The important "healing" step

Recently, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced the visit of Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly to Beijing from July 18-20 at the invitation of her counterpart Wang Yi.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) and his Canadian counterpart met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February. (Source: THX)

On July 18, Canadian media reported that Foreign Minister Melanie Joly is in Beijing on an unannounced visit, aiming to break the ice in the relationship between the two sides.

Since taking office in 2021, Ms. Joly has not visited China but met Mr. Wang Yi in February this year on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

This is the first visit to Beijing by a Canadian foreign minister in nearly seven years and Ms. Joly is also the highest-ranking Canadian official to visit China since 2017.

According to the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , during the visit, the foreign ministers of the two countries are expected to meet on July 19 to discuss global and regional security issues as well as “possible ways to cooperate to address common challenges.”

A senior Canadian government official told CBC News that the meeting between the two foreign affairs "chiefs" was a "big step in the right direction" and "important" in helping mend the deteriorating relationship between the two countries.

Ottawa-Beijing relations have been frosty since late 2018 following the arrest in Canada of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and the retaliatory detention of two Canadians in China. All three have since been released.

Ms. Joly's trip comes just a week after members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which Canada is a member, issued an unfriendly statement aimed at China, drawing protests from Beijing.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/first-time-after-nearly-7-years-a-canadian-foreign-minister-unexpectedly-met-china-in-the-close-time-quan-trong-279235.html