Ottawa hopes Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in South Korea next week, a senior Canadian government official told reporters Thursday.
Carney, who stresses the need to restart broad engagement with Beijing after years of poor relations, is due to be in Seoul for an APEC summit.
He said last week that he planned to meet with senior Chinese leaders in the coming month.
“We hope there will be a meeting and we will plan accordingly… we would like to see a meeting at APEC if possible,” a senior government official told a news briefing when asked about a possible Xi meeting.
China announced preliminary anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola imports in August, a year after Canada announced it would impose 100 per cent tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles.
Senior Canadian and Chinese officials discussed disputes over canola and electric vehicles last Friday, Ottawa said, but gave no indication of immediate progress.
