Can Canada strengthen trade with China and address human rights concerns?

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's departs for his first official visit to China with one goal in mind: reset Canada's relationship with China.

Trudeau will be spending the week in China including attending the annual G20 meeting. He aims to enhance trade and business relations, while at the same time addressing human rights concerns.

But whether Canada has any real influence on China is up for debate.

 "China is the fastest growing economy in the world. It is the largest trading country and is going to take over the United States," says Wenran Jiang, who believes the stakes are "extremely high" if Canada does not reset a relationship with China — preventing Canada from competing with countries who have already signed free trade agreements with China.

Jiang, the director of the Canada-China Energy and Environment Forum, is in Beijing facilitating communication between Canadian and Chinese businesses. He tells The Current's Robyn Bresnahan that in order to look at resetting the relationship between Canada and China, it's important first to look back 10 years under the Harper government.

According to Jiang, Canada's relationship with China developed under Harper was one that had no clear direction or strategy and describes the relationship as a roller-coaster.

"China is too important for Canada for such a bilateral relationship to be on that kind of ground. I think the resetting has to be finding a new strategic and more consistent approach."

Jiang tells Bresnahan that China is a "manufacturing giant" and says Trudeau "needs to find our own advantage, our footing" to create an equitable relationship moving forward. He hopes Trudeau will promote Canadian economy and companies "on a regular basis, not on a one-off basis."

"We need to also have the competitive advantage  — that is we do better, compete better than other countries in the China market. I hope the prime minister's trip will achieve that goal, to a certain extent."

Jiang believes China's human rights record should not hinder Canada's strategic approach to trade and says Canada needs to go "beyond the human rights versus trade" to engage China on both goals.

He suggests that Trudeau can engage China to set up programs between the two countries to promote human rights and "not just a one-way street in China but also in Canada."

Jiang believes implementing tangible programs will finally address the issue "rather than ideological shout outs" that do nothing in reality.  

The bottom line, says Jiang, no matter what kind of relationship Canada develops with China, there's only one way to be sure human rights is a priority.

"Nobody, no country in the world can make a difference on human rights records in China, on human rights progress in China, other than the Chinese people themselves."

Listen to the full conversation at the top of this post.

This segment was produced by The Current's Karin Marley and Vancouver network producer, Anne Penman.