Bob Mackin
B.C. Premier David Eby is going on a week-long trade mission to China beginning June 27, according to a Chinese-language media outlet.
Under the headline “Which entrepreneurs will David Yin bring to China?” Sing Tao reported May 16 that Eby is scheduled to stop in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and the trip would end July 3.
It will be the first visit by a B.C. Premier to China since John Horgan in 2018.
Premier David Eby and China’s ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, at the 2025 Chinatown Lunar New Year parade in Vancouver. (BC Gov/Flickr)
Eby is following in the footsteps of Prime Minister Mark Carney. Amid the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, Carney went to the Chinese capital in January and declared a “strategic partnership” with Xi Jinping.
Eby will miss celebrating Canada Day on July 1 in B.C. He will also be gone for part of the time that Vancouver is a co-host of the FIFA World Cup. Canada and Mexico are junior partners to the U.S., where three-quarters of the matches will be played.
Eby’s trip is scheduled just over a year since BC Ferries announced it hired China state-owned CMI Weihai Shipyard to build four new vessels.
July 1 is the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
China turmoil inside NDP?
In early May, the former Mayor of Vancouver said that a member of Eby’s cabinet was under investigation for “collaborating with the Chinese government.”
Kennedy Stewart, also a former NDP MP, said on CKNW that he met for four hours with lawyers for the federal government and that Eby was aware of the investigation.
Eby denied the allegation in Question Period. He said “at a minimum, if there was a concern about a cabinet member, given the sensitive information that cabinet has access to, I would remove that person from cabinet.”
During his 2018-2022 term, Stewart favoured closer ties between Vancouver and the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, which enraged then-Chinese Consul-Gen. Tong Xiaoling.
In early 2023, the Globe and Mail quoted from leaked Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents that said Tong discussed a strategy to replace Stewart with a Chinese-Canadian candidate.
Ken Sim of the ABC Vancouver party won the 2023 election in a landslide. He scoffed at the newspaper report: “If there is proof of this, I’d be as mad as hell as everyone else.”
In January, at a Chinese consulate Lunar New Year party, Sim promised to visit China if he is re-elected in October.
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