There have been a few signs that the Chinese government might be losing interest in Canada.

President Xi Jinping's grandiose Belt and Road Initiative hopes to re-create the Silk Road trading route through Central Asia and the Middle East to Europe and Africa.

The country has also launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to finance transportation, telecommunications, energy projects, water supply and sanitation, and other capital expenditures along this revived Silk Road and elsewhere in the developing world.

Moreover, China signed a massive 30-year deal with Russia to buy natural gas. And in recent years, Chinese companies have sharply increased their presence in Burma, which is the land bridge to India and the Indian Ocean.

All of this is designed make China less dependent on securing energy and other resources via the Pacific Ocean, where the U.S. Navy has vastly more military might.

Now, there is an indication that air travel could also be curtailed.

Perhaps it's a coincidence, but this summer, Shanghai-based China Eastern Airways has announced that it's cutting back its service to Vancouver.

Routes Online reported that the airline has cancelled the previously planned weekly service of 11 A330-300 flights, beginning in July 2017.

The aircraft will reportedly "operate on selected flights" between June 15 and June 30.

The announcement comes less than a week before the owners of the Lulu Island Winery in Richmond, John Chang and Allison Lu, are scheduled to go on trial in Shanghai on charges of smuggling wine into China.

The pair's lawyers have maintained that this is a dispute over customs duties. The lawyers at Fasken Martineau also claim that under World Trade Organization rules, China had no legal authority to jail Lu for months and Chang for over a year before the trial had taken place.