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Canadian PM hopes to spring 'spy' and save Canada's canola crop

CANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is visiting China in hopes of springing a citizen accused of stealing state secrets but also hoping to save his nation's canola grain crop from a Chinese regulators who would shutdown the world's biggest export market for the commodity.

To placate China, Canada will now join Beijing's new $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a diplomatic victory for President Xi Jinping as he hosts the Group of 20 summit.

What makes this appear to be a quid pro quo deal is the fact that China's regulators have now relented on plans to implement rules that would have banned Canadian canola, from its biggest market for the commodity that produces fuel and vegetable oil.

Canada's entry leaves the US and Japan as the only Group of Seven holdouts, giving China another win as it establishes new channels for influence to match its ambitions.

Canada is now in trouble with the United States in the area of softwood lumber. It now appears the US will be less likely to have the Americans meet and October deadline for an amicable settlements and instead will set off a salvo of protective tariffs.

Canola was ostensibly held up by China Customs over fears blackleg disease, though most suspect the new rule was in place to protect domestic producers or to induce Canada to join the AIIB.

At issue is "foreign matter?in the oil seed has been recently limited to one per cent when it had been 2.5 per cent before, Reuters reports.

Until the breakthrough, the Canadians say there has been no reply to a request for further information or comment from China's quarantine authority, which enacted the new restriction.

Traders have suggested that China's real reason for a higher standard is that its domestic rapeseed oil stocks are high. Beijing sold 2.8 million tonnes of rapeseed oil from state reserves in the first half of the year, reducing import demand.

Mr Trudeau has also said he would raise human rights, an issue of great sensitivity in Beijing. Ottawa is pressing the case of Canadian Christian missionary Kevin Garratt, who was indicted on charges of spying and stealing state secrets earlier this year.

Xinhua, which said Mr Garratt had stolen Chinese military research secrets, said Canada should not let "groundless concerns" about human rights stand in the way of cooperation.