Canadian PM in town

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will arrive in Beijing today and meet with top Chinese leaders during his five-day visit, which is expected to enhance economic ties between the two countries, while Canadian media said China would loan two giant pandas to Canada as a sign of warming bilateral relations.

Harper will visit Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing, meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and other officials, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Five Cabinet ministers, including the ministers of natural resources, trade and foreign affairs and 40 Canadian business leaders will make the trip with him.

In a written interview with Xinhua on Friday, Harper said, "We hope to expand on our strategic partnership with China and, in particular, we hope to deepen the economic and trade ties between our two countries."

Harper is expected to embrace China as an alternative market for Canadian energy following US decision this January to reject the Keystone XL pipeline that would have taken oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas. Andrew MacDougall, Harper's spokesman, said Friday it is "absolutely in Canada's interests" to move the country's resources to China.

In his early days in office, however, Harper irked Beijing by awarding honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama and boycotting the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games.

"Western countries basically share the same stance toward China's human right issues. China and Canada have maintained a generally cold relationship over the past few years," Zhou Rongyao, director of Canadian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times yesterday.

Given that China's economy continues to grow against the backdrop of a gloomy world economic situation, Canada needs to improve relations with China, he said.

"The repatriation of the alleged smuggling kingpin Lai Changxing on July 23 is deemed as a sign of improvement of the Sino-Canadian relationship," he said.

Zhou agreed that Harper's visit will put the emphasis on economic cooperation, a practical starting point that might eventually lead to substantive improvement of the Sino-Canadian relationship.

"There is still huge room for deepening economic cooperation between the two countries," he said.

According to the press release on Harper's visit issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada, China has become Canada's second-largest merchandise trading partner. Bilateral merchandise trade reached $57.7 billion in 2010, while overall trade between the two countries more than tripled between 2001 and 2010.

As a sign of warming bilateral relations, Harper will announce in Chongqing that Canada will receive a pair of giant pandas from China, Charles Burton, a China expert at Brock University who was invited to join the Prime Minister's trip, told the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail.

"This comes after a long period of the [Toronto] zoo people courting the panda people [in China]. They're just ecstatic about this," he said.

Canada has never before received pandas. The then Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau offered four beavers to China in 1973 but did not in turn receive pandas as he hoped.