Asked to name the biggest threat to Canada’s security during an election debate, Mark Carney, the country’s prime minister and Liberal Party leader running to win a full term, gave a surprising answer: “China.”
Analysts saw it as an attempt to distance himself from the country amid heightened scrutiny on his own past work there.
Mr. Carney, a former central banker and business executive, dealt with the Chinese establishment in his recent private-sector roles for companies with investments in China.
But what was once an asset — experience working with a rising global power — has become a political liability in Monday’s national elections.
Mr. Carney and the Liberals have come under criticism for supporting a parliamentary candidate with connections to groups representing China’s Communist Party in Canada. Foreign interference in diaspora communities in Canada by China, India and other nations has been a concern for both parties, and the subject of inquiries.
The relationship between Canada and China sharply deteriorated following a diplomatic crisis that began when Canada detained a Chinese executive in 2018 on behalf of the United States.
Days later, Chinese authorities detained two Canadian men, holding them for two and a half years.
For many Canadians, the dispute underscored the ruthlessness of China’s Communist Party.
“If you take the pulse of Canadian society, most people would hold unfavorable views toward China,” said Lynette Ong, a Chinese politics professor at the University of Toronto. “It’s politically incorrect to say out loud that there is a need to work with China on certain issues.”
Of the various accusations leveled against Mr. Carney as he tries to lead his party to victory in Monday’s election, claims about his allegedly nefarious links to China have been the most persistent.
Many Hats
In 2020 Mr. Carney became board chairman at Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian investment giant and an investor in China’s property and renewable energy markets.
From August 2023 he also served as chair of the board at Bloomberg, the media company, and in September 2024 he took on an unpaid role as economic adviser to the Liberal Party of Canada under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
He resigned from all his roles in January to run to replace Mr. Trudeau as Liberal Party leader.
He visited China at least twice last year.
The Conservative Party of Canada has framed a loan Brookfield received in November from the state-owned Bank of China for its property investments in Shanghai as evidence that Mr. Carney is beholden to Beijing.
Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, said Mr. Carney had held “secret talks” with the deputy governor of the Chinese Central Bank in October. “Two weeks later, Brookfield got a quarter-billion-dollar loan,” he added, describing Mr. Carney as “compromised.”
The October meeting was not secret. The Chinese government released a statement about it saying that “the two sides exchanged views on the current economic and financial situation.”
Foreign companies often obtain loans from Chinese banks for investments and business in the country, and as China’s property crisis has deepened in recent years, Beijing has given Chinese banks the green light to help some developers and real estate projects.
But there is little doubt that representing Western business in China has become complicated under the leadership of China’s president, Xi Jinping, as he has sought to embed the party more deeply in the business sector.
Western wariness, too, has grown over China’s geopolitical ambitions under Mr. Xi.
While chief executives once gushed about China’s more than one billion customers, these days they prefer avoiding any mention of China.
By early 2024, foreign investment had slumped and some foreign companies were even engineering exits from China.
So when the executives of 20 American companies, including Mr. Carney, showed up for a rare meeting in March 2024 with Mr. Xi, it was framed in China as a signal that the world’s biggest companies still supported the country.
Mr. Carney attended the meeting as chair of Bloomberg’s board and afterward stood close to Mr. Xi in the front row during a group photo. Bloomberg declined to comment about Mr. Carney’s presence.
Two Marks
Whatever hat he was wearing, the Mark Carney speaking at the March 2024 event in Beijing sounded different than the Mark Carney of today.
The executives in the room said they would, “unswervingly continue to explore the China market, and develop a long-term close cooperative relationship with China,” according to state media coverage of the meeting.
“I am very cleareyed about China,” Mr. Carney told reporters this month. “It is the second-largest economy in the world, it is our second-largest trading partner, it is also — and I’ll use my words carefully given that I am briefed on these matters — one of the largest threats with respect to foreign interference.”
He added: “We both have to engage with China and to take steps to protect ourselves.”
With the United States pursuing a trade war with China and applying tariffs on Canada and other allies, Canada is “being sandwiched between the U.S. and China,” Ms. Ong said.
Canada’s next prime minister, she added, will have to deal with China as a threat and a necessary partner on certain issues.
“You can do both,’’ she said. “They should not be mutually exclusive.”
Zixu Wang contributed to research from Hong Kong.