Thank you. The professor emeritus really just takes the role of a pensioner in coming to this group.
Thank you for a third opportunity to appear before the committee. This time it's on the China dimension of the government’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
Now at the implementation stage, the strategy provides a platform and resources for dozens of initiatives involving multiple departments here at home and multiple players in the region. Not since the era of Canada’s “Year of Asia Pacific” in 1997 has there been such a surge of regional interest and activity.
It's important to note that the frame of “Indo-Pacific” varies significantly from the previous “Asia-Pacific”. This is not just a shift that's putting more emphasis on India and south Asia. The international policy statement embodies a bigger change in tone, direction and positioning.
“Asia-Pacific” was born in the aftermath of a Cold War, in the late 1980s and early nineties. It, too, was based on appreciation of growing economic dynamism. However, it promoted free trade and open regionalism. It aimed to supplement alliances and deterrence with new co-operative security mechanisms led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and assisted by Canada. It aimed at the inclusion of the non-like-minded—like Vietnam and China—in the regional order.
“Indo-Pacific” is born in a more pessimistic and zero-sum era. It is characterized by an escalating rivalry between two great powers, anxiety about a rising China and uncertainty about the United States. It is spawning new minilaterals—like the Quad and AUKUS—that are composed of like-minded countries focused on resisting elements of China's rise. There is a new skepticism about open markets and free trade, and a belief that regional economic integration is as much a source of vulnerability and risk as it is opportunity.
Buzzwords of the Indo-Pacific era are things like “decoupling”, “de-risking”, “deglobalization”, “diversification away from China”, “strategic competition”, “industrial policy” and “democracy versus authoritarianism”. We're in a new context, which the Indo-Pacific strategy tries to address.
In this context, Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy repositions China as an increasingly disruptive power. Some 15 countries and two international organizations also have Indo-Pacific strategies, but no two are closer than the United States and Canada in framing the China challenge.
I'd like to spend the last minute of my remarks on the U.S. dimension of Canada's China policy.
As the committee members on your Washington visit no doubt discovered, there are unmistakable signs of a closer convergence between positions in Ottawa and Washington. Both reflect negative sentiment about China. Legislators are focusing on pushing back against China on issues, which include human rights, domestic interference and Taiwan—the issues we heard about.
One way of capturing this is through the famous three Cs—competition, co-operation and confrontation. In the words of Secretary Blinken, this is a China policy that is “competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be”.
For America, however, it is, above all, a strategic competition without end that has military, technological, diplomatic and ideological dimensions.
Canada's leaders talk about the three Cs as well and in similar terms, but occasionally with a slight twist. A fourth term in some of the Canadian lexicon is coexistence. That still has supporters and reflects the engagement ambitions of an earlier era. This includes accepting the legitimacy of the People's Republic of China as a nation-state and looking for ways to live with it rather than defeat it. It implies the possibility of mutual respect and respectful dialogue beyond transactional matters. Ironically now, in the Canadian case, those channels are mainly closed.
We need to get a handle on the specific areas of Canada-U.S. convergence on China policy, but also the areas of difference. On the research side, a new Wilson Center-McGill University “Canada-U.S. Commission on China” is asking two key questions: Where we are aligned, how do we co-operate with the United States? Where our interests, values and approach differ, how do we manage the differences with Washington?
Topic areas include artificial intelligence, the Arctic, critical minerals, debt and governance in the global south, supply chain resilience and friendshoring, foreign interference, the prospects for co-operative security and the positioning of Canadian military assets in Asia.
One evident area of disagreement that was hinted at in the early session was the matter of what kind of open, rules-based multilateral trading system we want. Canada has a special interest in that.
A second is whether the scope of technological restrictions should extend beyond dual-use and military technologies in our universities and other areas. Should it also include preserving economic advantages against China? Should we control technology as a weapon?