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OTTAWA: Canada's prime minister will travel to the world's two largest emerging economic powerhouses, India and China, in the coming months to try to boost trade, his office said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to go to India on November 16-18, after participating in a two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore.
The following month, he will make his first official visit to China on December 2-6, capping a year-long effort by his government to try to improve strained bilateral relations.
"Our two countries enjoy a growing partnership, sharing significant interests in trade and investment, the environment and regional security," Harper said in a statement.
"Canada is committed to a strong relationship with China that reflects our mutual respect and the need for practical cooperation."
Relations between the two countries had been strained by Ottawa's fierce criticism of Beijing over human rights abuses and accusations of Chinese espionage in Canada since Harper's Conservatives came to power in 2006.
Defying warnings from China, Harper met with the Dalai Lama last year for what the Canadian government described then as an "historic meeting" lasting only 40 minutes.
"This kind of action from Canada has seriously hurt Chinese people's feelings and seriously undermined Sino-Canadian relations," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a press conference in Beijing at the time.
The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after China crushed an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet, is viewed as a "splittist" by Beijing, although he says he wants autonomy rather than full independence for his homeland.
Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas told AFP that Canada has always valued "its important bilateral relationship with China," pointing to more than 18 Canadian ministerial visits to China in the past five years.
Political insiders, however, say Ottawa has tried over the past year, as one government official put it, to "take the relationship to another level to build a stronger, more dynamic partnership".
"We recognise that China is the world's fastest growing economy," said the official on condition of anonymity. "The relationship is now even more important because of the economic crisis to ensure prosperity for the country."
Harper's visit to China will come four months after state-owned PetroChina agreed in August to purchase a 60 per cent stake in two oil sands projects in Western Canada for 1.9 billion dollars (1.7 billion US).
The MacKay River and Dover oil sands projects owned by private Athabasca Oil Sands Corporation are located in the northeastern part of Alberta province – Harper's base of support.
The deal was the latest in a global buying spree by China, which has seen the voracious giant buy up stakes in resource companies around the world to secure supplies for its growing economy.
Harper's trip also coincides with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of a Trade Commissioner Service office in Shanghai.
Next year, Canada will celebrate 40 years of diplomatic ties with China, its third largest export market after the United States and Britain.
Harper's India trip, meanwhile, follows eleven ministerial-level visits to the country since 2006, and the opening of new Canadian trade offices this year in Hyderabad, Calcutta and Ahmedabad.
"There is a tremendous amount of potential in our relationship with India," Harper said.
- AFP/so
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