China and Canada on AI Sovereignty: Xi Jinping, Mark Carney, and the Architecture of Managed Interdependence

This article compares Xi Jinping’s 17 July 2026 global AI-governance keynote with Mark Carney’s 4 June 2026 launch of Canada’s AI for All Strategy. It is an official-text comparison with an asymmetric audiovisual overlay: Xi’s official Chinese text and separately labelled English diplomatic translation are compared with Carney’s official delivered-speech transcript and separately labelled prepared remarks.

The selected speeches do not offer a simple choice between openness and sovereignty. Xi positions China primarily as an outward provider of AI capacity and an international institution-builder; Carney positions Canada as a middle power building domestic and allied options against strategic infrastructure dependence. Both retain governed cooperation and therefore present different architectures of managed interdependence.

The article preserves strict claim ceilings. It does not treat translation, transcript, captions, clips, and prepared remarks as interchangeable; it does not infer implementation from announcements or institutional establishment; and it does not conclude that Chinese provision creates or reduces recipient dependence or that Canadian announcements have reduced foreign leverage. Those outcomes require recipient-side evidence on control, substitution, continuity, and exit.