The sequence matters profoundly. Carney should visit Tokyo first, sign substantive deals—encompassing agriculture, critical minerals, energy, student exchanges, technology cooperation, cybersecurity, and maritime security—and then approach Beijing from a position of strength.

Instead, Canada appears poised to repeat decades of failed engagement by arriving in China empty-handed—and therefore vulnerable.

Unreliable partner

Canada’s rush to Beijing ignores mounting evidence that China remains an unreliable partner.

Recent analysis has found systematic CCP operations to “co-opt foreigners to support and promote the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy goals” through covert, corrupt, and coercive means. As historian Odd Arne Westad notes, the CCP’s obsession with regime survival drives its desire for “global totalitarian control,” viewing economics, culture, technology, and governance as components of regime security. This fundamental orientation hasn’t changed under Xi Jinping—it has intensified.

Consider China’s weaponization of economic interdependence. When Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou in 2018, Beijing retaliated with hostage diplomacy and targeted bans on Canadian agricultural products like canola—crippling Saskatchewan’s billion-dollar agricultural exports overnight. After Canada increased EV tariffs in 2024, China imposed devastating 75 per cent tariffs on canola products in 2025. This pattern—arbitrary detention, economic coercion, hybrid warfare—represents not diplomacy but deliberate leverage-building through intimidation.

Recent Sino-Japanese tensions illuminate China’s coercive playbook. Beijing has intensified pressure on Tokyo through territorial provocations, economic threats, and massive disinformation campaigns. Japan has responded by strengthening security partnerships and diversifying supply chains away from Chinese dependency. Why would Canada rush to embrace the aggressor when our closest democratic partner in the region is actively reducing vulnerability to Chinese coercion?

The evidence of CCP interference operations in Canada is overwhelming. Documents reveal United Front Work Department networks engaged in “elite capture, failed oversight, and infiltration of Canadian institutions.” Prince Edward Island became what investigators call "a forward operating base for the Chinese Communist Party" where it carries out its hybrid warfare through money laundering, suspicious land transfers, and systematic corruption.

Academic institutions remain vulnerable. Alliance Canada Hong Kong describes Chinese authorities exploiting “grey areas that lack clear regulation,” using funding dependencies to acquire intellectual property and compromise research integrity. The National Microbiology Laboratory breach, pervasive targeting of Canadian researchers, and systematic theft of military-civilian fusion technologies demonstrate that engagement without safeguards enables espionage, not partnership.

Leverage first

What Canada needs is leverage before approaching Beijing. Japan offers that opportunity.

A comprehensive Canada-Japan economic, security, and trade partnership would transform Canada’s negotiating position. The agreement should build on existing frameworks while dramatically expanding cooperation across strategic sectors. On critical minerals, move beyond ad hoc arrangements to tariff-free trade, joint stockpiles, and Arctic sovereignty patrols. On defense technology, enable Security of Information Act-compliant procurement for systems like F-35s and frigates. On economic coercion, formalize intelligence sharing and WTO coordination mechanisms that currently operate only reactively.

Energy cooperation demands urgent expansion. Current efforts in areas like LNG should evolve into comprehensive hydrogen and small modular reactor R&D partnerships, building supply chain resilience that reduces both nations' vulnerability to coercive actors. Japan desperately needs stable LNG supplies; Canada possesses abundant natural gas but insufficient export infrastructure. Strategic energy partnerships could finally break domestic political paralysis blocking Canadian LNG development.

Agriculture represents immediate mutual benefit. Japan imports over $100 billion annually in agricultural products, yet Canada supplies only a fraction. A comprehensive agricultural agreement covering canola, wheat, beef, and seafood would reduce Japan’s reliance on potentially hostile suppliers while providing Canadian farmers with guaranteed markets immune to arbitrary Chinese tariff retaliation.

Student exchanges should expand dramatically—from current levels to more than 10,000 annually across high school and university levels. This people-to-people foundation would build long-term strategic alignment in terms of people-to-people relations, values, and understandings of the world while countering China’s Confucius Institute. Documents reveal it functions as a satellite network of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, enabling surveillance and political interference abroad.

University consortiums should focus on AI, quantum computing, semiconductor research, and countering disinformation. Both nations face sophisticated CCP cyber operations and narrative warfare. Joint research infrastructure would accelerate defensive capabilities while creating knowledge ecosystems beyond Chinese penetration. Canada desperately needs Japan’s technological expertise; Japan needs Canadian research capacity and rare earth minerals.

Maritime security cooperation represents an area of shared existential interest. Both nations depend on sea lines of communication around Taiwan, where over 90 per cent of advanced semiconductors originate. An agreement should formalize cooperation in this area of sea, and issue joint statements on international public goods—freedom of navigation, semiconductor manufacturing resilience, and peace across the Taiwan Strait. Critically, this must articulate that Canada-Japan cooperation adds value to shared security with the United States, demonstrating proactive partnership rather than free-riding.

The partnership should feature “plug-in architecture” enabling South Korea, Australia, Southeast Asian nations, and eventually private sector entities to join specific modules. This reflects what scholars call middle-power coalition-building through functional cooperation—aggregating capacity without requiring universal consensus on all issues. Canada and Japan become anchor partners in a flexible network addressing concrete problems: supply chain resilience, technology standards, democratic norm preservation.

Carney’s rush to Beijing

Why hasn’t Carney pursued this sequence? What explains the rush to Beijing?

Trump’s national security strategy has narrowed space for independent Canada-China engagement. Yet, paradoxically, this creates urgency for strengthening democratic partnerships first. Approaching China after signing a major Japan agreement transforms the conversation. Canada would no longer plead for market access; we’d negotiate from strength. Japanese collaboration on critical minerals, energy, and agriculture would reduce catastrophic overreliance on capricious Chinese markets.

The deeper issue is that forty years of engagement failed to socialize China into liberal norms. Recent scholarship demonstrates fundamental failure: engagement became “habituated within bureaucracies”—continued because measuring socialization progress proved impossible and policy-makers incorrectly attributed Chinese behavior to liberalization rather than strategic calculation.

In fact, China’s behavior hasn’t changed because the CCP’s core interests haven't changed. Regime survival demands total control domestically and expanding influence globally. Xi’s “unrestricted network of foreign influence” operates through elite capture, diaspora surveillance, information warfare, academic penetration, and systematic exploitation of open societies' vulnerabilities.

Canada must break this habit. The Asia Pacific Foundation analysis is correct: Trump’s National Security Strategy “redefines hemispheric security” and “clarifies the strategic environment” for Canada’s China policy. But the response shouldn’t be desperate re-engagement with Beijing. It should be aggressive partnership building with democracies sharing our security concerns.

Japan represents Canada’s most important democratic partner in the Indo-Pacific. Both face Chinese economic coercion. Both worry about American unpredictability. Both need diversified supply chains, technology cooperation, and coordinated responses to hybrid threats. Tightening Canada-Japan relations before visiting Beijing isn’t abandoning engagement—it’s entering negotiations with leverage rather than supplication.

The path forward is clear: Visit Tokyo, sign comprehensive agreements, build middle-power coalitions, then approach Beijing from strength. The alternative—rushing to China empty-handed while democratic partners watch skeptically—guarantees another generation of failed engagement, economic vulnerability, and systematic exploitation.

Canada’s sovereignty depends on choosing wisely. Tokyo first. Beijing second. With leverage.

The views expressed are those of the author(s). National Newswatch Inc. publishes a range of perspectives and does not necessarily endorse the opinions presented.

Stephen R. Nagy is professor of politics and international studies at the International Christian University. Concurrently, he holds appointments as a senior fellow and China project lead at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs. The title of his forthcoming book is “Japan as a Middle Power State: Navigating Ideological and Systemic Divides.”