Mark Carney in China positions Canada for ‘the world as it is, not as we wish it’

PM’s visit to Beijing seen as a welcome reset to relations in a ‘new world order’ but critics worry what trade deal could mean for Canadian workers

Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing this week secured what he described as a “preliminary but landmark” trade deal and a recognition – welcomed by Beijing – that countries are operating in a “new world order”.

Carney’s visit is the first time in nearly a decade that a Canadian prime minister has been welcomed in Beijing. It comes after years of a deep freeze in the relationship between Ottawa and Beijing that Carney wants to thaw, in order to reduce his country’s precarious reliance on the United States.