As I think about how our new Prime Minister—he's not so new anymore—is engaging in the Indo-Pacific, I can't help thinking that he brings dignity, thoughtfulness and technocratic skill to the prime ministership.
At the same time, as we think about diversifying our trade towards India and Indonesia and building clean-air partnerships with Australia, are these the best uses of our comparative advantages to tackle the real challenges in the region? The real challenge from my standpoint is, again, China's pursuit of what we call hegemony in the region—dominating and reshaping the region. If it reshapes the region along rules that show preference to China, this will obviously negatively affect Canadian interests.
As I watch the Prime Minister, I think the engagement with China needs to be thoughtful. As he says, the guardrails need to be high. We need to be very realistic about China's willingness to use force against Taiwan, which will fundamentally disrupt the global economy, and about its interest in dominating what we call the Indo-Pacific. This would fundamentally affect trade agreements, AI regulation and how we use sea lanes of communication.
In this case, the priorities of the Prime Minister should be focused on understanding these issues and building relationships through trade agreements, energy agreements, critical mineral agreements, security agreements and disinformation agreements that actually tackle those issues, which I think are the priority for Canada and Canadian interests.