The catalyst for the government’s Indo-Pacific Strategy could have been the Meng Wanzhou affair and the arbitrary imprisonment by the Chinese regime of two Canadians, an expert suggested during a panel discussion on Dec. 7.
James Boutilier, a distinguished fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute (MLI), said there have been calls for Canada to engage in the Asia Pacific region going back decades, pointing to a recommendation in 1984 by the newly established Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.
“Underscoring all of this should have been a real sense of urgency about our national commitment to one of the most important regions on the face of the earth. But that urgency has been absent—there has been a fundamental national deficit in terms of our engagement,” said Boutilier, former special adviser (policy) at Canada’s Maritime Forces Pacific Headquarters in Esquimalt, B.C.
“Perhaps it’s a result of the negative experience that we had at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party with respect to Madame Wanzhou and the two Michaels that we have been, in fact, obliged to come to grips with our position in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Canada-China relations took a nosedive in 2018 after Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were arrested in China in what was dubbed “hostage diplomacy” following Ottawa’s detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of Washington, which wanted her extradited on fraud charges.
The panel discussion, titled “Bolstering the Role of ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific,” was hosted by MLI and provided a forum for five experts to explore the topic of the development of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP).
Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy describes the Chinese communist regime “an increasingly disruptive global power” and pledges to join allies in confronting Beijing on a range of issues—something the Liberal government has rarely done in the past.
Taking a ‘Nuanced’ Approach
The panelists warned Canada to tread carefully when implementing its Indo-Pacific Strategy regarding ASEAN states, whose various relationships with China—either collaborative or competitive—will shape their receptivity of a Canadian security presence.Boutilier noted that although China is the number one trading partner for almost all ASEAN members, they nonetheless look to the United States in terms of national security. The dilemma ASEAN countries face in balancing their security and trade relations with China also poses a threat to the cohesion of the group, he said.
“There’s a paradox of irony in the sense that, at the very moment the ASEAN association has transitioned towards being a community, its capacity or status as a community is, in fact, in danger,” Boutilier said.
“I say that in the sense that ... both Cambodia and Laos are on track to become vassal states of [China]. And this, of course, strikes at the heart of the community, which is predicated on the idea of consensus,” he explained.
“It will be very difficult moving forward to have a consensus-based association or community when it comes to any issue involving China, when two of the states are fundamentally aligned now with Beijing. And that is, of course, an expression of Beijing’s overreach and tactical investment, and, of course, political influence.”
This concern was shared by Hung Son, vice president of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, who cautioned that the narrative of pushing back against China in the Indo-Pacific Strategy “might be received with a lukewarm attitude” by some Southeast Asian countries, while others might regard it as “a provocation with China.”
He said the approach that many Southeast Asians countries take on how to handle China can have a similar vision to that of Canada, but the strategies produced by these countries would be “a lot more nuanced.” Rather than directly pushing back against Beijing, he said, they would focus more on strengthening ”the resilience of their own countries” in the face of an increasingly aggressive China.
“I encourage that approach for Canada to take towards the region—to look at China as a threat, and it’s fair to take to take China as a threat—but to tackle that, you have to either push back against that threat or you enhance your own strength and you enhance your own viability and relevance,” Hung said.
“That can be an approach that Canada take towards ASEAN: wherever possible, you can take ASEAN as a group when it comes to common interest,” he said. Where that’s not possible, “you don’t have to engage all ASEAN member states, and just go for the countries that share your common views.”
“Engaging with ASEAN at the regional level is, of course, encouraged, but also look at unilateralism, look at trilateralism,” Hung said. “As long as it doesn’t go against the overall broad principles or visions of ASEAN as a group, [it] can be considered an alternative to multilateralism.”
