by John Hayward
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Sunday she asked her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to “help influence the Houthis to keep the Red Sea open.”
Joly said she met with Wang on Saturday and tried to convince him that keeping the Red Sea shipping lanes safe was “in China’s interests as an exporter.”
Joly and Wang spoke on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, which concluded on Sunday. Wang promised in his address to the conference that China would be a “force for stability” in the world, which would seem to imply that China might help to protect international shipping through one of the world’s busiest sea lanes against a vicious terrorist organization.
Wang told Joly that his government wants to repair relations with Canada, which were severely damaged during the Meng Wanzhou affair.
Meng — the chief financial officer of telecom giant Huawei and a critical figure in the Chinese Communist Party — was arrested in Canada in December 2018 and held under house arrest for extradition to the United States on sanctions evasion charges. China took several Canadians hostage in retaliation and released them shortly after the charges against Meng were dropped in late 2021.
Canada has also accused China of interfering with its elections, and an investigation is ongoing. Wang alluded to these issues when he said the “current difficult situation” is “not what China wants to see.”