BEIJING: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for a state visit, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.

Carney, who is expected to meet President Xi Jinping for talks on Friday, is the first Canadian leader to visit China in eight years. The two leaders met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea in October, which Carney described as a “turning point” in the two nations’ strained relationship.

Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau visited China in December 2017. But ties withered in 2018 after the arrest of a senior executive from Chinese tech giant Huawei on a US warrant in Vancouver and China’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges.

China has also been accused of interfering in Canadian elections in recent years. Aside from Xi, Carney will meet with Premier Li Qiang and business leaders for trade negotiations.

Beijing said this week it “attaches high importance” to the visit.China bought fewer goods from Canada last year for the first time since 2020, according to Chinese data released on the same day as the Canadian prime minister starts his China visit, in a stark reminder of the economic leverage Beijing has over Ottawa.

Chinese imports from Canada tumbled 10.4pc in 2025 to $41.7 billion from an all-time high a year earlier, a scheduled monthly statistics release by China’s customs authority showed on Wednesday. The last time inbound shipments fell was in 2020, when the pandemic knocked down imports by a staggering 22.3pc.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2026