Canada’s PM Stephen Harper in China to Talk Trade

The Canadian Prime Minister’s plane touched down in Beijing on Tuesday. It’s the second time Stephen Harper has visited China since becoming Prime Minister, and he's on a mission to sell Canadian oil.

Currently 97% of Canadian oil exports go to the United States, but with Obama’s recent rejection of a pipeline carrying Canadian oil across the continental US, Harper is looking east to emerging markets in Asia and especially China. Harper is with an entourage of 40 Canadian business leaders who will be meeting Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao to discuss trade.

NTD senior China commentator Wen Zhao says Canada’s push to sell energy resources is coming at the right time for China.

[Wen Zhao, Senior China Analyst]:
“From last year to today, after incidents in Libya and Iran, the reliability of China’s oil imports from the Middle East has been threatened. So for mainland China, they really need a stable and reliable provider of crude oil.”

An energy deal between the two countries will also contribute to closing Canada’s trade deficit with China.

As with visits by other world leaders to the communist-ruled nation, Harper is under pressure not to let business interests dampen Canadian efforts to pressure the Chinese regime over human rights.

Harper said in an interview before he left for China that the issue will be raised during the visit, and for China’s economic progress to continue, the regime’s human rights record will eventually have to improve.

[Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister]:
"Whenever we meet with our Chinese counterparts we obviously raise these issues generally and we raise a number of specific cases. There are obviously human rights and other specific consular cases that are of some significant concern to this government and we raise those things regularly, including in all of the appropriate leaders' meetings and we will continue to do that. And my judgment is this, that I obviously welcome the growth of the Chinese economy but I remain convinced as we've seen in our own history and around the world, that in the long term, economic and political progress are linked. One helps the other and ultimately if they don't both move together, one will retard the other. So I think this is in everybody's interest, to see progress in those areas."

Harper and his party have had a history of taking a hard-line stance regarding the Chinese regime’s human rights record, with Harper skipping the Olympics in 2008 and being criticized by Wen Jiabao in 2009 for taking too long to visit. This current visit and the size of the Canadian delegation may represent a change in attitude towards China.

Harper will conclude his visit to China on February 11th.