Canada’s Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne arrived in China this week for a high-stakes diplomatic and economic visit, marking another step in the Carney government’s push to deepen trade ties with Beijing amid escalating pressure from Washington.
The trip, running from March 31 to April 4, sees Champagne meeting with senior Chinese officials in finance and banking, as well as business leaders, as Ottawa works to diversify its trade relationships and reduce its heavy dependence on the United States. The federal government has set an ambitious target of doubling non-U.S. exports within a decade.
What makes Champagne’s visit particularly striking is the reversal it represents. Not long ago, he was one of the key architects of Canada’s defensive posture against Chinese influence. As industry minister under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he championed the ban on Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE from Canada’s 5G networks, tightened the Investment Canada Act to block state-owned foreign companies from acquiring strategic Canadian assets, and cracked down on Chinese access to Canadian research and intellectual property.
Now, he finds himself leading the charge in the opposite direction cultivating economic partnerships with the very country he spent years guarding against.
Champagne has framed the shift as pragmatic rather than naive. Canada and its allies, he says, have found a “strategic path forward” for engaging China one undertaken with “eyes wide open.”
The visit builds on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s own trip to Beijing in January, during which he declared his intention to forge a new “strategic partnership” with China. That visit produced several agreements, including a notable deal on electric vehicles that has since drawn both praise and sharp criticism.
Under the arrangement, Canada slashed its 100 percent tariff on up to 49,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles to just 6.1 percent in the first year. In exchange, China agreed to ease or remove tariffs on certain Canadian agricultural and seafood exports through the end of 2026.
The timing carries its own irony. It was Champagne himself, as industry minister in October 2024, who imposed that original 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs a move he defended as protecting Canada from unfairly subsidized Chinese manufacturers that he said did not respect labour or environmental standards.
“We would never be a back door to cheap Chinese vehicles,” he said at the time.
The EV deal has quickly become the most contentious element of the warming Canada-China relationship. Forty-nine thousand Chinese vehicles entering the market annually would represent roughly 42 percent of Canada’s total battery electric vehicle registrations, based on the approximately 115,000 new BEVs registered in 2025.
Chinese automaker BYD, the world’s largest EV manufacturer, is already preparing its entry into the Canadian market and is reportedly exploring whether to build a plant in Canada or acquire an existing global automaker.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford poured cold water on the factory idea, pointing out that the economics simply don’t add up. The vast majority of vehicles made in Canada between 80 and 90 percent are destined for American showrooms, and Ford noted bluntly that a U.S. administration hostile to Chinese-manufactured goods is unlikely to wave those vehicles through the border.
Washington has kept its own 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs firmly in place.
Beyond trade economics, critics have raised persistent concerns about the surveillance capabilities embedded in modern Chinese-made vehicles. EVs are equipped with extensive sensor arrays capable of collecting data on drivers, passengers, and surrounding environments. Under Chinese law, companies can be compelled to share such data with state intelligence agencies.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree has sought to reassure Canadians, saying any EVs entering Canada would be bound by Canadian privacy laws. But security experts and opposition politicians remain unconvinced.
China expert Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, testifying before a House of Commons committee in March, warned that Chinese EVs could endanger Chinese dissidents living in Canada given their data collection potential. She also noted that Champagne, given his extensive background on Chinese security threats, is “among the best placed in cabinet” to understand what is at stake and that the economic risks he cited last year when defending the tariffs have not disappeared.
A controversy erupted at a subsequent committee hearing when Liberal MP Michael Ma challenged McCuaig-Johnston’s testimony and questioned whether she had personally witnessed forced labour practices in China. The pushback drew immediate condemnation from Conservatives and human rights advocates. Facing public backlash, Ma later apologized, acknowledging his questions had come across as dismissive of a serious issue. He declined to say directly whether he believes forced labour exists in China.
Opposition Conservatives have also pressed the government to release the terms of a secret memorandum of understanding on law enforcement cooperation signed during Carney’s January visit. Ottawa has refused to make the document public, fuelling further suspicion about the nature and scope of the Canada-China rapprochement.
For now, the Carney government is pressing forward, betting that closer economic ties with Beijing can offset some of the uncertainty created by an unpredictable trade relationship with Washington. Whether that gamble pays off and at what cost remains an open question as Champagne wraps up his visit in the days ahead.
