Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly on Wednesday called out an “increasingly disruptive” China on the world stage as she teased in a speech parts of a new Indo-Pacific strategy expected to be released this month.
Her comments come ahead of several summits in the region that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to attend, including ASEAN in Cambodia, the G20 in Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Thailand.
“China is an increasingly disruptive global power,” Joly told an audience in Toronto.
Photo: REUTERS
“It seeks to shape the global environment into one that is more permissive for interests and values that increasingly depart from ours,” she said, adding that “China’s rise as a global actor is reshaping the strategic outlook of every state in the region, including Canada.”
In a broad outline of Ottawa’s new policy road map, Joly said it would be critical to expand relations with Taiwan, India and other countries in the region.
In the speech, she did not discourage further trade with China, which is Canada’s second-largest trading partner, despite strained diplomatic ties.
However, she warned Canadian businesses that they “need to be clear-eyed” about doing business in and with China.
Bilateral relations soured following Canada’s 2018 arrest of a Huawei executive on a US warrant, and Beijing’s detention of two Canadians in apparent retaliation. All three were released last year as part of a deal with US prosecutors.
Joly said Canada must continue to deal with China on global issues such as climate change. Notably, China is to chair a UN biodiversity conference in Montreal in December.
She also promised Ottawa would be vocal on China’s poor treatment of Uighurs and other minorities in China, its crushing of free speech in Hong Kong, military threats against Taiwan and any moves to curtail international navigation rights in the region.
“We will challenge China when we ought to. We will cooperate with China when we must,” Joly said.
“The Indo-Pacific region is the epicenter of a generational global shift,” she said, predicting that it would account for half of the global economy by 2040.
Joly also noted an increasing Canadian military presence in the Pacific and pledged more staff at its embassies tasked with analyzing impacts of China policies and actions.
At global forums, she vowed Canada and its allies would also be “pushing back against behaviors that undermine international norms.”
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