Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to arrive in China on Wednesday as Beijing signalled interest in encouraging Canada to pursue a foreign policy less aligned with the United States, amid ongoing trade tensions and shifting global alliances.
Chinese state media have urged Ottawa to adopt what they describe as “strategic autonomy,” arguing Canada should chart a path independent of Washington, The Canadian Press reported.
China is to build a hidden chamber alongside Britain’s most sensitive communication cables as part of a network of 208 secret rooms beneath its new London “super-embassy”, The Telegraph can reveal.
This newspaper has uncovered detailed plans for an underground complex below the vast diplomatic site in central London, which Beijing has sought to keep from public scrutiny.
Despite the apparent security risk, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to approve the embassy before a visit to China later this month, when he is due to meet Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.
BEIJING / OTTAWA — On the eve of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first official visit to China, a coalition of nine human-rights organizations is elevating an open letter urging Ottawa to put human rights at the center of Canada’s dealings with Beijing, rather than deepen commercial ties that critics say reflect the influence of a powerful Quebec-based business lobby long associated with former Liberal leader Jean Chrétien.
OTTAWA — Canadian negotiators are in “active discussions” with China about lowering or dropping tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles in exchange for easing punitive Chinese counter-tariffs on Canadian canola and seafood, but government officials declined to say how it might affect Canada’s trade tensions with a U.S. administration that is hawkish on blocking China’s EVs from North America.
On the eve of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing, the talks are considered so politically sensitive as the U.S. and Canada navigate the upcoming negotiation to renew the North American free trade pact that Canadian officials would say very little about the tariff dispute that is jamming Ottawa between China and the U.S. and opened a double trade war for this country.
It appears Ford was not asked for comment.
There’s been a subtle but significant shift in what NORAD has been seeing over the last year when it comes to mostly Russian — but also Chinese — activity in the Arctic, says the top commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).
U.S. Gen. Gregory Guillot tells CBC News that air and sea incursions into the zones just outside North America have not only become more frequent, but also more co-ordinated.
“I’d say the most consequential difference in 2025 has been the volume, the simultaneous volume,” Guillot said in an exclusive interview.
Leaders of a prominent underground church have been detained in south-west China, according to a church statement, the latest blow in what appears to be a sweeping crackdown on unregistered Christian groups in the country.
On Tuesday, Li Yingqiang, the leader of the Early Rain Covenant Church, was taken by police from his home in Deyang, a small city in Sichuan province, according to the statement. Li’s wife, Zhang Xinyue, has also been detained, along with two other church members: Dai Zhichao, a pastor; and Ye Fenghua, a lay member. At least a further four members were taken and later released, while some others remain out of contact.
The crackdown followed the arrest of 18 senior members of Zion Church, another prominent underground church, in a nationwide sweep in October. In December, there were also reports of approximately 100 members of another unofficial church in Zhejiang province being detained , according to Human Rights Watch.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to travel to China and seeks to restore trade and diplomatic ties, a small majority of Canadians say they support more trade with Beijing, a new poll suggests.
The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News, released Saturday, found that 54 per cent expressed support for closer trade ties and economic agreements with China.
The Elbow People are driven mad with TDS.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is going to China next week to discuss trade with President Xi Jinping, just as American power is moving hard and fast to curtail or eliminate Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere. Canada has nothing to gain from isolating itself from the United States or the West in the short term, just to stick it to Donald Trump.
Chinese Canadian pro-democracy activist Sheng Xue says the timing of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to China next week “sends a deeply troubling signal,” given the United States, Canada’s closest ally, is taking action to curb the regime’s reach in the Western Hemisphere.
Carney will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, and business leaders during his visit to China from Jan. 13 to Jan. 17, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said. Discussions are expected to revolve around trade, energy, agriculture, and international security.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province is home to much of Canada’s auto industry, is warning the Prime Minister against reducing the 100-per-cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles during Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing next week.
He said China should instead set up EV factories in Ontario. A Chinese EV-maker opened an electric-bus assembly plant in Newmarket, Ont., in 2019, for instance.
An influential Protestant church in China says prominent leaders have been arrested in what appears to be a growing crackdown on the underground church movement.
Nine people were detained on Tuesday after police raided their homes and the church office in Chengdu, in central China, the Early Rain Covenant Church said. Five had been released by Wednesday.
More than 1,000 miles away in Wenzhou, authorities began demolishing the Yayang Church building, video obtained by non-profit ChinaAid, which monitors religious persecution, shows.
Urgent: China's “Jerusalem” Besieged; Hundreds of Armed Police and Bulldozers Poised to Demolish Defiant Church
In a violent escalation of religious persecution, hundreds of armed Chinese police have encircled Yayang Christian Church in Wenzhou, deploying cranes and bulldozers… pic.twitter.com/UKPjBXZ8fo
— ChinaAid (@chinaaid) January 5, 2026
Carney and Xi are buds.
President Donald Trump’s stunning moves against Venezuela on January 3 are sparking concerns that China may soon move against Taiwan.
Trump on December 16 imposed a “total and complete blockade” on sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, and some expressed their belief that his actions could make it easier for China to impose similar measures on Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
“If the U.S. blockades to change political outcomes in Venezuela, China can justify coercive measures against Taiwan on so-called security grounds,” Craig Singleton of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Reuters. “The legal contexts differ, but the propaganda opening is real.”
Happy New Year. Or not, depending on where you find yourself these days. If you’re deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, that’s in a cell in Brooklyn, N.Y. If you’re U.S. President Donald Trump, that’s on the catbird seat in Washington, D.C. And if you’re Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, that’s on a tightrope in Ottawa, trying to strike the right note with an ally that looks more like an aggressor every day.
An increasingly aggressive Russia coupled with China’s growing influence have renewed Canada’s focus on Arctic defence and sovereignty — and how to assert control over its remote northern geography.
The focus is on both increased surveillance — knowing what and who is poking around up there — and having military assets in place to deter any aggressor before they consider operating in Canada’s North.
Venezuela North aka Canada can’t or won’t ensure arctic sovereignty leaving it wide open for incursion by our CCP shadow rulers and their Russian pals.
When the US intercedes to stop this massive threat they will be declared Imperialist Aggressors worse than Hitler etc.
China intends to keep playing in the U.S. backyard, Latin America.
The Trump administration took veiled swipes at China in its national-security strategy with the vow to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “deny non-Hemispheric competitors.”
Less than a week after the release of the U.S. strategy in December, Beijing issued a little-noticed policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean that geopolitical analysts say foreshadows more U.S.-China jostling for regional influence.
