Canada’s indigenous communities are seeking deals with China that could give Beijing access to the country’s natural resources, despite warnings from Canadian security services over doing business with Xi Jinping’s government. 

This week the Canada China Business Council indigenous trade mission is in Beijing to discuss potential energy and other business deals in a trip that could put Canada’s national “reconciliation” with its First Nation communities at odds with its national security priorities. 

Karen Ogen, the trade mission’s co-chair and chief executive of the First Nations Liquefied Natural Gas Alliance, said her goal on the trip, which starts on Wednesday, was to sell LNG for the benefit of the Wet’suwet’en communities in Canada’s western province of British Columbia.