After the leaders of Canada and China held talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju for the first time in eight years, a thaw in relations began to take shape. Within days of the talks, China officially resumed group tours to Canada.
On the 3rd, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) and China's Xinhua News Agency, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson said China decided to resume group tours for its citizens traveling to Canada through travel agencies. Since 2023, as the COVID-19 pandemic was winding down, China had gradually resumed overseas group travel, but Canada had been excluded.
Mao Ning, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, said the decision was made "after comprehensively considering Chinese citizens' demand for overseas travel and the tourism environment at the destinations," and noted the move would further strengthen people-to-people exchanges between China and Canada and help enhance mutual understanding and goodwill among the two countries' peoples.
On Oct. 31, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada and President Xi Jinping of China held talks on the sidelines of APEC in Gyeongju, South Korea. It was the first summit between the two countries' leaders since 2017, in eight years. In the meeting, the two sides agreed to restore exchanges and cooperation. According to Bloomberg News, Carney said at a news conference after the talks that the goal was to reset top-level ties for the first time in eight years and lay the groundwork for long-term trade diversification.
Until before the pandemic, Chinese tourists were a main pillar of Canada's tourism industry. According to the SCMP, Chinese visitors contributed more than 2 billion Canadian dollars (about 2 trillion won) a year to Canada's tourism sector.
However, as relations between the two countries began to freeze rapidly in 2018, the tourism industry also suffered. At the time, Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States, and China retaliated by detaining two Canadians on espionage charges.
In 2023, allegations emerged that China had surveilled a Chinese Canadian politician, and the two countries expelled each other's diplomats in a tit-for-tat move, pushing tensions to a peak. The dispute then spread to trade. When Canada imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum products last year, China in March imposed retaliatory tariffs of 25% to 100% on Canadian agricultural and livestock products, including canola oil.
Canada began to send conciliatory gestures to China after the U.S. administration of Donald Trump imposed high tariffs on Canada. Because the U.S. tariffs caused losses in key Canadian exports, Canada needed new export markets to make up for them.
The two countries have recently been increasing high-level contacts. Carney also met last month in New York with Li Qiang, premier of the China State Council. The meeting came six months after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had presided over the deterioration in ties following Meng Wanzhou's arrest, left office.
The SCMP called China's approval of group tours to Canada "a sign that relations are gradually thawing after years of tension," adding that "the back-to-back meetings with Chinese leaders show that, under pressure from President Trump, Carney is prioritizing economic diversification."