China Canada Photo: VCG

China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently issued a notice announcing a list of the third batch of foreign countries eligible for Chinese group tours. Some Canadian media found that Canada is excluded from the list, which seemed to touch upon their anxiety.

For instance, Canadian media Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on Wednesday claimed that Chinese government has "snubbed Canada" as Beijing reviewed and approved the new overseas destination for Chinese tour groups, saying it threatens to leave Canada's travel industry at a competitive disadvantage and slow down Canada's post-pandemic recovery.

Chinese authorities are resuming overseas group tours in an orderly manner, while protecting the legitimate rights and interests of massive Chinese tourists. There doesn't have "political factors" as speculated by Canadian media. 

The reason why the Canadian media is speculating that "China snubs Canada" is precisely because of the negative impact of the anti-China actions implemented by the Canadian government which torpedoed bilateral ties.

And, some Canadian media outlets mentioned the outrageous move of Canada, by detaining Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, and Canadian politicians' groundless hype of "China's interference in Canadian elections".

All this shows that the wanton behavior of Canada undermining bilateral relationship have had severe negative impact on bilateral relations. It's crystal clear that the responsibilities are on the Canadian side, and Canada needs to take necessary actions to rectify its mistakes, and create good conditions for improving economic and trade cooperation, including tourism cooperation.

However, the Canadian side seems to be moving in the opposite direction of late. For a period of time, Canada has continued to hype up the lie of "China interfering in Canada's internal affairs," but it has failed to provide any evidence. 

In response to related questions, a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Canada said on August 9 that far-fetched and extremely ridiculous hypes expose the Canadian side's real intention of political manipulation by using China-related issues.

China urges the Canadian side to stop undermining the relationship between the two countries. Otherwise, Canada will have to bear all the consequences, the spokesperson warned.

Undoubtedly, more arbitrary and illicit actions from the Canada side will only lead to further escalation of bilateral tensions. In such an unfriendly environment, even if Canada is officially included in the list of the group tours, Chinese tourists will think twice because they are worried about Canada's unfriendliness and hostility against China.

The importance of China to Canada's tourism industry is evident. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, outbound tourism from China was a valuable international commodity. Chinese travelers spent $255 billion in 2019, accounting for 20 percent of all international tourism spending, according to statistics from the World Tourism Organization. China used to be Canada's largest tourism market in terms of how much Chinese tourists spend, CBC reported.

It's time for the Canadian government to heed the concerns and urges of Chinese tourists and many in the business community in order to repair disrupted bilateral relationship, and make economic, trade and people-to-people exchanges between the two nations come back to normalcy at an earlier date. 

If the politicians in Ottawa continue to neglect the concerns of its business community and move further on the wrong road in terms of foreign policies toward China, Canadian industries are to suffer more economic losses, and the post-pandemic recovery in tourism and other industrial lines of its economy will be delayed.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn