Prime Minister Mark Carney said he will raise Canada’s concerns about foreign interference with Chinese President Xi Jinping when they meet next week in Shenzhen, China.
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Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday that he plans to raise concerns about foreign interference with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting next week at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China.
Speaking at a press conference in Montreal, Carney said the benefit of in-person meetings is that issues can be raised “directly and frankly,” adding that Canada places importance on “the non-interference in our affairs by China and other countries.”
Carney said he will also discuss the global security climate and the economic partnership between Canada and China. He said that partnership “is something that is deepening but has clear guardrails in terms of the areas in which we’re involved.”
Carney said he last met with Xi in January, and that the two leaders also spoke at the previous year’s APEC summit, noting it was the first formal meeting between Canada and China’s leaders since 2017.
The prime minister said his government has chosen a new ambassador to China and will announce the appointment soon, adding that the position has been vacant since this spring. “It’s a little longer than we would have liked. We wanted to get the right person and we have found that right person,” Carney said.
The Chinese-related concerns raised by Canada come after a January 2025 public inquiry identified China as the top perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canadian democratic institutions and concluded Beijing tried to meddle in some Canadian elections.
The government also cited recent findings from Safeguard Defenders, which said China has expanded illegal police stations it operates around the world, including in Canada, and that the stations are used to monitor the diaspora in a bid to control them.
Carney said U.S. President Donald Trump will be at the summit and that he and Trump are expected to speak either at APEC or at the ASEAN summit in the Philippines, which takes place a few days earlier. He said, “I have an ability to engage with the president in multiple occasions and on a running basis, so yes, it’s good to sit down but it’s not absolutely necessary.”
The ASEAN summit runs in the Philippines from Nov. 16 to 18, and the APEC summit will be held in Shenzhen, China from Nov. 18 to 19.
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