QUESTION PERIOD — Foreign Affairs
Indo-Pacific Strategy
November 29, 2022
My question is to Senator Gold, and it relates to Canada’s newly released Indo-Pacific Strategy. It also picks up on comments that were made yesterday at the University of Ottawa by China’s ambassador, where he referred specifically to a point in the strategy that says that China is an increasingly disruptive global power.
Ambassador Cong was quoted as saying:
Unfortunately it seems that Canada has followed the United States practice of creating division and of fomenting confrontation in the region.
He went on to say:
When it comes to China, it distorted facts (and) hyped up the so-called China threat and infringed upon China’s internal affairs. We firmly oppose it.
Senator Gold, it is said that diplomacy works best not only talking to our friends. With these developments, please update us on how Canada will keep lines of communication open with this global power, especially in these tense times.
Thank you for your question. No Canadian is surprised at the response of the Chinese ambassador and of the Chinese government. They do not like to be called out for their human rights abuses, for their expansionist pretensions in the region and for all the other ways in which it’s flouting international norms that it has profited by for many years.
The Indo-Pacific policy announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs is designed both to strengthen our relationships in the region and, quite frankly, to provide a buffer and counterpoint to the aspects of Chinese assertiveness in the region. But as the minister said, we will confront China where necessary. We will cooperate where also necessary, whether it’s on the issue of climate change.
Let’s be frank: The Canadian and Chinese economies have grown to be very interdependent. Many sectors, including the agricultural sector, are heavily dependent, and we have to manage this difficult relationship with finesse, but also with firmness, and that is exactly what this policy aims to do.
