China is showcasing itself as a solid business and trading partner to traditional allies of the United States and others who have been alienated by President Donald Trump\u2019s politics, and some of them appear ready for a reset.<\/p>\n
Since the start of 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping has received South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and Irish leader Micheal Martin.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n This week, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer is on a three-day visit to Beijing, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to visit China for the first time in late February.<\/p>\n Among these visitors, five are treaty allies of the US, but all have been hit over the past year by the Trump administration\u2019s \u201creciprocal\u201d trade tariffs, as well as additional duties on key exports like steel, aluminium, autos and auto parts.<\/p>\n Canada, Finland, Germany and the UK found themselves in a NATO standoff with Trump this month over his desire to annex Greenland and threats that he would impose additional tariffs on eight European countries he said were standing in his way, including the UK and Finland. Trump has since backed down from this threat.<\/p>\n While China has long sought to present itself as a viable alternative to the post-war US-led international order, its sales pitch took on renewed energy at the World Economic Forum\u2018s (WEF) annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month.<\/p>\n As Trump told world leaders that the US had become \u201cthe hottest country, anywhere in the world\u201d thanks to surging investment and tariff revenues, and Europe would \u201cdo much better\u201d to follow the US lead, Chinese Vice Premier Li Hefeng\u2019s speech emphasised China\u2019s ongoing support for multilateralism and free trade.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile economic globalisation is not perfect and may cause some problems, we cannot completely reject it and retreat to self-imposed isolation,\u201d Li said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe right approach should be, and can only be, to find solutions together through dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n Li also criticised the \u201cunilateral acts and trade deals of certain countries\u201d \u2013 a reference to Trump\u2019s trade war \u2013 that \u201cclearly violate the fundamental principles and principles of the [World Trade Organization] and severely impact the global economic and trade order\u201d.<\/p>\n Li also told the WEF that \u201cevery country is entitled to defend its legitimate rights and interests\u201d, a point that could be understood to apply as much to China\u2019s claims over places like Taiwan as to Denmark\u2019s dominion over Greenland.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many ways, China has chosen to cast itself in the role of a stable and responsible global actor in the midst of the disruption that we are seeing from the US. Reiterating its support for the United Nations system and global rules has often been quite enough to bolster China\u2019s standing, especially among countries of the Global South,\u201d Bjorn Cappelin, an analyst at the Swedish National China Centre, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n John Gong, a professor of economics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, told Al Jazeera that the recent series of trips by European leaders to China shows that the Global North is listening, too. Other notable signs include the UK\u2019s approval of a Chinese \u201cmega embassy\u201d in London, Gong said, and progress in a years-long trade dispute over Chinese exports of electric vehicles (EVs) to Europe.<\/p>\n Starmer is also expected to pursue more trade and investment deals with Beijing this week, according to UK media.<\/p>\n \u201cA series of events happening in Europe seems to suggest an adjustment of Europe\u2019s China policy \u2013 for the better, of course \u2013 against the backdrop of what is emanating from Washington against Europe,\u201d Gong told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n The shifting diplomatic calculations are also clear in Canada, which has shown a renewed willingness to deepen economic ties with China after several spats with Trump over the past year.<\/p>\n Carney\u2019s is the first visit to Beijing by a Canadian prime minister since Justin Trudeau went in 2017, and he came away with a deal that saw Beijing agree to ease tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports and Ottawa to ease tariffs on Chinese EVs.<\/p>\n Trump lashed out at news of the deal, threatening 100 percent trade tariffs on Canada if the deal goes ahead.<\/p>\n In a statement last weekend on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that Carney was \u201csorely mistaken\u201d if he thought Canada could become a \u201c\u2018Drop Off Port\u2019 for China to send goods and products into the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n The meeting between Carney and Xi this month also thawed years of frosty relations after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in late 2018 at the behest of the US. Beijing subsequently arrested two Canadians in a move that was widely seen as retaliation. They were released in 2021 after Meng reached a deferred agreement with prosecutors in New York.<\/p>\n In Davos, Carney told world leaders that there had been a \u201crupture in the world order\u201d in a clear reference to Trump, followed by remarks this week to the Canadian House of Commons that \u201calmost nothing was normal now\u201d in the US, according to the CBC.<\/p>\n Carney also said this week in a call with Trump that Ottawa should continue to diversify its trade deals with countries beyond the US, although it had no plans in place yet for a free-trade agreement with China.<\/p>\n Hanscom Smith, a former US diplomat and senior fellow at Yale\u2019s Jackson School of International Affairs, told Al Jazeera that Beijing\u2019s appeal could be tempered by other factors, however.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the United States becomes more transactional, that creates a vacuum, and it\u2019s not clear the extent to which China or Russia, or any other power, is going to be able to fill the void. It\u2019s not necessarily a zero-sum game,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. \u201cMany countries want to have a good relationship with both the United States and China, and don\u2019t want to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n One glaring concern with China, despite its offer of more reliable business dealings, is its massive global trade surplus, which surged to $1.2 trillion last year.<\/p>\n Much of this was gained in the fallout from Trump\u2019s trade war as China\u2019s manufacturers \u2013 facing a slew of tariffs from the US and declining demand at home \u2013 expanded their supply chains into places like Southeast Asia and found new markets beyond the US.<\/p>\n China\u2019s record trade surplus has alarmed some European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, who, in Davos, called for more foreign direct investment from China but not its \u201cmassive excess capacities and distortive practices\u201d in the form of export dumping.<\/p>\n Li tried to address such concerns head-on in his Davos speech. \u201cWe never seek trade surplus; on top of being the world\u2019s factory, we hope to be the world\u2019s market too. However, in many cases, when China wants to buy, others don\u2019t want to sell. Trade issues often become security hurdles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n China is showcasing itself as a solid business and trading partner to traditional allies of the United States and others who have been alienated by President Donald Trump\u2019s politics, and some of them appear ready for a reset. Since the start of 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping has received South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
China\u2019s renewed sales pitch<\/h2>\n
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Filling the void<\/h2>\n
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