Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that there’s no room for "rapprochement” with China as President Xi Jinping’s muscular foreign policy has made a normal relationship between the countries impossible, for now.
"China has made decisions over the past years that have made it more difficult — not just for Canada but for other countries — to engage,” Trudeau said in an interview Thursday.
The prime minister acknowledged that when he came to power in 2015, he had hoped to work toward a free trade deal with China. But the relationship between the two nations turned hostile in 2018 when Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request, prompting China to detain two Canadians and impose embargoes on some Canadian food exports.