That's a great question.
Without trying to be too verbose here, I think Canada is seen as modern, as part of North America, but we don't come with the baggage that America has. We're perceived to have some influence over our neighbours in North America in terms of their behaviour. I believe we're looked at as a trading nation, but a smaller trading nation, and when we're working together we have an impact against some of the geopolitics between our larger trading partners and geopolitical players such as China and the U.S.
You have a dynamic in ASEAN with respect to the U.S. defence arrangement. The U.S. Navy has largely kept the peace in the region and kept shipping channels free for trade, while at the same time China has become a growing and very large trading partner in the region. It's debatable which is the largest between China and the U.S. Canada, much like ASEAN, is also walking that line of being, maybe culturally and from a security and economic point of view, tied to the U.S.
The growing future of trade is with China and with the region, and we need to navigate that. Singapore is a great example. Singapore hosts a U.S. naval base, yet it is one of the largest foreign investors in China. It has a lot of cultural ties, obviously being majority ethnic Chinese, and then works through multilateral institutions like ASEAN and elsewhere in order to walk a line of—I'll borrow a word—very pragmatically serving their interests.
I think we can learn a lot from that as a nation. I think our participating in that serves our interests in diversification and security, growing trade and promoting our values in—I'll repeat it—a pragmatic way in this part of the world.