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Canada, China to start free trade talks, explore extradition treaty

Canadian MP Geng Tan, the first Chinese-born member of parliament with Trudeau’s ruling Liberals, says the idea of a free-trade agreement comes at a time when Canada’s economic growth has been somewhat stagnant in recent years.

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Relations between China and Canada have a solid foundation, huge potential and great opportunities of development, said Prime Minister Li Keqiang, who is on an official visit to that North American country.

Li, accompanied by his wife Cheng Hong and senior Chinese officials, arrived in Ottawa as the guest of his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau, who just paid an official visit to China and attended the G20 Hangzhou summit from August 30 to September 6.

During Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Canada this week, both countries inked a deal that allows for the recovery as well as the sharing of these ill-gotten gains.

“Canada does not want to be seen as a safe haven for fugitives and it is in Canada’s interest to have such persons removed”, said the note, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

But the Chinese government has become much more insistent on this front.

Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, elected previous year, is trying to improve ties and increase trade with the world’s second-largest economy after a decade of rocky relations under his Conservative predecessor. Li said he will meet annually with Canada’s prime minister.

“This is about his judgment, because Mr. Trudeau signed off on this sweetheart deal”, Calkins said in an emailed statement.

In 2015, China issued 100 global arrest warrants for people it says are corrupt officials, most of whom live in the USA or Canada. “I think that, in a few weeks, we’ll have a more concrete answer about how will this be done, and in what terms”, Ciolos said.

Trudeau called the “historic nature” of their back-to-back visits to each other’s countries a chance to deepen and strengthen the collaboration and co-operation between the two countries on a broad range of issues.

“On economic and trade relations, we reached a lot of new agreements, and we stand ready to work with Canada to explore and to study how we can work to set up a free-trade area”, he said.

Such an agreement would be the first between China and Canada.

“It’s impossible to imagine how you would have an extradition treaty that would line up with Canada’s obligations to not send people to face the death penalty”, Neve said in an interview. China is Canada’s second biggest trading partner, worth around $50 billion.

For more on Premier Li’s visit to Canada, let’s cross live to CCTV correspondent Roee Ruttenberg in Ottawa.

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Li noted that China has an extradition treaty with over 40 countries, including some European countries.

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