{"id":75920,"date":"2026-06-05T13:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/75920\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T13:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:15:13","slug":"as-i-see-it-trump-is-turning-allies-and-partners-into-friends-of-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/75920\/","title":{"rendered":"As I see it | Trump is turning allies and partners into friends of China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meanwhile, following the US president\u2019s visit to Beijing, his defence secretary Pete Hegseth avoided mentioning Taiwan at the Shangri-La Dialogue<\/a> in Singapore. He sounded almost conciliatory by hailing ties with Beijing as \u201cbetter than they\u2019ve been in many years\u201d while arguing for a \u201cstrong, quiet and clear\u201d US stance towards the region.<\/p>\n

That would have pleased President Xi Jinping. However, it probably alarmed Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr and Taiwan\u2019s leader William Lai Ching-te. The trio seem to have been coordinating on a united front against Beijing from an old American script. Perhaps they haven\u2019t received the latest memo.<\/p>\n

Hegseth did offer the obligatory warning about \u201crightful alarm\u201d at China\u2019s military build-up. Then again, the same White House has demanded that Asian allies spend 3.5 to 5 per cent of their gross domestic product on their militaries. One can hardly expect China to stand still while its neighbours plan to rearm. Still, Hegseth\u2019s softer tone is notable, and it\u2019s surely a good thing whenever tensions between the two superpowers are lowered.<\/p>\n

On the Canadian front, late last month, Foreign Minister Wang Yi became the first<\/a> top Chinese diplomat to set foot in Ottawa in a decade. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is clearly hedging with China and the European Union because the country\u2019s traditional trade partner down south has become openly hostile. Whether it was Trump\u2019s threats to make Canada the 51st American state, tear up the Canadian-Mexican-US trade pact<\/a> or impose punishing tariffs, Canadians have never felt so threatened by Washington in their lives.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d with China has been a long time coming. Carney\u2019s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, first came into office in 2015 promising to improve relations with Beijing and promote bilateral trade. He ended up worsening relations to a level not seen in decades \u2013 if ever \u2013 following the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei\u2019s chief financial officer and daughter of the company\u2019s founder, at the request of US law enforcement. Beijing subsequently detained two Canadians whom it accused of having worked as spies.<\/p>\n

Hero\u2019s welcome for Meng Wanzhou at Huawei offices in China after extradition battle and quarantine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, following the US president\u2019s visit to Beijing, his defence secretary Pete Hegseth avoided mentioning Taiwan at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5152,17,337,162,3848,30346,928,7367,17490,61,2111,11641,396,10557,3211],"class_list":["post-75920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-beijing","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-european-union","tag-himalayas","tag-india","tag-meng-wanzhou","tag-new-delhi","tag-ottawa","tag-pakistan","tag-shanghai","tag-singapore","tag-taiwan","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}