China and the Indo-Pacific: The End of Delusions

Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy states that “Canada is a Pacific country,” but saying it doesn’t make it so. Canada may be a Pacific country in terms of strict and pedantic geography, but it has seldom acted or thought like one. Canada’s approach to the region in recent decades has often been characterised by a pollyannaish belief in its own importance, a mismatch between aspirations and means, and a lack of systematic thinking about what being a Pacific country would mean beyond the slogan stage. This chapter examines Canada’s relationship with China and the Indo-Pacific region, with a focus on the events since Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015. This period has witnessed the collapse of Canada’s relationship with the world’s two largest countries, the emergence of the Indo-Pacific as an alternative to the traditional geostrategic frame of Asia–Pacific, the possible creation of a new Western security architecture in the Pacific from which Canada finds itself excluded, and much besides. Some of Ottawa’s traditional complacency towards the region might have been shattered, but whether this will eventually lead to a successful and coherent Canadian strategy towards the region remains to be seen.