Evidence of meeting #33 for Canada-China Relations in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was japan.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
That's probably the easiest way, because you're right. It would be a bit of a stretch for one person to carry a whole hour, as the ambassador did.
Liberal
Shihoko Goto Director, Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, As an Individual
Thank you for inviting me to speak today.
The United States is now mired in not just one but two theatres of conflict—Ukraine and the Middle East. Washington, however, has not lost and will not lose sight of the third theatre, which is the Indo-Pacific and meeting the China challenge in particular. Confronting China as a systemic threat remains one of the few issues that continue to have bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.
The reality is that Washington needs its allies and partners more than ever to face the challenge posed by Beijing.
On the security front, efforts to coordinate operations through mechanisms such as the Quad and AUKUS are moving forward steadily. NATO is pushing the boundaries beyond its mandate to address the China challenge, inviting countries including Japan, Australia and South Korea as observers.
It is on the economic front, however, that a shared vision amongst U.S. allies and partners is needed. Not only is that vision hazy, but a schism amongst like-minded countries is likely to emerge in the form of a new trade war.
To be sure, today there is a G7 consensus to co-operate to boost economic resilience and economic security. There is greater unity in seeking ways to push back against China's leveraging of global interdependence for its political gain. Governments and businesses from the wealthiest nations to the more vulnerable economies of the global south have been pressured by a China that has systematically been weaponizing global economic interdependence. Self-censorship by companies and states to pre-empt Chinese retaliation has become all too common.
For countries across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, the G7's push to have an action plan against Chinese coercion has become a welcome one. Collective economic security arrangements per se may not be in the cards. Nevertheless, there is a way forward to leverage international public opinion against Chinese coercion and to raise global awareness of the risks of Chinese authoritarian rule.
On the other hand, there is no shared vision of an economic victory against China. There is little appetite to decouple from China, but at the same time there is no clarity about how to reduce vulnerability by being exposed so much to China. Curbing Beijing's technology ambitions may be a top U.S. priority, but that's not a concern for the global south. Meanwhile, as tensions between Washington and Beijing show no signs of easing, the goal of Indo-Pacific nations is to ensure continued stability and growth, which must include managing economic relations with China as well as the United States.
Washington's focus remains on protecting its advanced technologies from China and preventing Beijing from integrating civilian and military technology systems. Export controls introduced by the United States support this goal and have been agreed upon by Japan and the Netherlands. However, without buy-in from Japan and the Netherlands, which are the world's biggest semiconductor equipment manufacturers, U.S. efforts to restrict Chinese access to advanced chips and chip making would simply have limited impact. Amid calls for nearshoring and friendshoring in the name of economic security and resilience, we have seen a rise of industrial policy to decrease dependence on trusted allies as well as on foes.
China is, of course, not the only destabilizer to growth, but Beijing's coercive actions and violations of the rule of law have led to a reassessment of economic resilience. A united and collaborative front against Chinese coercion could be the foundation of facing the systemic challenge that China poses to the global economy.
We've come a long way in a short amount of time in terms of understanding the need to focus on economic security. There is no easy solution to protect critical technologies or to stave off economic coercion, but countries such as Canada, which enjoy high trust not only with the United States but also with the international community at large, can play a significant role in protecting and promoting the international rule of law and healthy economic competition moving forward.
With that, I would like to conclude my opening remarks.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Thank you very much, Ms. Goto, for that.
We will now turn to Ms. Tatsumi for five minutes.
Yuki Tatsumi Co-Director, East Asia Program, The Henry L. Stimson Center, As an Individual
Thank you, members of the committee, for having given me this opportunity this evening. It is a great pleasure and honour to have this opportunity to testify before this committee.
I'm also extremely pleased that my testimony follows that of Ambassador Yamanouchi, whom you all heard from this past hour. He happens to be an old friend and colleague of mine. I can tell you from my personal experience working beside him almost 30 years ago, when I was serving at the Japanese embassy in the United States, in Washington, D.C., as a special assistant for a political minister, that the Japanese government sent one of its finest diplomats to Ottawa. This speaks volumes to the importance that Japan attaches to its relations with Canada.
Today's committee hearing focuses on an international perspective and, from what I understood from my invitation for me to come before you, the international perspective particularly from Japan.
As members of this committee know well, Japan adopted a free and open Indo-Pacific, or FOIP, strategy under the leadership of the late prime minister, Shinzo Abe, back in December 2012. Japan's FOIP 1.0, if you will, stood on three pillars: doubling down on its bilateral alliances with the United States; intensifying its engagement with other U.S. allies and partners within and outside the Indo-Pacific region, including energizing trilateral and minilateral frameworks such as the U.S.-Japan-ROK, Japan-U.S.-Australia, U.S.-Japan-India and other trilateral relationships; and last but not least, sustained steadfast support for multinational institutions and frameworks, such as the G7, G20, the United Nations, the WTO and others.
Since Japan announced its first national security strategy, which was released under the auspices of the late Prime Minister Abe in December 2012, Japan's FOIP concept has been evolving. I would argue that its evolution has almost direct correlations to China's emergence as a challenger to the existing international rules-based liberal order.
Tokyo's evolution in its strategic thinking is very clear, from my perspective, when you compare how its 2012 national security strategy and the updated 2022 national security strategy respectively address China. While the 2012 national security strategy describes China's increasingly assertive behaviour as “a source of concern not only for Japan but also for international community writ large” and as “something that needs to be monitored closely”, the 2022 NSS defines China as an “unprecedented” strategic challenge, as Japan, together with the international community, continues its efforts to defend the existing rules-based international order.
As Japan's own strategic view vis-à-vis China evolves, its effort to counter the challenges presented by Beijing also is evolving. Shutdown of international travel and other international direct in-person communication in 2020 through 2022 due to COVID-19 presented a significant challenge to Japan's efforts, however, as it really prevented the opportunities for in-person interaction at senior governmental levels, including at the summit level. That said, though, Japan certainly attempted to make the best out of the opportunity that virtual settings allowed.
Succeeding Prime Minister Abe in September 2020, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga placed his utmost priority, for example, on revitalizing the Quad framework and institutionalizing the partnership amongst the U.S., Japan, Australia and India in areas such as co-operation on vaccine developments and transactions, supply chain resiliency, disaster resiliency infrastructure investment and other important areas of economic security.
The incumbent prime minister, Prime Minister Kishida, further intensified the efforts launched by his predecessor in this area and really doubled down on Japan's effort to connect, if you will, the developments in the other parts of the world with those in the Indo-Pacific region by contextualizing them in terms of universal norms and values.
For instance, soon after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kishida worked extremely hard to enlist support for Ukraine amongst the Indo-Pacific region—many of them were not explicit in their support for Ukraine—by using the phrase that today's Ukraine can be tomorrow's east Asia.
As Ambassador Yamanouchi spoke about at length in the previous panel, peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are extremely important for Japan's own national security. It is in this context that Tokyo's rapprochement with the Republic of Korea, symbolized by the Camp David summit last summer, carries such an importance.
Japan is now squarely together on the same page with Washington and Seoul in terms of countering any attempt that may be leveraged by Beijing to change the status quo by force, which speaks volumes about Japan's effort to make sure that deterrence is in place.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Ms. Tatsumi, I'm wondering if you could just close your comments now, because we're ready to go to questioning.
Co-Director, East Asia Program, The Henry L. Stimson Center, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely.
Co-Director, East Asia Program, The Henry L. Stimson Center, As an Individual
Before I close, let me quickly mention about Japan's security relationship with Canada. As Japan continues to intensify its outreach beyond the Indo-Pacific, Tokyo's engagement with Ottawa is increasingly more important. To Japan, the more interest demonstrated by its out-of-the-area partners, including Canada, the better, as it is Japan's belief that such expression of interest in peace time, supported by the rule of law, will serve as a collective deterrence.
Moving forward, the further institutionalization of Japan-Canada bilateral secure relations that builds on the 2019 signing of the acquisition and cross-servicing agreement, including the conclusion of the general security of information agreement, will be of further benefit.
Especially as the Arctic sea opens up to navigation, Japan, as an observer to the Arctic Council, will look forward to co-operating with Canada to establish, for example, a code of conduct in this potentially extremely important strategic area.
I conclude my remarks.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to our questioning. We'll start with Mr. Chong for six minutes.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We just heard from the ambassador, who indicated that Japan will be increasing its defence spending to 2% of Japan's 2022 GDP by 2027, which is only three short years from now. Both witnesses mentioned, in their opening remarks, a change in Japan's posture in the Indo-Pacific region. There were references to the big change, which is a shift from the 2012 policy documents on defence and security to the 2022 posture. There were mentions of re-engagement with the Quad.
I think it's safe to say that Japan's 2022 documents are really a seismic change in Japan's posture in the region—a posture that had been in place for some 77 years, since the end of the Second World War. It was a posture based on pacifism. I think it's clear that the new documents position Japan as being prepared for a direct military attack.
In that context, I'm wondering if our witnesses can talk a little bit about Japan's assessment of its risk of being attacked by North Korea or by the People's Republic of China.
Secondly, what would Japan do if Taiwan were attacked by the People's Republic of China?
Feel free to go in any order you want. I'll leave it to the chair to coordinate that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
We'll go to an answer from Ms. Tatsumi first and then Ms. Goto second.
Between the two of you, you have four minutes. You have two minutes each.
Co-Director, East Asia Program, The Henry L. Stimson Center, As an Individual
Through the chair, thank you very much, Mr. Chong, for that question. I sound like Ambassador Yamanouchi, but that is a very hard question and an interesting one.
I would say that Japan considers the risk of being directly attacked by North Korea's missiles—not necessarily a land invasion attempt or anything like that—to be higher than the risk of a direct attack by China.
Japan is more worried about a Chinese attempt to reunify Taiwan by force quickly escalating into Japan's own national security crisis because of the geographical proximity between Taiwan and Japan. For that, Japan is certainly enhancing its defence posture in the Southwest Islands. That is geographically super close to the island of Taiwan. We're working very closely with the United States in terms of conducting joint military exercises if deterrence fails so that we could repel such a forceful invasion attempt. Frankly, it welcomes the participation of third countries that have defence co-operation arrangements. Australia is increasingly more present whenever the U.S. and Japan conduct bilateral military exercises focusing on contingency plans for this area.
Since ACSA was put in place in 2019, I'm pretty sure Tokyo would welcome Canada's participation as an observer of U.S.-Japan bilateral exercises focusing on this contingency scenario.
Director, Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, As an Individual
May I briefly add something on the increased defence spending by Japan?
If this had come out five years ago, there would have been great political opposition within Japan. Japan, as you said, still remains at its heart a pacifist nation. There would have been a great deal of public opposition. This has not been the case. The only opposition we're hearing is, “How is Japan going to afford it?”, meaning the Japanese voters themselves are very much aware of the dangerous neighbourhood they live in and the risks not only from North Korea but also from China.
Also, we haven't talked about this yet, but there's an increasingly reluctant United States to be a permanent Pacific power. It's hedging against those realities.
On the issue of Taiwan, I am of the camp that China is not preparing for any attack on Taiwan, but there are possibilities of miscalculation. They have intensified surveillance by sea and air. The possibility of things going wrong and triggering an unintended consequence as a result is something that keeps me up at night, as it does the Japanese leadership.
Liberal
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to both of the witnesses.
I have two questions, and I'd like comments from both of you. We'll try to split some time up to do this.
The first question has to do with the trilateral summit at Camp David among the United States, Japan and South Korea, and that relationship. South Korea and Japan have not always had an easy relationship, but something has emerged from that trilateral relationship: opportunities and challenges for Canada within that partnership agreement. What possibilities are there for us, and what challenges do you see for Canada?
The second question is on two elections, and I'll mention them both right away so you can take as much time on each as you wish. The Taiwanese elections have passed and the American presidential election is coming. What are the implications for our Indo-Pacific strategy, and for security and economic issues?
It's the trilateral and the elections. I'll go to Ms. Goto first.
Director, Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, As an Individual
Thank you.
On the trilateral, we are in a honeymoon period at the moment. Relations between Japan and South Korea had hit an all-time low about two years ago. We've seen a steady recovery. I would argue that it was really South Korean President Yoon's boldness to understand the need for enhanced relations with Japan in particular that has really led to a rapid improvement in relations.
That said, South Korea is having an election. The national assembly is having an election in April. Japan is having an election within its ruling Liberal Democratic Party by September of this year as well. It's not necessarily a top leadership change of governments, but it has significant impact and could lead to a change in leadership, not necessarily in South Korea because Yoon is there for a five-year fixed period, but for Japan there is a great deal of political uncertainty at this stage.
When it comes to what we want, we want to ensure that relations between the three countries are institutionalized, that they can adhere and withstand some of the political ebbs and flows, that they are resilient to political change and that there is structural support to encourage trilateral co-operation.
Canada has a tremendous role to play in vocalizing and supporting the trilateral relationship, and I would also say that Canada has a tremendous role to play as a bridge builder between Japan and Korea. It has good relations with both, but also there could be enhancement of those bilateral relations even further and articulation of the need for continued solid relations between Tokyo and Seoul.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Maybe we'll go to Ms. Tatsumi on the second question—we're running out of time—to talk about those two elections: the Taiwanese election, which has been given a third mandate, although reduced, in the parliament, and also the upcoming American elections.
Do you have any thoughts on challenges or opportunities for Canada in those?
Co-Director, East Asia Program, The Henry L. Stimson Center, As an Individual
I would quickly say one thing about U.S.-Japan-ROK before moving on to the Taiwan and U.S. elections.
The Camp David summit is a tremendous opportunity for Canada, as Canada has good relations, as Ms. Goto said, with both Tokyo and Seoul. Also, the spirit of Camp David really aims at institutionalizing the U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral relationship to weather the political changes at their three capitals. Hopefully that will hold.
It's not necessarily the Taiwanese elections because, even if the Legislative Yuan picture is a little bit unfavourable for incoming President Lai, the Kuomintang went through a great evolution in the last decade or so. They're much less willing to be soft on China, for lack of better words. That reflects the very deep change in the Taiwanese electorate that really doesn't find the option of being reunified with the mainland all that attractive for their future.
I think there is a baseline consensus now in Taiwan that any reunification needs to be peaceful and that Taiwan will need to have an equal say in how that reunification will take place. There is a tremendous opportunity for Canada as a peacetime enforcer of those principles. Any reunification effort—dialogue across the strait—needs to be conducted peacefully, and no forceful attempt to change the status quo should be allowed.
Now, back to the U.S. presidential elections, I'm sure you're all watching nervously in Ottawa as well. So are we in Washington, D.C., but even more so in Tokyo, because some of the analysts are already talking about Trump administration 2.0 being a big change between Trump administration 1.0 and whether 2.0 will become a reality. With Trump administration 1.0, Japan had the biggest weapon in its capital: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who knew how to work with President Trump. Right now, Tokyo is not so confident which political leader in Tokyo has the capacity that the late Prime Minister Abe showed working with President Trump.
To say that this is making everyone nervous in Tokyo is an understatement. That is what I'm sensing right now, but leading up to that and preparing for that scenario, I can say that, bilaterally, between the U.S. and Japan, especially on the political-military front, efforts are being accelerated to make sure that whatever corporate framework they're working toward will be institutionalized by the end of this year. They're trying to get as much done as possible before the new administration comes in.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Thank you.
You can take that extra time out of our last round.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
All right—what a guy.
Ms. Goto and Ms. Tatsumi, are you aware of the translation function on your screen? It's that little globe at the bottom. You're about to be spoken to in French by our colleague Monsieur Bergeron, who has six minutes.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Tatsumi, your November 2023 article entitled “Japan's Indo-Pacific Strategy” compares the Japanese and American Indo-Pacific strategies. Whereas the U.S. strategy defines the United States as an Indo-Pacific power, Japan's strategy states that Japan and India should jointly lead the region in the era of the Indo-Pacific.
I have two questions. How does Japan view the role of the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific, and does this statement have echoes of Japan's hegemonic vision?