Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries
Issue 17 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 6, 1998
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs met this day at 3:32 p.m. to examine and report on the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region for Canada (Asia-Pacific security issues).
Senator John B. Stewart (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we will continue our work on the importance of the Asia-Pacific region for Canada. Today we are turning to quite a different aspect of that reference -- Asia-Pacific security issues. As you know, we have been concentrating on trade and financial matters, as well as on human rights matters.
Today we are going to spend some time on security issues. To assist us, we have three witnesses. First we will hear from Ms Shannon Selin. Ms Selin is a Research Associate with the Institute of International Relations at the University of British Columbia, where she does research on issues relating to Asia-Pacific security, arms proliferation, and civil military relations.
In addition, she advises clients on the political and economic risks associated with industrial and infrastructure investment in Asia-Pacific and in Latin American markets. She also provides information and technical report writing on international, industrial and infrastructure projects. She has had a considerable background in the field of arms control and disarmament.
Our second witness is Dr. James Boutilier, who is Special Advisor (Policy) Maritime Forces, Pacific Headquarters of the armed forces. He served with the Royal Canadian Navy Reserve as a navigating officer, and he was with the Royal Navy Reserve from 1964 to 1969.
He has had a considerable academic career. He taught at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Java, from 1969 to 1971, before taking up an appointment at the Royal Roads Military College in Victoria. There he spent 24 years on the staff as department head and Dean of Arts. He was instrumental in establishing the Military and Strategic Studies degree program at the college. He was also an adjunct professor of Pacific Studies at the University of Victoria, and the chair of the South Pacific Peoples Foundation of Canada. His field of expertise is Asia-Pacific defence and security.
Our third witness is Dr. David B. Dewitt, from the centre of International and Security Studies at York University in Toronto, where he is a professor of political science. He has written several books in the area. Amongst them are: Building a New Global Order: Emerging Trends in International Society, written with David Haglund and John Kirton, and Canada's International Security Policy, written with David Leighton Brown. He is currently the co-director of a multi-year research program on development and security in Southeast Asia, which is funded by CIDA.
I ask Ms Selin to begin.
Ms Shannon Selin, Research Associate, Institute of International Relations, University of British Columbia: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable senators, for inviting me to appear. I have a three-part presentation. I have just learned that you have been provided with a very good background document. Some of this might be redundant, because the first part of my presentation is an overview of the Asia-Pacific security situation, which I think your researchers have covered quite well. I will then speak briefly about why Asia-Pacific security issues matter for Canada, and I will conclude with some comments about what Canada can or should do about Asia-Pacific security.
I begin with an overview of the security situation in the region. I once heard someone define security as peace and predictability. Bearing in mind that very few people predicted the recent Asian financial crisis, I would amend this definition and say that security means peace and manageability. In human affairs, it is very difficult to arrive at a situation of predictability. What you want is a situation in which, even though you cannot predict what is going to happen, you can be pretty certain that it will not lead to war or other violent outcomes.
There is another broader view of security. In this view, peace and predictability -- or even manageability -- are not enough. Security must mean more than the absence of violence. It must include things like a minimal standard of living for all people, respect for human rights, and respect for basic political freedoms. We saw some tensions between these views at the APEC summit in Vancouver last November.
Another way to look at the split is between so-called traditional security issues, which are generally issues having to do with armies and disputes over territory or resources, or other armed threats to the governing power, and non-traditional security issues, which include things like environmental degradation, drug trafficking, and movements of refugees. These are sometimes called human security issues because they affect the security of individuals as much as that of states.
I personally think that it is a dead end to get too bogged down in choosing between traditional or very non-traditional definitions of security. So called non-traditional issues are generally of security concern, as opposed to economic or environmental or other concern, if they could lead to the threat or use of force, whether within or between states, at some point in time. In other words, they should be of concern because they have the potential to become traditional security issues. You would be hard pressed to find a Bosnian or a Cambodian who would say that war is not a human security issue.
All of these definitions make it difficult to generalize about Asia-Pacific security. They lead to a real grab bag, where we have China, Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula, bundled in with smuggling along the Thai border. They also make for a mixed picture. On the one hand, there is definitely peace in Asia-Pacific. The traditional hot spots have been relatively quiet over the last year. There have been no major confrontations in the South China Sea, no crisis over Taiwan or Hong Kong, and no explosion or implosion of North Korea.
Relations among the major powers in the region are generally improving, most notably between the United States and China. The probability of conflict between the major powers is low. On the other hand, the probability of worsening security problems within individual Asian states is high. China faces problems in its western provinces. In Thailand, there is unrest because of the financial crisis, as well as because the Muslim separatist campaign in the south of the country, which is causing problems with Malaysia. There is another Muslim separatist campaign in the Philippines on the island of Mindanao. There are active guerrilla movements in Myanmar. Cambodia, at points over the last year, has risked deteriorating into armed anarchy again.
The biggest problems lie in Indonesia, which has groups fighting for autonomy in Northern Sumatra, East Timor, and Irian Jaya, as well as growing riots as a result of higher prices, job losses and the Suharto family's unyielding grip on power. The violence is frequently directed at ethnic Chinese, who hold a disproportionate amount of Indonesia's wealth. The danger is that localized disturbances will grow into more serious and wide-spread unrest.
The implications of security problems in Indonesia should not be underestimated. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the region. It is also the diplomatic leader of ASEAN, which is generally thought to be a force for stability in the region. Trouble in Indonesia could lead to millions of refugees, either escaping violence or simply looking for jobs, turning up in Singapore, Malaysia, and possibly Australia.
Singapore and Malaysia almost went to war with Indonesia during the last major upheaval there in 1963 to 1965, just before Suharto came to power. These countries are already making contingency plans for an influx of refugees. In fact, since January, Malaysia has detained more than 18,000 illegal immigrants, mostly Indonesians, compared to 9,000 for all of last year.
If the victims of Indonesian violence are mainly ethnic Chinese, there is the possibility that China will intervene in some way to protect them. In the 1950s, when Indonesia cracked down on its Chinese citizens, Beijing sent ships to pick up those who were forced to return to China. If the Chinese navy were to deploy in Indonesian waters to collect refugees, and to pressure Jakarta into restraining anti-Chinese activities, it would be a major threat to the stability of East Asia. It would also heighten suspicions about the role and loyalties of ethnic Chinese living in other Southeast Asia countries, and perhaps lead to racial clashes in them.
In economic terms, civil war in Indonesia would lead to a massive flight of capital from the region, and would interrupt local shipping lanes. This is significant because about 40 per cent of the world's shipping tonnage goes through Indonesia's territorial waters.
Beyond these security problems, there are a host of unsettled territorial disputes in the region, which could flare up without much warning. In particular, Taiwan is likely to get hot this fall, which is when parliamentary elections are to take place. Korea continues to be of interest. North Korea's foreign exchange earnings have been hit hard by the south's financial problems. All of this is presumably pushing North Korea closer to the edge, but South Korea is now less capable than ever of being able to absorb the costs of a North Korean collapse.
There are also new security issues that bear watching. I will mention just two: One is the growth of the business involvement of Asian militaries. This is not a new phenomenon -- the Chinese military has been in business since the 1920s -- but there has been both a qualitative and a quantitative change over the last 10 to 15 years, where armies have moved beyond providing subsistence for themselves to large-scale involvement in non-military sectors of the economy. This distorts local economies, since the military receives subsidies, tax breaks, and special legal treatment that other businesses do not receive. It adds to corruption and crime, and, because armies have an off-book source of revenue, it has implications for the size of military budgets, and for the military's war fighting capacity. If half of your units spend most of their time making refrigerators or constructing roads, they are likely to be a bit rusty at driving tanks.
A second issue that bears watching is the growth of terrorism in Southeast Asia, much of which is related to separatist campaigns in these countries, but some of which is also linked to international terrorism by Islamic extremists. This increases the chances of the region being affected by conflicts outside of Asia. Terrorist violence undermines human rights, economic well-being, and the rule of law. It can also act as a catalyst for internal war and, where terrorists flee across borders, for interstate conflict.
All of these problems are against a backdrop of historical animosities and rivalries which are never far from the surface of relations in the region, and the spread of sophisticated conventional weapons throughout the region.
The financial crisis has caused South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand to put off many planned purchases, but these countries already have the results of increased spending over the last 10 to 15 years in their arsenals. Taiwan and China, which have been less affected by the recent economic downturn, are continuing to expand their arsenals. In fact, the Chinese defence budget is thought to have gone up some 12 per cent over the last year. China is also thought to have just purchased a former Soviet aircraft carrier, with the intention of taking it apart to learn how to make its own.
There is no tidy or assured mechanism for coping with a security crisis in the region. This goes back to the manageability issue. The only region-wide security forum is the ASEAN Regional Forum. It is rightly called a talk shop, I think. It has some confidence-building value, but it is really incapable of directly handling the region's most pressing security problems. The real security mechanism in the region is the United States -- its bilateral alliances, and its implicit or explicit security guarantees to Japan, South Korea, and others in the region. The Clinton administration's record has been spotty in Asia, however, and does not lead to confidence about how a crisis would be handled.
In February, The Washington Post reported that former U.S. Defence Secretary William Perry had told the Taiwanese opposition leaders not to count on U.S. military support if they were to officially declare Taiwan's independence. The U.S. has previously remained quite ambiguous about this, and some say rightly so. Letting Taiwan know that it is not going to be support may not necessarily be a good thing to do.
The U.S. Defence Department has published a report that says that the views expressed by visiting Chinese officers and recent Chinese military publications indicate that Beijing holds a number of misconceptions that may cause political friction or military conflict with the U.S. The report argued that China's belief in the weakness of U.S. forces could contribute to a decision to attack Taiwan. The report noted that the problem has worsened despite unprecedented military contact between U.S. and Chinese forces.
If we go back to the definition of security, Asia-Pacific has peace between states, not quite peace within states, minimal predictability, and not much strong manageability. There is a sense that things are fine for the moment, accompanied by an underlying uneasiness that, as with the financial crisis, something could explode with wide-reaching and unforeseen consequences.
Why do Asia-Pacific security issues matter for Canada? This goes more to the heart of the committee's mandate. I will list eight reasons, which you could probably come up with off the tops of your heads. The first is business. Trade and investment have been the foremost priority in the current government's engagement with the Pacific. Indonesia and Korea are prime examples of just how futile it is to attempt to separate security issues from economic issues. To the extent that Asia is insecure, Canadian business in the region suffers.
Second is military engagement. Canadians fought in the Korean war. We had peace keepers in Cambodia. If something blows in Asia, there will be strong pressures for us to be there again, perhaps in a supportive role for U.S.-led military action, or in a UN peacekeeping or peace-building exercise. That costs money and, potentially, lives.
Third is a broader public purse reason. There will be pressure on Canada to contribute to the reconstruction of any war-torn societies in Asia. We are already contributing to help prevent security problems from worsening, as in Korea and the South China Sea.
Fourth is diplomacy. Canada places enormous emphasis on multilateralism in its diplomacy. This has been a very hard slog in Asia, however, and the failure of a Canadian-inspired multilateralist approach there does not help Canadian diplomacy elsewhere.
Fifth is the link to global issues. Asia-Pacific security issues affect global issues in which Canada has staked a leading position. For example, when China exports missile technology to Iran and Pakistan, it affects the global non-proliferation regime, as well as impacting on security in other regions where Canada has interests.
The sixth reason is that there are domestic repercussions. There are direct threats to Canadian security stemming from across the Pacific. These include Asian connections to Canada for networks of North American drug trafficking. In fact, most of the 300 or so people who die from drug overdoses each year in British Columbia are thought to be victims of heroin coming out of Burma's Golden Triangle. There is also the penetration of Asian gangs into Canadian cities, and the apparently growing number of illegal immigrants to Canada from Asia. In addition to the growing number of Asian Canadians, there is likely to be increased pressure for Canada to become involved in conflicts in Asian homelands. Regional or ethnic conflicts may spill over into Canada, as different groups play out their animosities on Canadian soil.
Seventh is values. One of Canada's foreign policy priorities has been the promotion of Canadian values abroad. The kinds of values Canada wants to promote abroad are very hard to sell in an environment of war, insecurity and instability.
The final reason is appearance, or how it looks. Even if Canada is interested only in making money in the region, it has to at least feign a real interest in security issues if it wants to be taken seriously in Asia-Pacific. Canada is rightly going to be looked at as an opportunist if it tries to trumpet Asia Pacific credentials on the trade front, but ignores the security issues in the region.
Having said this, it is clear that not every security problem in Asia is a threat to Canadian security. The problem is, how does Canada decide where to concentrate its efforts? I would say that Canada cannot do much about Asia-Pacific security issues. It is not a player in the region. It has been knocking at the door since 1991, and, if has not exactly been told to go away, it has generally been nodded at politely and put in the back row.
It is going to be even harder for the government to sustain a focus in the region now that the year of Asia-Pacific is over. Resources are tight, and have moved on to other regions. Canadian business is shying away from the region, so the trade incentive will not be there. There is no great clamour from the Canadian public for the government to be involved in Asia. Asians themselves will be focusing more on their domestic concerns, and will not have much time for Canada, which does not much matter in the region, economically or politically.
If Canada is going to have some effect in the region, the government needs to be clear about what it wants to do. It needs to plan in advance. It needs to make sure that there is coordination amongst the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, DND, CIDA, and other interested agencies. Most important, it needs to devote the resources necessary to carry out the task at hand, and to sustain this policy with coherence and conviction over many years.
It is not for me to say what Canada can or should do. Rather, all I will say is that the government does need to focus its Asia Pacific security policy more. To do this, it needs to ask the question: Is Canada going to concentrate on Northeast Asia, or on Southeast Asia? We have the greatest interest and the strongest claim to participation in Northeast Asia, but most Canadian activity, especially CIDA activity, has been in Southeast Asia, perhaps because the Southeast Asians have been more receptive. Also, we must determine if the substantive Asian security issues, be they traditional or non-traditional, are areas in which Canada has a particular expertise -- the old niche diplomacy argument. I would say that we ought not to attempt to fit into too many niches at once.
Are there areas where Canadians interests are better advanced by using Track II mechanisms? These are non-official, non-governmental mechanisms. Of these, CSCAP is the most prominent. Mr. Dewitt is very knowledgeable about this organization. At times, the government seems barely aware of Track II efforts, and does not factor them into official policy. To take just one example, the CSCAP International Working Group on Confidence and Security Building Measures has met every year in Washington since October, 1994. I understand that no one from the Canadian Embassy has ever been at any of these meetings, and the Canadian non-governmental representative has never been asked to brief anyone in Foreign Affairs on the group's activities.
For an indication of the value of Track II, consider that, way back in 1992 or 1993, there was a paper at a Track II meeting in Kathmandu on the security implications of an economic meltdown in Southeast Asia. It predicted a number of the current problems, including the scapegoating of ethnic Chinese. One snag is that the financial crisis has put key Track II players and think tanks under some duress in the region, so it is not clear where Track II is going in the coming year.
Will Canada continue to devote the energy and attention to multilateralism that it has in the past, or is it going to focus more on bilateral relations? Asians are likely to devote less time and money to the multilateral process because of domestic economic priorities.
Are there ways in which Canada can make better use of its ties with the United States, in order to advance its security interests in Asia-Pacific? Lastly, are there areas where Canada can sit back and let others take the lead -- that is, do nothing -- because what is being done will be in the Canadian interest anyway? If the answer to this is yes, I would say, "Have the courage to do nothing."
The Chairman: Thank you. Now we will hear from Dr. Boutilier.
Mr. James A. Boutilier, Special Advisor (Policy), Maritime Forces, Pacific Headquarters, Department of National Defence: Let me thank you for this opportunity to address you this afternoon. This very exercise marks a significant sea change. Ten years ago, this sort of undertaking would have been almost unheard of. The fact that we are here with you today suggests that we have, in fact, made some major strides in terms in coming to grips with our Asia-Pacific opportunities.
As you know, I have the good fortune of serving as a policy advisor to the Commander, Maritime Forces Pacific, on the West Coast. Thus, I am a Department of National Defence employee. As you can appreciate, there are certain inhibitions under which I function.
I am delighted that Colonel John Roeterink, who is the Director, Asia-Pacific Policy, at National Defence headquarters, is here with me today. Once again, it is the measure of the progress that we have made that DND has a dedicated cell which is responsible for trying to articulate defence relationships within the Asia-Pacific world.
I will make comments about structure and culture which, in many ways, mirror what Ms Selin has just said. It strikes me that there is a perversity about the post-Cold War order. At the very time that the Berlin Wall has come down, and the Soviet Union is no longer the threat which animates much of our foreign defence policy, we could usefully see the world as divided into two parts: an old world of the Euro-Atlantic, and a new world of the Pacific.
Despite the economic downturn which, perversely, I welcome, because it has focused our attention on this region, the fact of the matter remains that, within half of our professional careers, the centre of economic gravity has moved into the Pacific and will remain there, despite current difficulties. One of the issues that we have to powerfully address is how to come to grips with this new reality.
Let me return to the hemispheric division of the old world and the new world. Paradoxically, perversely, almost all of the crises that we have dealt with in the 1990s have been in the so-called old world: Haiti, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and the Persian Gulf. These are crises which, by their very nature, are highly congruent with the short-term horizons of policy makers and politicians, and are reassuringly European or Mediterranean in character. In short, they have simply reinforced the profound "Atlanticism" which tends to animate much of our policy.
All of us came of age in a world which was "Atlanticist," and which focused on the central front in Europe. That focus was structurally reinforced by the presence of NATO, and our commitments in that area.
By comparison, as one B.C. premier noted, British Columbia is where Canada ends and, for Asia, it is where Canada begins. The world view that from here we go out to Tunney's Pasture and fall off the edge of the earth is one with which we must somehow to come to grips. There has been a curious quality about the post-Cold War period which has tended to focus our attention, not on the Pacific, but on the Atlantic.
As Ms Selin suggests, there are a host of outstanding issues in the Pacific, but they never quite seem to come to the point of crisis. Subconsciously, it is very reassuring to believe that the Pacific is always irrelevant, and that we therefore do not really have to come to grips with it. Our China trade is less than 2 per cent. We do not really need to pay much attention to this.
Without being insulting, we also need to think about what exactly "Asia-Pacific" means. It is curious that we talk about half of the world in two words. We would never use two words to capture Africa, South America, Europe, or North America. At the same time, we think nothing of referring to half of the globe with the term "Asia-Pacific." What does this mean? This is not simply an academic conceit. Asia-Pacific now increasingly includes the Pacific side of South America, and this has very profound practical and policy implications.
Similarly, where does India fit into this definition? We tend, by and large, to have a cultural horizon that sweeps around to the Persian Gulf and reconnects in Singapore, ignoring the whole of the Indian subcontinent. That, nevertheless, is an area of tremendous significance to us in the long term.
We need to think about the scale of the Asia-Pacific world. Its immensity and diversity are ignored by many. You could drop the whole of Western Europe, from the Urals to Portugal, into China. An insular, or archipelagic, state like Indonesia stretches the distance from Victoria to Halifax, divided into over 14,000 parts. When we sail from Victoria to Hawaii, we are sailing a distance equivalent to the whole of the Atlantic, and we are barely into the Pacific at all. If we have problems with unity closer to home, imagine the dilemmas which face the leaders in Jakarta.
The scale and diversity of Asia-Pacific is truly mind-boggling. We must come to grips with it, because we have tended all too simply to lump the whole of Asia together. How are we to articulate, to refine a policy, which deals with a host of security arenas, and not just one?
As all of you can appreciate, we are faced with a pressing structural problem. At the very moment that we have discovered "Asia," we are trying to do more with less, not only in the foreign policy realm, but also in the defence realm.
How do we simultaneously deal with the new opportunities of Eastern Europe, South America, and Asia? How do we establish priorities? I would suggest to you that, once again, we tend to fall back on that comfort zone. When we talk about Europe, the question is how. When we talk about Asia-Pacific, the question is why. The word "paradigm" is much overused, but that is what we really need to think about. Asia will not go away. It will loom ever larger in our world view, and, somehow, we must come to grips with it.
Let me talk very briefly about some of the circumstances in the Pacific. I would suggest to you that a set of nearly singular circumstances pertain in the Pacific today. The U.S., if only by default, has defied its critics, emerging with a robust economy as the single super power in the Asia-Pacific world. There are aspiring super powers, but the U.S. is the only one that can project power, and assert its presence. The fact that we are, by our very nature, inherently linked commercially, diplomatically, and militarily to the United States, is something that we cannot afford to ignore.
Despite declarations from the Pentagon, the White House, and the State Department, I would suggest to you that the U.S. is deeply committed to the Pacific. There is wide-spread anxiety throughout the region about whether this is, in fact, the case. Many would look at U.S. policy over the past 25 years, and see not only a budgetary disarmament, but a waning of will. There is real anxiety, and that will have a direct bearing on the way in which we conduct ourselves in the Pacific.
The situation in China is unique. For the first time in living memory, China is united, its borders are secure, and its economy is buoyant. It is fully in charge of its destiny, and, more importantly for us, it knows it. I always compare China to dealing with a Sumo wrestler sitting on your chest. You can negotiate the colour of the loin cloth, but that is the extent of it.
The Chinese are fully appreciative of just how much leverage they can begin to exert, and the degree to which they can hold all of us to ransom in terms of the membership in international organizations, trade relations, and so on. Although Congress may beat its chest, every U.S. president will buckle over the prospect of selling a single tin of Coke to every man, woman, and child in China. Above all of the other priorities that we must face, we have to come to grips with China.
China is unique, and I would suggest to you that communism is almost as dead as a dodo. The men and women in the streets in China couldn't give a sniff about communism. Increasingly self-confident and strident nationalism will be a feature of the region, however. The Chinese are tough, pragmatic and increasingly skilled in the international diplomatic community.
Korea is also a unique situation. A little bit of the Cold War is left over there. I can assure you that we had more information about what was going on in the Kremlin in 1953 than we do about what is going on in Pyongyang and North Korea now. In many ways it is a terra incognita, but we do know that the situation is potentially quite violent. No one has a full appreciation of what is going to happen.
Explosion or implosion were the options alluded to by Ms Selin. Our knowledge of the north is increasing slowly, but very slowly. We could be drawn into some very unsavoury situations on the peninsula, by virtue of our linkage with the UN command, that vestigial remnant that dates back to the 1950s and our involvement in the Korean peninsula. Political and military instability will affect one of our principal trade partners in Northeast Asia, and will move outwards to affect Japan and China, countries which are also critical to our long-term security and economic well-being.
What about Japan itself? Again, I would suggest that the situation is very nearly singular. It is difficult to imagine that in Japan, which is one-third the size of British Columbia, and has four times the population of Canada, people were reduced to eating grass in the 1940s. By the 1980s, within 40 years, and with virtually no natural resources, they had become the second largest economy on earth.
Japan is presently like some super tanker in heavy seas; wallowing in recession, somehow unable to stimulate its own economy, despite the tens of billions of dollars that have been poured into stimulus packages. Japan and its economic vitality are critical to Canada, and critical to the well-being of Asia. Over the past 35 years, Japan has been the model and the spark plug for emulative Asian economies. We need to think very seriously about the long-term implications of the current economic impasse in Japan.
Lastly, I turn to Indonesia, to which reference has been made. Of all of the nations of Southeast Asia, this is the one that has the potential to implode more than any other. We have not seen the end of this drama; the other shoe has not hit the floor. There may very well be a moment where student unrest, and middle class or lower class unrest with respect to price hikes and so on, suddenly coalesce against the Suharto regime. There was deep respect for Suharto, and for his accomplishment, over the past 35 years, of welding together this amazingly disparate nation with its 300 separate ethnic and linguistic groups. The currency of that respect, I would suggest to you, is very nearly squandered, despite different cultural values within Indonesia. We need to keep a close eye on what happens there, because it will have ramifications on the whole of Southeast Asia, where we have a variety of interests.
Let me talk about Canada. We suffer from a major credibility deficit in the Pacific. For many Asians, we are "on" but not "of" the Pacific. We have had Canada's Year of Asia-Pacific, a highly successful exercise in and of itself, but I suggest to you that we need to have deep concerns or reservations about the capacity to sustain our national momentum. It is almost as if somehow, consciously or unconsciously, we feel that we have discharged our debt to Asia, and we can now turn to other things.
Consistency and persistency need to be our hallmarks in Asia. We cannot be amateur about it. In a single word, we are talking about half of the world. We must establish some priorities.
We are slowly beginning to make our way in Asia, and Asians are increasingly willing to accept our commitment to the region. Before, while they were unfailingly polite, they had real reservations about whether we were serious, or whether we were simply dilettantes.
We have had the hyperbole of Team Canada. That is wonderful. One of the problems of Asia is that it requires patience, deep pockets, and a long-term strategy. I suggest that a number of those things have been absent.
Values are central to our foreign policy. In many ways, those are motherhood issues. Appropriately applied, they can be very valuable, but in many quarters, they are seen as sanctimonious, pretentious, and inappropriate.
Every 20 months, China adds a population equal to the whole of Canada. Imagine the internal structural problems of trying to provide employment, education, housing, and control under those circumstances alone. My plea, among other things, is that we must be very serious about the cultural diversity and complexity of the region before we begin to bring simplistic solutions. These solutions may resonate well with domestic audiences, but they need to be thought through very carefully in terms of the way in which they are received in Asia. This is an interventionist age, whether it is in Bosnia or whether it is in Cambodia. We need to think about the structure, about the way in which intervention is packaged because, in many cases, it can be valuable, but in other cases, it can be offensive.
Let me turn to the question of defence, because this is an area where I deal with Asia on a day-by-day basis. The same sort of structural problems that I related to you before apply in defence; that is, how to do more with less. This comes at a time when we have to develop new relationships with Eastern Europe, and we have to establish some sort of presence in Latin America. How are we to do it in Asia?
Let me point to a good news story. What I have said so far has been a bit sombre or sober. I suggest, and not simply because I work with the navy, that the navy on the West Coast is doing it right. It has developed a rolling five-year program of deployments to Asia. It has embraced consistency and persistency. Canada has a very small navy, but it is highly professional, and it is highly mobile. It has an intimate knowledge of the United States navy, but it is not part of the United States navy, which provides enormous value for it when it encounters Asian navies.
Unpalatable as it may seem for us as Canadians, gold on gold opens doors in Asia. In many parts of Asia, the military figures prominently. The links that we can establish in naval visits are very important, and Canadian diplomats have begun to realize the enormous value of these sorts of visits.
Without risk of being parochial or opting for one service over another, you cannot send a tank to Beijing, but you can send a ship to Shanghai. A ship can go from hosting a diplomatic function to enforcing a U.S. embargo in minutes. No other vehicle is available for doing that. In that particular case, what we are doing is addressing the credibility deficit. We are trying to establish a consistent presence, in a naval realm at least, where we can share many of the things that are common to us on both sides of the Pacific, whether it is fisheries patrols, sovereignty or the illegal movement of peoples. Fortunately for us, that is a good news story.
We need to have priorities, and those will be hard to come by, and we must have commitment. Asia is not easy. Subconsciously, we prefer to turn to Houston, Milwaukee, Bonn, or London. That is where our comfort zone lies -- we have come of age in that area. Asia seems far away. I always compare Asia to introducing middle-aged managers to computers. Somehow, we hope that we can finesse our way through the balance of our career without really having to come to grips with the software.
Asia is far away. The languages are impenetrable, and the food is exotic. It is far easier to deal with the markets or the people that we already know. The message, quite simply, is that Asia is there, and we have to engage it. It will not go away. The very "Asianization" of cities like Toronto and Vancouver is part of the new reality. We cannot afford to be simply absorbed by the Atlantic. There are challenges, and there are opportunities. We need true resolve. This requires long-term commitment and priorities.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. David Dewitt, Director, Centre for International and Security Studies: Thank you for the invitation to appear before you.
When I was asked to speak on the subject of Asia-Pacific security issues, one of the first things that came to mind was what I understand to be one of the key responsibilities of the Senate, which is to provide sober second thought. Then I thought, sober second thought to what? Where is the policy? One of the troubling things, it seems to me, is that one looks hard and fast to find coherent, carefully constructed, integrated policy of Canada as an Asia-Pacific country.
Exactly eight years ago, I was asked to give a presentation hosted by Joe Clark, who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I was to reflect of the implications of the end of the Cold War for Canada's foreign defence and security policy in the Asia-Pacific. My colleague, Wendy Doubloon, was asked to do the same thing on economic issues. It was a remarkable achievement, I though, because there was an effort by our colleagues in Ottawa to think carefully about what the implications for Canada were if were indeed to act as a responsible three-ocean country.
We had lived with, and continued, in the long shadow of our commitment to the Atlantic, particularly the North Atlantic. In the previous 20 years, we had addressed the reality of being part of the Arctic community, and the Arctic Council. We had not yet really addressed the issue of what it meant to be a responsible partner in the Asia-Pacific.
We had a successful record of ad hoc commitments and involvement, because of our belief in the opportunities and the responsibilities of the United Nations. We were in Indonesia, and we were in Korea. We lived with the legacy of a myth, the myth of our heritage, and our special link with China -- whether it is Norman Bethune or missionaries. We had not actually turned to the underside of that myth, which was the way we treated our new Asian Canadians when they came to this country in the 19th century.
Eight years ago, when Minister Clark asked for some reflections, that was indeed a turning point.
There is another turning point I would like to reflect on. As Shannon Selin so articulately noted in her comments, this meeting is a welcome one. If you had called this meeting eight years ago, you would have found very few people in Canada to call upon for testimony. Eight or ten years ago, there was almost no expertise anywhere in this country that dealt with Asia-Pacific security matters.
This is something that is relatively new. We have a long history of having fine scholars deal with Asian and Eastern Asian cultures in the humanities, history, languages, anthropology and religion. Almost nothing prepared us for the implications of the end of the Cold War, or for our role in the broad issues of Asia-Pacific politics and security issues.
I would argue that even our understanding of economics was rather unfulfilled and shallow. Most of our bilateral relations were immature, because they were standing on one foot: on trade and little else. This would lead me directly into a challenge that I put forward. I profoundly disagree with the statements that have come from our government that say that trade and economic policy are, in fact, the leading edge of foreign policy.
I would argue that, to have effective economic commercial trade and financial engagement, one has to be assured of political and social stability, and interstate security. That does necessarily not mean that we are dealing with countries that we like. That does not necessarily mean democracy, but it means that we initially address first principles in dealing with political and social organization, and then we look at issues of economic opportunity.
When I read, and when I spend time in Asia, it disturbs me to have to deal with arguments from Asian colleagues who wonder what will happen after Team Canada.
Let me note that, in terms of the awakening of Canada's interests in Asia-Pacific security, I have ridden the wave of good fortune. Coming out of my meeting in 1990, I was asked by the government of the day to direct something called the North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue. Along with my colleague, Paul Evans, I spent three years trying to construct an opportunity for the seven principal countries of the North Pacific, each of which did not meet with most of the others, to actually meet and discuss broad issues of security.
I was the first one to go to North Korea. Since then, I have travelled most of both Southeast and Northeast Asia, including Mongolia. Without trying to wear the Maple Leaf too broadly on my chest, I can comment that, over the last seven or eight years, it has been a remarkable experience for all of us, because Canada has been roundly welcomed.
The great problem to which I would like to return is something that both Ms Selin and Dr. Boutilier reflected on. Once we opened the door, we were welcomed by our Asia-Pacific colleagues on the broad issues of politics and security. This was because, although we are a modest nation both in our demeanour and in our capability, we are seen to be unique because of our capability to address the Americans, the Europeans, and the Chinese. Remember, we were the ones who kept the door open.
In 1993, they started to question if we could sustain that interest. Could we sustain our professed commitment? Were we a nation or a government of declaration, rather than a government of sustained commitment? We need to come back to that.
If you travel the breadth and depth of Asia Pacific now, and deal with Asia- Pacific security, whether within government or outside of it, Canada is now an acknowledged player. That was not the case ten years ago, with the exception of our history and the legacy of Indochina and the control commissions, and our place in Korea.
The upward trajectory of Asian countries was once readily assumed to be linked to prosperity, democratization, and peace, but that is clearly now in question, in both Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. That much is obvious to us, but the nature of the implications of that is less obvious.
"Asia-Pacific," I would argue, is a misnomer. I do not mean this only in the way that Dr. Boutilier suggested; that two words encompass half of the world. What I mean is that, when we talk about Asia Pacific, we are not really talking about Asia-Pacific. We are talking about Eastern Asia. We do not often speak about the Eastern Pacific part of the Asia-Pacific.
Other than in APEC, Latin America is not part of the Asia-Pacific security discourse. The United States and Canada are included, and then we move to Eastern Asia. We move into South Asia, which is not part of the Pacific. We move into Mongolia, and we increasingly move into central Asia, which is not part of the Asia Pacific, but is intimately involved because of security concerns, economic development, and resource and ethnic linkages. As one level of analysis, it is a seamless web, so we have to be very cautious when we talk about Asia-Pacific, and how we draw boundaries. It is more than just the geopolitical linkages. There are many other aspects to this.
To highlight that point, I would like to note that, when we start talking about the Asia Pacific, we should not forget two very important actors: Russia and Europe. Clearly, because of the Far East, Russia is part of the Asia Pacific, although the Russian Far East has a very unique history, including its very substantial concentration of strategic weapons.
If you have been following Asia-Pacific security, and political and economic issues, there is something now called AESM -- the Asian Europe Summit Meeting. This has an increasingly high profile; the Asians are turning to it with great interest, and the Europeans are investing a considerable amount, not just in terms of economics, but in a full range of political security discourse. I would suggest that we have to start thinking very carefully about our terms.
Where does that leave me in the issues that I want to address? Firstly, I want to focus for a moment on the issue of uncertain transition. From both Ms Selin's and Dr. Boutilier's presentations, it has been clear that the remarkable changes that began with the late 1980s in Europe, and which have spread through the world, in terms of strategic and security environment, have led to many things. They have not led to a clear successor in terms of a security architecture, however. That remains unclear.
Second, in spite of efforts such as the North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue, and the development of things like the ASEAN Regional Forum, which try to recognize regional and multilateral discourse, the bottom line is that bilateralism remains the principal vehicle, and threat perception remains a reality. Threat perception both in terms of what we call traditional threat perception, and in new areas.
Third, in spite of the language of cooperative security which Canada introduced, and the comprehensive security which came from both the Indonesians and the Japanese, the bottom line remains the issue of the four big powers. What are the relations between China, Japan, Russia, and the United States? How will those play out? It is not that the security concerns of others are unimportant, nor is it that tragic human consequences could result from mismanagement. When push comes to shove, if you speak to Asians about issues of politics, security, and the security of their well-being, which includes economic opportunity, it always comes back, in some complex way to the question of where the United States, China, Japan, and Russia stand on these issues.
Although it may be too soon to speak definitively of a concert of powers, that language is being used. Sometimes it is discussed in the context of the Korean peninsula. Sometimes it is discussed more generally, in terms of managing a new security arrangement, but it does signify the focal point of concern around the management of relations amongst these four great regional and, indeed, global powers. One might be well advised to add a fifth power, and that would be India.
Another point related to this question of uncertain transition is where are we going since the end of the Cold War. In spite of the long hoped-for peace dividend, it is hard to find where that peace dividend currently exists. If you look, in fact, at military expenditures, Asia-Pacific has been the basin for weapons both new and old, recycled and cutting edge. Whether it is Southeast Asia or Northeast Asia, conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction, small arms through to advanced missile technology, are being transferred, purchased, stolen, and otherwise finding their way throughout the Asia-Pacific, and particularly Eastern Asia. They are being paid for by drug money. They are being paid for through money laundering. They are being paid for through barter, but they are being paid for in one way or another.
Weapons of mass destruction, large military budgets, and conventional force deployments, along with ongoing territorial disputes, as well as fears concerning the long-term intent of major powers -- all of these traditional things continue to bedevil both Northeast and Southeast Asia. In addition to that, we have the current economic crisis, food insecurity, which is profoundly disturbing, problems of potable water, environmental degradation, massive unemployment, a distorted labour market, ethnic cleavages, and insecurity resulting from the shift of people from the countryside to large, urban centres that are unable to cope, not to mention unregulated, large internal migrations. The most well-known example of this is the 100 million to 130 million Chinese who are on the move internally.
In this period of uncertain transition, neither national nor international institutions have the confidence of the elite or the masses within the Asia-Pacific region.
One of the positive things is that there is a concerted effort to bring together a remarkable collection of very talented people from throughout the Asia-Pacific arena, if we look down in New York or in Geneva. From Mongolia and China through to the Philippines and Indonesia, they are sending their best and their brightest to learn the ways of international diplomacy. Is that to learn to manage it, or to be managed by it, or to manage their own situation?
One area not mentioned by Ms Selin and Dr. Boutilier is the revolution in military affairs. The remarkable changes that are occurring in communications technology are having a profound effect, not just on the way that war is waged, but on the way that peace may be maintained. This is something that we do not know enough about. We know even less about how it is being responded to in Asia. The Chinese had a remarkable reaction, almost an epiphany, when they carefully reflected on how the Americans waged the Gulf War. It changed their entire view of what it meant to deal with Chinese force modernization.
Let me point out one area that makes things very murky in terms of the uncertain transition. What does it mean when within the next year -- or sooner -- almost any country or non-governmental actor anywhere in the world will be able to buy, through commercial means, photographic imagery from satellites, with a resolution of anywhere from six metres to six inches? That changes the nature of what it means to know something about another person's society. Does it increase security, or does it decrease security? Does it make one feel more vulnerable, or more secure? That is just one small part of the revolution of military affairs.
What do we now mean by security? This is a big topic. I suggest, as Ms Selin and Dr. Boutilier correctly noted, that the nature of security is profoundly changing. It covers many things. Without getting into the academic discourse, I would suggest that the simple way of dealing with what is security and what is not is to recognize that security is basically who controls exit and entry across a boundary. The fact that governments are empowered to control exit and entry across state boundaries suggests that, as soon as they lose control, there is a security problem.
The traditional way of thinking about that is to consider the military as the threat. The military threatens your boundary, and invades. You have an army. But what do you do when it is drugs? What do you do when it is information technology? What do you do when it is ideas? What do you do when it is AIDS, or other viruses and bacteria, or illicit migration? The military is not a competent instrument to deal with those kinds of security problems.
In our governments here in the west, we do not yet know how to address these things effectively. If we, who supposedly have extraordinarily effective means, do not know how to address these issues effectively, then imagine the problems that are faced by the countries in Eastern Asia. That is the profound problem of security. It is not just an academic issue in terms of its redefinition. In practice, the issue is about what instruments are available to deal with it.
Governments and international organizations so far are simply unable not only to monitor most of these things but, when they do have the information, they have little capacity to address it effectively.
Within the more traditional areas of security, the military side, we in the west have come to the Asians to try to engage them in military and security discussions. We have brought our own language, and we have borrowed the language of 20 years of building the CSCE. We have not only assumed that multilateralism is good, which most of the Asians were willing to buy into at one point as complementary to bilateralism, but we have brought to that two key ideas: One is confidence-building, and the other is transparency. You build confidence. That helps reduce threat, and helps make good neighbours. You bring in transparency. That builds confidence, and people are reassured that you have benign, and not aggressive, intent.
Small states do not buy into that. Many of the countries in Eastern Asia still live within insecure boundaries. They have the shadow of the future hanging over them in terms of the legacy of the past, whether it is Vietnam and Cambodia, Vietnam and China, North and South Korea, the Koreans and the Japanese, or the Japanese and the Chinese. These countries are very suspicious about these two terms -- confidence building and transparency. They wish to be reassured. Transparency is not necessarily the aspect. This is, therefore, another problem in terms of defining security. How do we enhance it, and the uncertainty around it.
I have a couple of points on issues of current concern from the Eastern Asian perspective. The Chinese are very concerned about many things. One concern is the revolution in the military affairs that I have already mentioned. A second concern is the U.S.-Japan defence guidelines that the Chinese view as being targeted against third parties. The only third party to target against is China. They see the redefinition and the reinterpretation of the Japanese-U.S. security arrangement as a call to allow the Americans, with Japanese assistance, to intervene in the straits of Taiwan. They find this terribly troubling, as you can well imagine.
From another perspective, China is the problem. Ask anyone in any arena in Southeast Asia what the principal problem is. After dealing with border disputes, ethnic cleavages, and the security of the regime, it always comes back to the China factor -- the uncertainly of China, the China mobilization, the China blue water fleet, the China historical intent. How do we manage China, knowing full well that, even if you could get a coalition of powers in the rest of Asia, none of them alone as a single, East Asian community could deal with China without America. When the left hand says China, the right hand says: and God willing, the sustainability of an American commitment.
Sometimes that is said quietly, but it is there for all to read. Even the North Koreans have said the same. The North Koreans will claim that they want the Americans off of the Korean Peninsula, but they would not want them to go too far, because only the American presence can both contain a remilitarized Japan and an expansive China. Japan will remilitarize if America goes away, because the Japanese fear the Chinese. We fear both the Chinese and the Japanese. Only the Americans can contain both of them at the same time. Therefore, it comes back to the great powers.
My last set of comments deals with the issue of Track II diplomacy. Track II refers to the mixture of expertise that comes together from a wide range of expert communities, governmental and non-governmental. Governmental people work in their private capacity, and opportunities are created to discuss issues of great sensitivity which governments feel have to be addressed, but which they cannot officially broach.
I have the good fortune of co-chairing, with Thomas Bata, the Canadian Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific. Senator Andreychuk sits on that committee, as do Joe Clark and a number of others. It is an international committee of 17 countries, including North Korea, Mongolia, China, Japan, the United States, Russia, and the Europeans. That is one forum.
Within Canada we have developed a Track II forum which tries to create a capacity for Canadians to start understanding, and engage Asia-Pacific security. It is called CANCAPS: the Canadian Consortium on Asia Pacific Security. I have brought copies of a bulletin that we put out four times a year. If anyone is interested in back copies, I would be happy to send them to the committee. We put out working papers, and we have study groups. Shannon Selin is our editor for this. I am the chair of CANCAPS. We have approximately 100 members from coast to coast. We have annual conferences and we feed into discussions about Canadian policy.
This brings me, therefore, to the last point, which is the one I opened with: what, in fact, is the Senate supposed to have a second sober thought about? What is Canadian policy in Asia-Pacific security?
Senator Andreychuk: I commend all three of our witnesses, and their presentations. We have heard a broad overview of the issues that we need to address in security in Asia-Pacific. The bottom line is that we have yet to resolve what Canada's best policy towards the security of Asia-Pacific, which is evidently our security as well, might be.
Japan did not figure in the presentations, except for Mr. Dewitt's. Do the other speakers have anything further to add on that subject?
I continue to hear that people wonder if we really know what the long-range thinking on military strategy is in Asia. You have touched on it slightly, saying that some have changed their strategies and that, in some cases, we are aware of their arming, through purchases and weapons. There is a real feeling that we really do not know as much about the east as we used to. Previously, we knew more about the East than most people would presume we did. How confident are we on the actual military strategy of any or all of the countries in Asia-Pacific?
This leads me into the second part of my query. In NATO, we were addressing the Warsaw Pact, or the Warsaw Pact was addressing NATO, depending on which side of the divide you were on. We seem to have opted for cooperative measures of security. You have alluded to using the CSCE model, but I think it goes beyond that. It is addressing trade as a way of opening up and building confidence. It is a question of trying to find our way into Asia-Pacific on security issues. Is this the strategy that we should be using? Should we be considering a more cooperative approach to build more confidence? In time, perhaps some process will emerge that fits Asia-Pacific, and gives us reasonable security and assurance, or are we better off to reinforce something more regionally? Are we better to leave the cooperative and security issues between China, between Japan, between Indonesia, and to help them build the first structures of security on that side of the Pacific?
Mr. Boutilier: Perhaps I could address the first issue, and one of my colleagues could address the second one.
Let me look at this question of strategies. To what degree do we appreciate the nature of military strategies in Asia? Without ducking the question, I must say that the problem is excruciatingly complex. By and large, there is a close nexus between economic growth and arms acquisition. In the journals and in the reports, we have seen that, as a result of economic downturn, arms acquisition has been quite significantly curtailed in a number of Asian states. Throughout the 1990s to the end of last year, however, there was a world-wide fire sale on arms, and the states of Southeast Asia were able to utilize their economic vitality to modernize.
Some talked glibly of an arms race. That was not necessarily the case. The fact of the matter remains, however, that there was a significant improvement in the Asian arsenals. In the case of the Chinese, with respect to the Chinese navy, what was of concern was that the evolution of naval strategy was atypical. Traditionally, the Chinese always looked inwards. There is now a real question mark in the minds of many as to what the Chinese are up to.
I should highlight or qualify that by saying that the Chinese military is in many ways remarkably backward. It is huge, and it is dinosaur-like. Only tiny elements of it, in fact, are towards the leading edge. No one has a clear appreciation of the degree to which the Chinese will use these new assets to attempt to enforce their presence beyond their boundaries. They have interposed themselves in the South China Sea, and have remained fairly stony in their resistance to any suggestion that they withdraw their claims to the whole of the South China Sea. The question is: Will they use their armed forces to try to assert some sort of military dominance over other neighbouring states?
Consider a tiny country like Singapore, which is extraordinarily sophisticated, in terms of its array of equipment and the professionalism of its forces. In a geo-strategic way, the Singaporeans are often referred to as the Israelis of Southeast Asia. As a tiny, 240 square mile city-state, they are trapped between two large Muslim states where there is a long tradition of anti-Chinese sentiment. They have a quite different strategy. It is the poison shrimp strategy; they may be small, but they are sufficiently lethal that anyone who bites them will suffer disproportionate pain.
Within Indonesia, whether it is the army, the navy, or the air force, there are divisions within the armed forces as to how to conduct themselves. Generally speaking, armies throughout Asia tend to be paramount in terms of their political influence. An interesting trend in South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and even in Thailand, however, is the increased relevance of navies, partly because there are huge numbers of outstanding maritime disputes. To what degree those navies will actually be put into action remains a major question.
Your question is a good one. In many cases, it tends to be based on rumour rather than on reality. As Mr. Dewitt suggested, in Southeast Asia, there is a deep anxiety about what China is up to. No one quite knows. In China, there is a deep anxiety as to what the Japanese are up to. I think that the question of the remilitarization of Japan is overblown, but the fact remains that that is the case.
There are a wide array of perceptions. There is no unanimity as to who constitutes the enemy in Asia. There is a possible exception to that, in that there is a growing unanimity about China, a feeling that China is somehow an inchoate threat, but it remains to be seen how that will function. My colleague, Colonel Roeterink, may be able to add a commentary on the question of military strategies in Asia, and how they might be executed.
Colonel John Roeterink, Department of National Defence: I would support Dr. Boutilier's view that the recent economic crisis has put the modernization of some of the militaries in the region on hold. The emphasis on where they would be spending their money has now been redirected. From a military point of view, that is good news for us, and it allows us more time to develop new policies and strategies.
Mr. Dewitt: Let us return to this issue of cooperative ventures and cooperative security. Until quite recently, the countries of Eastern Asia were uncomfortable with multilateral fora, and had little experience with dealing with security issues. The Americans, followed by the Japanese, were strongly opposed to multilateralization, and the nature that it implies by cooperation. They had particular views, and they were purely concerned about naval issues and arms control-related things.
Things have changed quite dramatically in the last five years. There is still no diminishment in terms of acknowledging, as we all do, that the principle foundations of international diplomacy are bilateral relations. Increasingly, however, there is an acknowledgement that there is a place for both regional and global multilateralism, and that many of the issues that have to be dealt with cannot be dealt with either unilaterally or bilaterally. They require cooperative mechanisms.
The issues of AIDS and drugs are very important ones for Southeast Asia, and increasingly for China. Increasing in importance are issues like the arms registry. Unless you are at the highest levels of strategic analysis, various arms control measures can only be fulfilled in a multilateral forum, and through cooperation. The difficulty with this process, however, is not only that is it relatively new. It is that here are no formal, standing multilateral institutions in either Northeast Asia or Southeast Asia, with the exception of ASEAN, which has had a very low profile on hard, as well as soft, security issues. ASEAN even had some difficulty on Cambodia. They also have difficulty, of course, in Burma, which is now a member, although Cambodia is not.
There is no institutional mechanism or experience with that. On the other hand, with some prodding from the Japanese, the Australians and the Canadians, in the early 1990s ASEAN floated something that came to be known as the ASEAN Regional Forum. This is an informal regional mechanism, and it has no secretariat to speak of, no formal process, other than an annual foreign minister's meeting, and no summit. There are senior governmental meetings, senior officials meetings, although not very many of them, and working groups that often are of the Track II variety, but it involves 21 countries, and they are not like-minded. It has embraced the notion that within ARF you can have the Russians and the Chinese with the Europeans, the Americans, the Canadians, the Indonesians, and others. So there is some movement.
You asked, if we should choose -- whether it is better to have one than the other. You have to have both. The uncertainty of the security environment and its changing nature require that you maintain and, in fact, strengthen, bilateral relations at all levels. Trade, economic investment, and cultural exchanges, are all reassurance strategies. They are all commitments that entwine. To increasingly do so without recognition of the multilateral side of it is problematic. One of the things that we learned from our NATO experience is that "multilateral" does breed this notion of a habit of dialogue, a sense of commitment, deference to listening to others, and being willing to try to find ways.
This is becoming apparent amongst the Chinese. In the last three years, there has been a remarkable change in the quality of people that the Chinese send to the multilateral meetings. Whether it is to Track II meetings such as the Asia-Pacific round table, or to meetings in Geneva, New York, or at the UN, or to the specialized committees, the Chinese are sending very talented, very knowledgeable people. They did not have that human resource five years ago or, if they had it, they did not send it.
Senator Carney: I want to return to the domestic side. The argument that you made about security issues being more important than trade is basically a chicken and egg situation. Some of us would argue that security depends on having a strong, economic country, and rising incomes, and that, in the absence of those elements, you get the terrorism, the insecurity, and the issues that we are addressing today.
On the domestic side, you have raised issues such as terrorism, illegal immigration, and drug smuggling, that are relevant to Canada as a member of Asia-Pacific. These things directly impact Canada, because it borders on Asia-Pacific, and it is an Asia-Pacific country.
A few years ago, I was Minister of Trade. As the Vancouver Centre member of Parliament, I was told that there was increased triad activity in Vancouver, and that there was concern about all of these elements, including illegal immigration and drug trade. When I went to Hong Kong in my capacity as a minister of the Crown, the high commissioner of the time, Anne-Marie Doyle, arranged for me to meet with the Hong Kong security people to find out what arrangements were being made to protect Canada.
In that meeting, I was advised, to Ms Doyle's surprise, that not only were there no adverse influences coming into Canada, but that Hong Kong itself is as clean as the driven snow. I was told that there was no possible impact on Canada from drug smuggling, illegal immigrants or triads.
This raises the question: How do we monitor this activity? You have discussed it very well in terms of all of the other countries, and their relations with each other. I want to know, however, how we monitor this activity between the other Asia-Pacific countries and Canada, and what security breakdowns are in those arrangements? Our security threat in this issue comes from the impact on us in Canada. How do we monitor that? What are the holes in our safety net?
Mr. Boutilier: I can only address your question in general terms. Let me put it to you this way: I think that you must have inadvertently stumbled into the Hong Kong Tourist Authority, as opposed to dealing with security people. Evidence of triad activity is rampant in China, and you were quite right in your initial presumption. The press coverage that I read from Vancouver certainly suggests that Asian-related crime is alive and well, and the incidents of drug-related deaths that Ms Selin cited are, I think, a measure of the increased linkages.
One of the intriguing paradoxes about the expansion of ASEAN is that, when you fly into Singapore, on the bottom of your landing card it says, in large, bold, gothic, red letters, that the importation or use of drugs means death. The same community embraces Burma, which is arguably one of the largest drug-producing countries on earth, and Cambodia, which may be one of the largest transit countries on earth.
Senator Carney: Are you suggesting that we should have that on the entry cards to our country? It is our country in which I am interested.
Mr. Boutilier: I fully appreciate that. I was going to add that the growth of Chinese links into Northern Burma, which has some security implications, means that there is an increased flow of drugs out of Northern Burma and Laos into Yunan, and then through Hong Kong, on their way to Vancouver and the West Coast. Certainly, in broad terms dealing with naval issues on the West Coast, there is increased and constructive collaboration between the navy, the Coast Guard, and other agencies, including the United States, to try to keep a closer appreciation of what vessels are bearing cargoes of that sort. We are trying to arrive at what we might call a blended picture of maritime activities in the Pacific, and one portion of that is an effort to track these sorts of cargoes or individuals as they approach Canada.
As you are well aware, we also have police officials, although not many, attached to embassies in Southeast Asia. Their specific job is to monitor this sort of traffic to Canada.
Mr. Dewitt: The findings of the task force on the legislative review of Canadian immigration policy have recently been released, and some very specific recommendations have been made on that. Whether or not this government will address those recommendations remains unclear.
The issues that you address are issues which clearly cannot be handled in a bilateral way. One must deal with them in a multilateral process. There is a little problem in terms of intelligence.
Senator Carney: Other countries deal with them on a bilateral process. They put them in jail, hang them, or strap them. That is not multilateral.
I would like you to address the question of what the holes in our safety net are. Are you able to identify them? Believe me, having a few police officers is not enough. With all respect to the navy, the people in the navy would be the last to say that they could adequately cover our B.C. coast line, even with the Coast Guard.
Are the three of you saying that you are unable to identify the holes in our safety net? Perhaps it is not your area of expertise.
Mr. Dewitt: I am not going to go into detail on this, because I do not have that kind of experience. A number of working groups on transnational crime are currently underway, and they involve the Chinese, the Americans, the Canadians, and others. There is very little support for that work at this time, however. This also involves people from the RCMP, and from the security and intelligence community, but, as I understand it, there is little financial support from this country for effective measures and study of this work.
Senator Carney: Ms Selin, do you have anything to add to this?
Ms Selin: It is not my field of expertise, and my primary sources of information are not the security type. As I said, you can often go on to the web and find rumours floating around which may or may not be fact.
Senator Carney: We had a situation in the Sikh community, where somebody who is not an outstanding citizen was harboured in the Sikh temple for two years, and he was perceived by that community to be a threat. This raises real concerns about what Canada is doing. What protections do we have to protect our Canadians in ethnic communities from terrorist acts?
Ms Selin: In that particular instance, I think that it is a policing problem.
Mr. Dewitt: With respect to this question, the legislative review of the Immigration Act addresses many of these concerns. The issue is, where is the political will, and where are the resources to address things like deportation and the following of immigration? There are enormous holes in our system, and there are a lot of reasons for them. At another time, I would be happy to discuss that, but that would take us far afield today.
Senator Grafstein: To set the historical record straight, we had an active debate in Canada in 1923 about our naval policy. In 1935, we had an active debate about our air policy. In Toronto, in 1925, we had an active debate about our open-door economic policy with China.I do not want our witnesses to be left with the impression that we have not had debates about a Canadian-Asia policy, and where our national interest is. It is quite the contrary.
As a matter of fact, in 1935, the reduction of the budget reduced the air force by 350 flyers. Many of them decided to join the Chinese Air Force, and that almost brought the government down in a confidence motion. These questions are not new to us. That is not to diminish the complexity of the buffet of problems that you have set before us.
In trying to draft a report, our problem is to prioritize these problems and, if we can, put them through a very narrow prism to determine what is in our short-term, intermediate, and long-term national interest. We have so few resources, as you have all pointed out, and we must find a way to deal with this melange of issues, all of which are quite fascinating.
I am going to ask a series of questions and give you a suggestion. First of all, it would be very helpful for us if, knowing the limitations on our budget, you could suggest where we put the few bullets that we do have. We cannot be everywhere at all places and at all times, but we do have some very interesting bridges into Asia.
Having said that, I will come back to the larger issue. There are historic analogies here as well. We confronted this same issue in a different way immediately after World War II: What should we do with Europe, which was in a war-torn state, and a state of disarray? Mr. Pearson, who led on this issue, was very precise. You start with multilateral councils, and hope to bring a multilateralism to bear where Canada can exert more effort and more policy, as opposed to going the bilateral route. In a bilateral route, we would be lost. In a multilateral route, we will have some leverage.
Why would we not start with the theory of the North Atlantic Council, which led to NATO and defence, and then moved into a more structural multilateral defence mechanism which would deal with threats. We have lots of friends over there. We have Australia and the United States, with all of its problems. We have India. We have an English-speaking group over there with whom we share a common set of interests, and I think that we have common cause with Russia on some of these issues as well. Lay aside China and Japan. I say to you: Give us some advice as to how we focus our attention, and hopefully add to the debate.
There is no national debate in the House of Commons on this issue. So help us.
Ms Selin: You asked where we should put our resources. My own personal view would be to second what Senator Carney is implying. That is, we ought to start with our own borders, and have law enforcement against the direct threats to Canadian security, such as drug trafficking, emanating from Asia. I do agree with Mr. Dewitt that that will require international cooperation, be it bilateral or multilateral, with other law enforcement agencies.
Second, I think that we should concentrate on bilateral relations with Northeast Asian countries, primarily with Japan, Korea, and China.
Third, I think that it is important, as you have suggested, Senator Grafstein, to keep the multilateral process going. We have put a lot of effort into it. It has started, but it will take a long time. I think the dangers lie in trying to bridge the gap -- moving from a primarily bilateral-based security system in the region, to a multilateral system. It will take a long time and a lot of effort, but those would be my three priorities.
Mr. Dewitt: I would add one point to that. In this period, we do not have a clear sense of who the enemy is. Therefore, when we talk about multilateralism, which I think is an area that we must invest in, the bilateral is the most natural in terms of maintaining our trade relations, economic investment, our cultural exchanges, and so forth. In the long run, the investment is creating a security community -- not an alliance, not a threat structure, not a defensive structure, but a security community. I think that will take some time, but it is a substantial investment. The best way to go about this is to recognize that our priorities as a North Pacific country lie with the North Pacific Asian nations, but that we have a particular relationship with Southeast Asia, because much of Southeast Asia is now English-speaking, in terms of its language of operation.
We have a very strong and well-regarded track record in the relationship between aid and development, both economic development and social and political assistance. They are small and modest countries, with the exception of Indonesia. They form natural allies or coalition partners in pursuing areas of concern. We have a strong, growing, and very positive Southeast Asian community in Canada. It is not quite the same as either the South Asian community -- whether it be Tamil, Sri Lankan, Indian, or Pakistani -- or the Northeast Asian community, in particular the Chinese.
Mr. Boutilier: I would challenge one or two of the presumptions, in the sense that the U.S. has a profound presence, and much of what we face in the Pacific is a result of the web of bilateral relations which the Americans constructed in the period after the Second World War. It may have the appearance of being multilateral, but it is really bilateral. In Canada, we are much given to multilateralism. It enables us to leverage our way upwards in the councils of power, and it also spreads responsibility and so forth.
In some parts of the Pacific, multilateralism is not the flavour of the month. As my colleagues suggested, we need to craft our relations in terms of the prevailing appetite. There is a distinction in security terms between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, and it is a very profound one. We need to bear that very much in mind. I would agree, however, with what Mr. Dewitt said -- over the past half decade, multilateralism has made major strides. At the beginning of the decade, this was not the case. There is much greater openness for it now.
As a DND employee, it is not my place to pass judgment on the current government policy. In practice, however, I think that the emphasis on Northeast Asia is very sensible, because that is where our principal trade partners -- Japan, Korea, and China -- are. That is where the locus of power will be in terms of the concert of power between the United States, China, Japan, and Russia.
India, as I suggested earlier, has, in many ways, been a perpetual black hole. We have lived on a sort of past mythology. We have not made many efforts at all to engage India, and there are some reasons for that. We need to think very seriously, however, not only about the Indo-Canadians who may be able to bridge the gap between Canada and China, but also about the degree to which we want to engage India.
Implicit in all of this is the notion that no further resources are available. Do we want to press for more resources, or do we simply accept that there are no resources? As Canadians, I would suggest that we are not terribly daring. Our great strength is our conservatism, but in many ways it is also a weakness. Do we want to press for more resources, in terms of what we do in this area? We do quite a bit with very little. Do we want to establish some priority between Latin America and Asia, or Eastern Europe and Latin America? We have not done that. What we do in Asia has to be seen in this larger context of where we want to direct our relatively limited resources, and whether we want to aggressively argue for more attention to one region.
Senator Grafstein: Where in the Asia-Pacific would you allocate those additional resources?
Mr. Boutilier: I would do it in Northeast Asia.
Senator Grafstein: In what -- additional naval support, or in diplomatic and commercial support?
Mr. Boutilier: Diplomatic and commercial support.
The Chairman: I look back over European history, and I list the causes of major military engagements there. One cause was socio-economic and political domestic instability, and the garrison state model. You distract your population from their domestic problems by telling them that there is a foreign enemy. Second, there is imperialism in the search for glory -- the emulation of ancient Rome. Third, there is imperialism in the search for riches. You go out either to protect trade, or to acquire colonies. Fourth, there is border friction, where there is a dispute as to jurisdiction. In the case of the part of Asia with which we are dealing, Dr. Boutilier, which of these do you think is the most likely to be the problem with which we may have to deal?
Mr. Boutilier: Internal insecurity, I think. Rather than interstate, it will be intrastate.
The Chairman: Is that caused by economic difficulty, or is it internal political rivalry?
Mr. Boutilier: In very broad terms, it would be economics. Just let me put a side bar to that. One of the great accomplishments of the past 40 years in Asia has been that a huge number of people have been raised out of absolute poverty. One can argue where that line actually lies. The fact of the matter remains that there is a countervailing phenomenon, which is that the gulf between the rich and the poor is increasing. As states engage themselves in the international community, they are going to be subject to dramatic internal tensions in terms of their allocation of employment, resources, wealth, and so forth. This could strain the fabric of some Asian states. It is happening now in Indonesia. It could certainly happen in China.
The Chairman: Dr. Dewitt, could you address the same question?
Mr. Dewitt: I would agree, by and large, that internal domestic issues in terms of regime building, consolidation, and the challenge to performance legitimacy clearly are important. As we have seen in the last 50 years, the evolution of the state system in Southeast and Northeast Asia -- the capacity of governments to perform in terms of the well-being of their people -- has been key. That is not to downgrade the serious implications of interstate rivalries, or of the differences that remain.
I have one other point which is relevant both to the East Asian countries and to Canadian policy. In the last ten years, I would argue that we have gone through a remarkable period of opportunity because the Americans have effectively been disorganized and unfocused.
We are now facing two changes. One is that we are being ever more encapsulated or integrated within the North American political and economic system. Second, the Americans are going to increasingly focus on the relationship between their well-being and the political and economic performance of the countries and regions with whom they have enormous investments and ties. That suggests, I would venture, that there are going to be far fewer degrees of freedom available for countries like Canada to carve out an independent or a noticeable role within the Asia-Pacific, unless they do so very wisely, and very systematically with partners. This is another reason that even forms of nascent multilateral or regional efforts are a natural complement to bilateralism and, I would argue, in our national self-interest. I think that these things will go quite a ways towards ameliorating some of the problems that might cause conflict in Eastern Asia.
Senator Andreychuk: China is well aware of the issues. You indicated that China knows its clout. There is not much we can do about their superiority in some of these areas and, therefore, they are going to use their clout in, I presume, UN circles and WTO. In the UN, we have always witnessed that Taiwan was not to be raised; Tibet is not an issue in the human rights sector.
There is a growing fear that China is going to set the agenda in WTO. While we say that we are all going to come in on equal rules and equal status, and that the negotiations are not going to be driven by one country, are we not already yielding to China when we admit their force and power in that?
Mr. Dewitt: Your point is well taken. There are two realities. One is the reality of China within Asia. The reality of China within Asia is that it has traditionally not been an expansionist power, but it has been a power that has consolidated its place, whether you call it a tribute system or any other system. There is a debate within East Asia about how expansionist China actually is. The Chinese say that they are merely consolidating, and they want to have good neighbourly relations, peaceful coexistence, and all of that. The reality in eastern Asia is a protracted concern, and a tension in trying to assure where those limits are.
There can be no running away from the fact that even minimalist projections suggest that, within 25 years, China will be the dominant force, both economically and militarily, in Eastern Asia.
On the global stage, however, and that would be within your example of the UN, I would argue that this is something that is not only in our self-interest to watch. It is our responsibility and obligation to stand up to principles, and to be prepared to use our not inconsiderable diplomatic skills within the global multilateral fora to challenge and inculcate the notion of a particular set of norms and rules which China must learn to be part of. I know that this is not necessarily a popular view, but I think that you can have both. I think that you can be a player within Asia-Pacific, but also be a player in the international community with integrity.
Mr. Boutilier: I think it is very important to bear in mind the history of China over the past 150 years. I talked about the unique circumstances that now pertain in China. The Chinese have a great legacy of weakness and guilt, and they also have a great sense of pride. Those two phenomena contest in the Chinese psyche. The Chinese, over the past 150 years, have been invaded, humiliated, reduced, and occupied in a near Colonial status. Their ambitions to reincorporate territories like Hong Kong, Macao, Tibet and Taiwan are, in their eyes, extremely legitimate expressions of a nation that has come of age.
There is deep resistance in many parts of Asia, and certainly in China, to this interventionist agenda that seems to be alive and well, where they are supposed somehow to subscribe to international norms. They will do that, but there are Herculean problems that they face in terms of adjusting this amazingly antique economy to face these new realities. Their resistance and the resistance of neighbouring states to the pace of international trade liberalization and globalization is anchored in a whole series of historical and economic comparatives, and they will certainly try to force the agenda to reflect what they consider to be their legitimate concerns. As they become more self-confident, and as their international negotiating delegations become more sophisticated, and this is certainly the case, they will be more difficult customers to wrestle to the ground, in terms of their conduct meeting international norms.
Senator Grafstein: I cannot allow a viewpoint point that I disagree with to be on the record, so I will make a statement, and not ask a question.
With respect to China, sometimes we have this North American or Eurocentric view that it is not becoming democratic. It took us 400 years to move from a state of barbarism to a state of the common law. It took the common law 400 years to grow. There has been a greater move on democracy at the grass root level in China in the last ten years than there was in the previous 200 years in Europe, if I look at the period from the year 1500 to 1700.
I say that because, at the same time that we are trying to anticipate the threat of China, I think that we must look at the countervail to that, which is that there are anywhere from 40,000 to 120,000 villages in China that have democratic organization at the grass roots. In some respects, their municipal government is more democratic than the municipal governments that we have in Canada. Notwithstanding that, I think that there is a countervail here that we are underestimating. Beijing is not even aware of a lot of the things that are happening in these villages. They are running faster than Beijing would like them to run, and Beijing cannot control them.
I make that as a comment, Mr. Chairman, having spent a fair bit of time in China. I was amazed by the growth. I have not been there for the last five years, and that was prior to the events at Tiananmen Square. Reports from my friends over there indicate that it has accelerated ten times since then.
I put that on the record to put some sort of balance in our discussions when we build some policy.
Mr. Boutilier: I would endorse your view entirely.
The Chairman: On that note of agreement, we should terminate the meeting. Honourable senators, you will agree that the witnesses have been most helpful to us. They have been candid and precise, and it has been a most useful session.
We are most grateful to you for being with us. Thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.