Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ongoing Asian tour signals a welcome shift in Canada’s regional engagement. After six months in office, Carney appears to understand what his predecessors missed: Asian leaders value consistency and realism over grand gestures and progressive rhetoric.
The Indonesian free trade agreement and pursuit of an ASEAN-wide free trade agreement demonstrate concrete progress. Canada’s participation in sanctions invasion exercises and provision of dark vessel tracking technology to the Philippines shows we’re serious about regional security. Our Taiwan Strait transits and intelligence cooperation send the right signals about upholding the rules-based order.
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The elephant in the room remains China. From Seoul to Manila, our partners watch nervously as Ottawa signals renewed engagement with Beijing. They understand engagement is necessary, but worry Canada hasn’t internalized the hard lessons about Xi’s China—a regime that weaponizes economic ties and views compromise as weakness. Using China to hedge against Trump’s America is less clever realpolitik than it is dangerous naivety.
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Our Asian allies know the scorpion and frog fable well. They’ve felt China’s sting through economic coercion, territorial aggression, and broken promises. They want Canada as a serious Indo-Pacific partner, but one that approaches Beijing with clear-eyed realism about its authoritarian ambitions.
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To be taken seriously in Asia, Canada needs sustained cabinet-level visits, deeper security partnerships, and patient relationship-building. Most critically, we must demonstrate we understand that Xi’s China is not a benign alternative to American unpredictability—it’s an authoritarian power seeking regional dominance.
The region is watching. They want more Canada, but a Canada that deals with Asia as it is, not as progressive idealists wish it were. Carney has made a decent start. Now he needs to show up regularly, engage consistently, and above all, approach China with the hard-headed realism our partners expect.
That's exactly my point. We are trading one bully regime for another.
It's not like we are trying to improve the economical relation with China we are also improving it with other partners and build new relations with other countries so we don't have to depend on a single country. Right now we can't afford to fight the two biggest economical power at the same time. I would like to see Canada independent from both USA and China so we can be consistent and oppose any genocide or human right abuses . Right now we sound like hypocrites from one side we rightfully oppose China taking control of Taiwan and the genocide against Uyghurs yet we support Israel with weapons and economical ties for Israel to continue the war of extermination. We rightfully condemn human right abuses in Iran while not condemning human right abuses in Saudi Arabia and in Israeli jail. We are an ally and never condemned the UAE for arming RSF in Sudan