The Trudeau government has finally released its strategy for the Indo-Pacific region. The rise of China and the swelling confrontation between Beijing and Washington have forced Ottawa to define its relationship with this geographic space that has already become the center of the world. Canada is the latest major power to publish such a document. However, it is interesting to read the strategy statements and the speeches of our allies on this subject to understand how, vis-à-vis China, in particular, the Canadian strategy attempts to synthesize the aggressive positions of the United States and those more nuanced Europe and even Australia and New Zealand. Will this middle way allow Ottawa to reconnect with Beijing? Nothing is less certain.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, took particular care in drafting this strategy. The first version was sent back to officials because it did not include China. Indeed, why talk about the Indo-Pacific if we remain silent about the dominant power in this region? The new document covers geopolitical, military, economic and social issues and, on China, reflects what the minister wants to project: a spirit committed to the search for dialogue. At the same time, one feels when reading it that the text reveals the tensions between different places of power, in Ottawa as in Washington, with which the minister had to deal.
From the first pages of the document, China is singled out. It is called a “disturbing” power. It would show “arrogance” towards UN decisions, “contempt” towards international rules and norms, and interfere in the internal affairs of other countries by using coercive measures in addition to violating human rights in its own territory.
If this part of the strategy is in line with American rhetoric, the minister’s office has been careful not to take up the harshest elements. China is never described as a “threat” or an “adversary” as one can read in official American literature. In the section devoted to economic aspects, the isolationist concept of friendshoring “, advanced by the Americans, and so dear to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, is absent.
This concept is about building strong supply chains that rely on like-minded allies. In short, he recommends erecting a fortress between “Us”, the democracies, and “Them”, the authoritarian regimes. Obviously, Mélanie Joly refuses to engage in this field, such a scenario seems inconceivable when we know that about 140 countries out of the 193 members of the UN, including all Asian countries, have China as their first trading partner. .
The minister joins all our allies in this, except the Americans. In an interview published in October, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, recalled that cooperation, not confrontation, was at the heart of the relationship between Europe and China. The solution is not “to build walls around us, because there will never be walls high enough to protect us,” he said. I have always fought against the idea of fortress Europe and the Eurocentric vision of the world. We must therefore live and engage with the world as it is and not as we would like it to be. »
Same story in New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was just as clear. She recently touted the benefits of her country’s free trade agreement with China and warned Washington and Beijing that “it would be wrong to position Pacific states in such a way that they have to choose sides.”
And what about the reversal of the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak? Last summer, in the midst of the campaign to succeed Boris Johnson, he called China the “greatest security threat” to the world and his country. Having become prime minister, he softened his tone. At the G20 summit, he called for a ‘frank and constructive relationship’ with Beijing, and weeks later in a foreign policy speech he stressed ‘diplomacy and engagement’ . In the opinion of British observers, Sunak does not want a world divided into two rival camps which would interact little with each other.
If the Canadian government’s strategy towards the Indo-Pacific aims to consider entry into this space both inevitable and delicate, will it help Canada to warm up its relations with China? It is possible, but we are lagging behind. At the G20 summit, President Biden met for three hours with his Chinese counterpart. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in Beijing next month, followed by President Macron. The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, were there a few weeks ago. The Australians and the Chinese have resumed dialogue. Justin Trudeau, he was treated to a humiliating meeting of a few minutes with the Chinese leader, and his strategy for the Indo-Pacific was poorly received in Beijing.
Why can’t the two countries overcome their differences? Part of the answer may lie in the tone and the way they approach their relationships. The Canadian strategy offers a perspective for reconnecting, but the contradictory declarations of certain ministers on China confuse the message. It is time for the Prime Minister to decide once and for all between Freeland’s vision and that of Joly.