China snubs Canada as it lifts travel bans, blames ‘hyping up’ of foreign interference claims

The United Nations tourism agency (UNWTO) says China grew to be the biggest tourism source market in the world before the pandemic. In 2019, Chinese tourists spent a collective US$255 billion on international travel.

Group tours from China to Canada were first approved in 2010.

In 2018, nearly 700,000 Chinese visitors came to Canada, spending an average of C$2,600 (US$1,922) per visitor, or a total of C$2 billion – out of C$22 billion spent collectively by all foreign travellers, according to a report by the Canada China Business Council.

That same year, tit-for-tat arrests of a top Huawei Technologies executive in Vancouver on a US warrant and two Canadians living in China, accused of espionage, dealt a serious blow to bilateral relations.

Ottawa accused Beijing of engaging in “hostage diplomacy”. before a deal was eventually reached with US prosecutors that saw all three people released in 2021.

China-Canada relations hit a new low this year amid accusations of Chinese meddling in Canadian elections and the attempted intimidation of MPs that led to the expulsion of a Chinese diplomat in May.

Beijing responded by sending home a Canadian diplomat from Canada’s consulate in Shanghai.