Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly had a face-to-face meeting in Germany with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, the second publicly disclosed interaction between the two within a little over a month.
The meeting occurred on Feb. 17 on the margins of the Munich Security Conference, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) said in a
readout.
The department’s account is scant on details, only saying that the two ministers discussed “Canada-China relations and issues critical to global security, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East.”
Both ministers agreed that discussions on bilateral issues should continue “pragmatically and constructively, in a spirit of mutual respect, with regular communication between the two sides,” the GAC readout added.
The face-to-face meeting took place a little over a month since Ms. Joly and Mr. Yi previously had a
call. The January remote meeting between the two ministers was the first since April 2022, GAC previously
told The Epoch Times, and the last in-person
meeting took place in July 2022 during the G20 summit in Indonesia.
In its Jan. 11 readout about the call, GAC said Ms. Joly had raised her government’s “concrete priorities for forward collaboration” with Beijing, which included fighting climate change and deepening economic and people-to-people ties.
Ms. Joly also reportedly told Mr. Yi that her government would pursue “pragmatic diplomacy” amid an “international security crisis,” with the readout referring to “the Israel-Hamas conflict, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and ongoing challenges and opportunities in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Ms. Joly had explained Canada’s diplomacy approach during a
speech in Toronto in October 2023, saying it’s an effort to “engage countries of different perspectives in order to prevent an international conflict.”
GAC said in the Jan. 11 readout that the ministers also recognized “recent challenges in the bilateral relationship” and agreed to keep communication channels open.
Silent Treatment
As of publication time, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and related entities have apparently not issued any news release or comments on the meeting with Ms. Joly. Meetings that Mr. Yi held in Munich with other counterparts, including those from the
United States,
United Kingdom, and
European Union, were publicized on various MFA accounts on the X social media platform.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault had a similar silent treatment from Chinese authorities when he visited Beijing in August 2023. State mouthpieces
did not report on his activities while attending the annual meeting of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
Mr. Guilbeault had
told media before the visit that he would use the trip to advance the environmental agenda and attempt to mend diplomatic ties.
“I think it’s worth it for me to go, to advance this collaboration on climate, on biodiversity, and perhaps also to start rebuilding a bridge with China at the diplomatic level,” he said. His visit to China was the first by a federal cabinet minister since 2018.
Relations between Ottawa and Beijing have degraded significantly due to the Meng Wanzhou affair several years ago. Canada arrested the Huawei executive in December 2018 in response to an extradition request from the United States. The Chinese regime shortly thereafter detained Canadians
Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in a move widely regarded as retaliation, with the two men not released until September 2021, nearly three years later.
The Liberal government, which up to that time had sought close ties with Beijing, had to recalibrate its approach.
Part of that formal recalibration came by way of its
Indo-Pacific Strategy announced in November 2022, which singles out China as an “increasingly disruptive global power” involved in “foreign interference and increasingly coercive treatment of other countries,” among other problematic issues.
The back-to-back meetings between Ms. Joly and Mr. Yi occurred while a public inquiry is under way in Canada to explore meddling by foreign states, with China being
recognized as the main culprit by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
The Epoch Times asked GAC whether Ms. Joly raised that topic during her meeting but a response was not available by publication time.
Andrew Chen contributed to this report.
