec, fish harvesters in Atlantic Canada and British Columbia – are supported by trade with China.
Canadians earn $20 billion in wages each year because of our trade relationship.
This relationship has been distant and uncertain for nearly a decade. That held back investment, stalled business growth, and cost Canadian workers good career opportunities. It has left us even more dependent on our largest trading partner.
That’s why immediately after the election, Canada’s new government began to recalibrate our relationship with China – strategically, pragmatically, and decisively.
Shortly after the elections, I spoke with Premier Li. Two months later, we met in New York City. In October, I met President Xi in the Republic of Korea.
Through sustained, constructive, and pragmatic dialogue – including visits by our ministers to China – we are renewing this relationship so that it delivers ambitious results for the people of both countries.
Ours is a long-standing relationship.
Canada was one of the first Western nations to recognise China’s government in 1970.
Over many decades, Chinese Canadian immigrants helped build communities in every part of our country – from dynamic small businesses, to schools and hospitals, to innovation across advanced technologies.
Across China, there are Canadian companies such as Manulife, CAE, and the Bank of Montréal that have been doing business here for a long time. Their presence in China also clearly benefits the Canadian economy.
I will have the pleasure of meeting with several of these companies later today. I look forward to discussing the expanded opportunities available to them.
Today, there are two million Canadians of Chinese descent – leaders across commerce, technology, and culture. Mandarin is Canada’s fourth most spoken language.
There is much to protect in this relationship, and much to be built and gained.
By leveraging our strengths and focusing on our areas of alignment, Canada and China can create greater stability, security, and prosperity for both our nations.
To that end, President Xi and I are announcing that Canada and China are forging a new strategic partnership.
It will focus on five key areas where both our nations stand to make substantial and sustained gains.
First, clean energy and climate competitiveness – areas where Canada and China have immense and complementary strengths.
Second, expanding trade – particularly in agriculture and food, where Canada is a reliable partner.
Third, our commitment to multilateralism and strengthening global governance, and at a time when all of this is in flux.
Fourth, deepened engagement in public safety and security to protect our peoples.
And finally, people-to-people ties and culture to enrich our lives.
To begin, we’re leveraging our strengths in energy, clean-tech, and climate competitiveness.
Canada is an energy superpower in clean and conventional energy.
We have an over 80% clean electricity grid, with vast potential to power the clean economy of the future.
China is the global leader in clean energy, producing more than 75% of all electric vehicle (EV) batteries worldwide, over 80% of solar panels, and 60% of the world’s wind turbines.
With a strengthened partnership in both storage and production, we can work together to cut emissions and spur major new investments in clean energy and technology.
China’s strengths in the electric vehicle sector are undeniable. They produce some of the most affordable and energy-efficient vehicles in the world.
For Canada to build its own competitive EV sector, we will need to learn from innovative partners, access their supply chains, and increase local demand.
To help deliver the full potential of these partnerships, and bring down costs for Canadians, Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market, with the most-favoured-nation tariff rate of 6.1%.
This is a return to levels prior to recent trade frictions, but under an agreement that promises much more for Canadians.
It is expected that within three years, this agreement will drive considerable Chinese investment into Canada’s auto sector, create good careers in Canada, and accelerate our progress toward a net zero future.
With this agreement it is also anticipated that, in five years, more than 50% of these vehicles will be affordable EVs with an import price of less than $35,000.
Over the next 15 years, Canada will double our energy grid – through major investments in hydro, nuclear, solar, and wind power.
There are tremendous opportunities for Chinese partnership in these investments, including in energy storage and offshore wind.
Canada is developing our oil and natural gas reserves – one of the world’s largest – to be the lowest risk and lowest carbon supply as well.
Last June, we exported our first LNG shipment to Asia.
And we’re scaling up quickly, making major investments and streamlining approvals.
By 2030, Canada will produce 50 million tonnes of LNG each year – all destined for Asian markets.
In the weeks and months ahead, we will launch a new ministerial dialogue to accelerate the implementation of our commitments on both clean and conventional energy.
The second pillar of our strategic partnership aims to increase trade between Canada and China.
Our agricultural cooperation built the foundation of our bilateral relationship. For more than six decades, we have been a reliable partner in food exports.
Canadians export more than $7 billion in agricultural products to China each year. China used to be the single largest market for Canadian canola seed. We want to return to those levels – and surpass them.
Today, I am pleased to announce that Canada and China have reached a preliminary, but landmark, trade arrangement to remove trade barriers and reduce tariffs.
By March 1, 2026, Canada expects that China will lower tariffs on Canadian canola seed to a combined rate of approximately 15%. China is a $4 billion canola seed market for Canadian producers, and this change represents a significant drop from current combined tariff levels of 84%.
Furthermore, Canada expects that Canadian canola meal – as well as Canadian lobsters, crabs, and peas – will not be subject to relevant anti-discrimination tariffs from March 1, 2026, until at least the end of this year. Together, these results will unlock nearly $3 billion in export orders for Canadian farmers, fish harvesters, and processors as they realise the full potential of the massive Chinese market of 1.4 billion people.
With this agreement, we also expect to see a resolution of many long-term trade obstacles for a range of important agricultural sectors, from beef to pet food.
Canada has set an ambitious goal of increasing our exports to China by 50% by 2030.
Supported by a new trade roadmap, we will also expand Canadian investment in China in sectors such as service, energy, aerospace, agriculture, and advanced manufacturing.
We welcome Chinese business plans to significantly scale up their investments in Canada – in major clean energy projects, as well as agriculture and consumer products.
By building this new strategic partnership, we’re creating the stability and certainty needed to catalyse new investment and opportunities for our workers.
Canada and China are both strong advocates of multilateralism.
We share several goals when it comes to the environment.
The leadership of Canada and China made it possible to successfully establish the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15 in Montréal.
This is why the third pillar of our strategic partnership is a renewed commitment to global governance.
By working more closely together, Canada and China can focus on their many shared areas of interest, ranging from climate competitiveness and finance to macroeconomic stability and multilateralism.
As China serves as the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC) this year, Canada stands ready to support an agenda focused on strengthening and reinvigorating the multilateral system. And Canada appreciates China’s support for Canada’s bid to host the APEC Leaders’ Summit in 2029.
The fourth pillar of our new strategic partnership is public safety and security. This is an area where pragmatic and constructive engagement with China is crucial.
Through this pillar, our law enforcement agencies will increase cooperation to better combat narcotics trafficking, transnational and cyber-crime, synthetic drugs, and money laundering – and create safer communities for people in both of our countries.
People have always been at the core of Canada’s relationship with China.
Canada is home to a Chinese diaspora of two million people.
Over 300,000 Chinese visitors came to Canada in 2024. China is Canada’s seventh-largest source of tourists.
Our fifth pillar of the new strategic partnership will build opportunities for cultural exchanges and partnerships that further deepen our people-to-people ties.
This means museums, digital content creators, visual artists, and other creative industry professionals in our respective countries will have new opportunities to collaborate.
This also means more Chinese tourists visiting, following China’s decision in November to grant Approved Destination Status for group travellers to Canada.
We want to build on this progress – to increase travel, exchanges, and our deep cultural ties.
I am pleased to share that President Xi, in our meeting today, has committed to ensuring visa-free access for Canadians travelling to China.
We are under no illusion. Canada and China do not see eye to eye on everything.
Canada and China are different countries, with different systems, histories, and perspectives.
Yet when we have focused our strengths and ambitions toward the areas where we have the most in common, Canada and China have done great things.
In the mid-1980s, bilateral trade was around roughly $2 billion. In just two decades, that increased to $30 billion. Through periods of global tension and disruption, we created more opportunities for our workers, businesses, and investors by working together.
With this new strategic partnership, that is the opportunity before us today.
A partnership that reflects the world as it is today, with engagement that is realistic, respectful, and interest-based.
This was not a question of putting things ‘back on track’ – it was a question of designing new tracks that will benefit the people of both our countries.
The global system has been upended. Canada must chart a new course by navigating the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. We will chart this course with confidence, pragmatism, and ambition.
In a world of increasing uncertainty, Canada is building with urgency, confidence, and determination.
We are forging new partnerships around the world.
We are diversifying trade – with over a dozen new agreements across four continents.
We are attracting record levels of new investment – to unleash $1 trillion in the Canadian economy over the next five years.
And we are building a web of new connections with China: to create new, transformative opportunities for Canadian workers, and more stability, certainty, and prosperity on both sides of the Pacific.
Thank you.