Canada’s cross-pacific relations: From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific

This essay proposes a periodization of Canada’s cross-Pacific relations: from the Asia-Pacific era beginning in the 1980s to the Indo-Pacific era beginning around 2018. In the era of the Asia-Pacific, Canada was relatively disengaged on matters other than economic relations, as Ottawa sought to capitalize on dynamic emerging markets. Canada’s non-confrontational approach enabled a constructive relationship with China. The conditions for this functional relationship changed as Xi Jinping’s China assumed a more overtly revisionist, risk-taking, and confrontational foreign policy. In light of this, like-minded players in Asian security have adopted the “Indo-Pacific” nomenclature and concept in order to facilitate more interaction with each other and maintain maritime security. Midway through the Trudeau government’s tenure, the “Indo-Pacific” is likewise being adopted, as relations between China have soured while relations with other Asian partners are increasingly prioritized, notably in the security domain.

A small development aid programme run out of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing began in 1981. A general agreement on development cooperation was signed in 1983, a major step forward as under Mao China had refused developmental assistance from Western nations. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was to help China to 'build international linkages and learn from foreign expertise by supporting people-to-people contacts and education pro-grams in Canada and China.' Twinning agreements between Canadian and Chinese provinces and municipalities also grew apace, with high levels of activity back and forth. 6 Canada-China relations wavered under the Mulroney government, with the prime minister himself, his foreign minister, Joe Clark, and Canadian civil society expressing dismay at the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In the immediate aftermath, Canada imposed sanctions on the PRC, and used other policy instruments to eschew normal bilateral relations with the CCP. In the end, however, faltering relations turned out to be temporary; the event was not a critical juncture that caused path dependency for Canada-China relations. The former Canadian ambassador to the PRC, Fred Bild, writes: The brakes that had been put on economic reform in the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen were suddenly loosened. By the end of 1992 bilateral trade was at a high of 4.6 billion dollars, with capital goods accounting for more than half the total. Canadian investments had doubled over the previous year. 7 Canadian-Chinese relations eventually stabilized with face-to-face diplomatic meetings between cabinet-level officials and Chinese counterparts resuming. 8 Jean Chrétien's government led three trade missions to China-the 2001 iteration was the most robust trade mission in Canadian history. Beijing appreciated that Chrétien comprehended the value of face-to-face diplomacy with Chinese officials, with the frequency of diplomatic meetings reaching heights during Mr. Chrétien's government. Crystallizing the development of Chinese-Canadian relations, at a meeting in Toronto in 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin and Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a strategic partnership, with a special focus on investment and trade between the two countries. It is important to highlight the major role that semiindependent Hong Kong played in shaping Canada's official and unofficial economic relations across the Pacific. Speaking in 2006, Perrin Beatty highlights the conditions that enabled Hong Kong to flourish in a speech to the Hong Kong-Canada Business Association at a meeting in Ottawa: "Hong Kong advocates and practises free trade-a free and liberal investment regime, the absence of trade barriers, no discrimination against over-seas investors, freedom of capital movements, a well-established rule of law, transparent regulations, and low and predictable taxation." 9 In the early years of the Harper government, Mr. Harper lacked communication with top Chinese officials and downgraded China as a priority for his diplomatic travel circuit. The prime minister made a stinging statement that Canadians "don't want us to sell out to the almighty dollar," a reference to Canada "selling out" liberal democratic values as the country simultaneously engages with an authoritarian China. While China specialists in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) expressed the need for pragmatic engagement with China, the Harper government repeatedly drew attention to China's human rights violations on various occasions, which jeopardized a functioning Canada-China relationship.
The early years of the Harper government can be bracketed from its later years. To quote the conclusion of Wenran Jiang's 2009 essay on Canada's "strategic vision" for China relations: The Conservative government's China policy is clearly undergoing a period of change. It is making the transition from a more ideological to a more pragmatic approach, from grand statements on human rights to a greater focus on improving bilateral economic relations, from refusing to engage China at the highest level to resuming summit diplomacy, and from being virtually ignorant about China to being enthusiastic promoters of a closer bilateral relationship. 10 While Mr. Harper continued to unapologetically draw attention to the PRC's human rights violations, in the later years of his tenure, he began respecting the Chinese-Canadian strategic partnership beyond the economic domain. The early months of the Trudeau government reflected continuity with this "handsoff" approach to cross-Pacific relations. In fact, Mr. Trudeau's 2015 campaign paid little attention to cross-Pacific relations as a distinct area of Canadian foreign policy, and all potential leaders were minimally concerned with Asia-Pacific relations in the single foreign policy debate of the election period. 15 After the Trudeau government earned an electoral victory in November 2015, it became clear that its foreign policy agenda sought to further enhance bilateral relations with China. 16 Learning from the diplomatic rifts of the Harper government's early years, Mr. Trudeau made face-to-face contact between upper-echelon Chinese officials a priority. 17 In 2016, his government decided to purchase a share of the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), despite admonition from Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and Washington. 18 Building upon groundwork laid hitherto, in 2017, the Trudeau government made a concerted effort to establish a comprehensive trade agreement with China; in light of this, Trudeau himself visited Beijing along with Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne. Nothing concrete would come of the visit. Instead, it accentuated the divergences between Canada and China on human rights, as China refused to accept gender and labour rights as part of the deal. After 4 years, in 2020, the Trudeau government acknowledged that it had abandoned Canada-China free trade talks-a by-product of China's geopolitical brinkmanship and retaliatory detention of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig ("the two Michaels") in the year prior. Thus, the Trudeau government's effort to establish this free trade agreement serves as a microcosm for Ottawa-Beijing relations throughout decades of Asia-Pacific-era foreign policy: a contrived relationship, with a world of economic potential, that is recurrently jeopardized by the CCP's foreign and domestic violations of international law and custom. Explaining the abandonment to The Globe and Mail, then foreign minister Champagne said that he does not "see the conditions being present now for these discussions to continue at this time. ... The China of 2020 is not the China of 2016." 19 Throughout Liberal and Conservative governments during the Asia-Pacific era, Canada performed a non-confrontational approach to the Asia-Pacific. This meant not signalling Canadian interests in highly contentious Asian security issues, since security issues only served to obfuscate. In a thorough review of Canada's Asia-Pacific security activities from 1990 to 2015, David Dewitt et al. appraise that Canada's deployments were fragmented in the aggregate. The period from 1990 to 1998 saw Canada's defence engagements "modest yet relatively consistent year-to-year," but from 1998 to 2014, Canada's Asia-Pacific deployments became intermittent due to exogenous commitments (e.g., Afghanistan). 20 The deployments undertaken were "sporadic in geospatial reach with relatively low political impact"; crucially, they were "clearly beholden to larger political and economic incentives that are often detrimental to Ottawa's goal of sustained engagement." 21 Canada played a consistent, constructive role in combatting non-traditional security problems, such as with the Disaster Assistance Relief Team (DART); but on traditional security matters, the DND mainly focused on other parts of the world. The Foreign Ministry concertedly focused on economic engagements with East Asia, paying comparatively less attention to India, which was rising adjacent to China. 18 In summary, Canada's Asia-Pacific-era relations were centred on economic capitalization and non-confrontation. This description is particularly true in respect to relations with China. With some exceptions, Canada was relatively disinterested in traditional security issues facing the Asian security architecture.
What is the Indo-Pacific?
While the "Indo-Pacific" denotes a region, this region should not be misconstrued as an objective geographic space. There is a lack of intersubjectivity on the Indo-Pacific's demarcations and boundaries, and while this was true of the Asia-Pacific as well, the demarcations of the Indo-Pacific are even more contentious. The meaning of the Indo-Pacific is understood differently from London, to Canberra, to Jakarta, to Beijing.
Although the Indo-Pacific redraws the Asia-Pacific's physical boundaries, the new adoption of the Indo-Pacific is primarily an eclipsing of the Asia-Pacific concept. As with "Eastern Europe" or the "Middle East," the Indo-Pacific is a concept that innately entails a worldview. Historically and contemporarily, the adoption of the "Indo-Pacific" concept has been tied to geopolitical strategy. 22 The term's meaning and connotations are often contingent on the respective security strategies of states; for example, Chinese policymakers and many prominent Chinese scholars refute the Indo-Pacific as being a construct driven by Cold-War-like containment, while Japan views the Indo-Pacific as "free and open." 23 Thus, in juxtaposition, Japan perceives the Indo-Pacific as free while China perceives it as constraining. The PRC's strategic calculation is not without credence, as this "openness" effectively works to balance the power in Asia by including India's newfound capabilities and economic growth into the geographical frame. With that being said, it is misapprehensive to construe the Indo-Pacific as solely a political fabrication-that is, created with a strategic telos in mind. In scientific literature, specifically in the domains of marine biology and geology, authors have circulated the term "Indo-Pacific" for over a century. Thus, the Indo-Pacific is far from a new invention that is contingent on contemporary geopolitical state of affairs. Cartographers depicted the Indo-Pacific many centuries prior; Abraham Ortelius did so in the late 16th century, as did Willem Janszoon Blaeu almost a century after Ortelius. In contemporary history, it was in 2007 that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe gave the 22. For more on the origins of the Indo-Pacific, geopolitical strategy, and the intellectual history of the regional framing, see "Confluence of the Two Seas" speech to India's parliament; it should not be forgotten that, in many ways, the Indo-Pacific concept as it is now known is rooted in Indian and Japanese philosophizing. The novelty surrounding the Indo-Pacific is the momentum in which various states adopted the Indo-Pacific as part of official lexicons in the mid to late 2010s. Canada was late to this adoption, only using the term from roughly 2018 onwards. Ottawa is smart to adopt this nomenclature, as virtually every one of its likeminded partners in the region-from Australia, to South Korea, to France, to the US-have likewise adopted it. What is new is not the Indo-Pacific concept, only the official adoption of this framing by states. Institutions adjust themselves to reflect these new geographic contours, such as when Washington renamed its command structure from United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) to United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). Furthermore, institutional adaptation is observed in the maturation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD).
In official Indo-Pacific policy documents of various states, it is commonplace for traditional security issues to take centre stage. The topography and tense geopolitical climate that the Indo-Pacific denotes starkly differs from the Asia-Pacific, which was "toned down" in respect to great power competition and the threat perceptions of smaller states. Security dilemmas in the South China Sea, skirmishes in the Galwan Valley between two nuclear powers, and the beating of war drums directed at Taiwan have all elevated the stakes in international security. Meanwhile, longstanding concerns over the volatility of the Korean Peninsula and the geopolitical rivalry between India and Pakistan seem no nearer to resolution. The newly adopted framing of the Indo-Pacific lays the conceptual groundwork for Canada to get more involved in traditional regional security issues. Canada should choose wisely with regard to the security issues in which it will play a role, calculating what advantages Canada can provide to Asian peace and security.

Canadian security relations in an Indo-Pacific framing
At the time of this essay's publication, GAC and the DND are in the process of crafting an Indo-Pacific strategy. Ottawa is following in the footsteps of Brussels, London, Tokyo, Paris, and of course Washington, which all have their own articulated strategies or Indo-Pacific policy documents in varying forms. Ottawa is therefore lagging behind likeminded powers in assuming a more active role in the Indo-Pacific. Encouragingly, after Prime Minister Trudeau's third electoral victory, it was mandated to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to "develop and launch a comprehensive Indo-Pacific strategy to deepen diplomatic, economic and defence partnerships and international assistance in the region." 24 Canada has no security-treaty obligations to the Indo- Pacific, which means Canadian decision-making is made ad hoc and on the fly. 25 Lacking strategic structure, an explicated Indo-Pacific document provides reassurance to likeminded partners and allies that Canada shares concern over regional issues. For instance, Canada is willing to play a role in enforcing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNLCOS), and on promoting the integration of UNCLOS into any future Code of Conduct (COC) in the Indo-Pacific's maritimes (a crucial proviso for some Southeast Asian states like Vietnam). An assessment of China's future intentions and Canada's position vis-à-vis Beijing's increasingly revisionist agenda is at the forefront of Ottawa's deliberation process. 26 China's retaliatory detention of the two Michaels in December 2018 and arbitrary death sentence of a Canadian trafficker in January 2019 served as crucial learning experiences and gave credence to the notion that Ottawa desperately needed a rethink of its relations with Beijing. In a more macro sense, these actions indicated that Xi's China will approach its foreign relations with more coercion and risk-taking compared to the economically booming China of the "Asia-Pacific" era. While the Party's power consolidation is a constancy, the leader and adjunct ring of technocrats at the helm of the Politburo dictate the direction of Chinese foreign policy. If Xi's China is indeed adamant on a more overtly revisionist foreign policy-for which the two Michaels were unfortunately collateral-then the conditions that allowed for a constructive Chinese-Canadian relationship in the era of the Asia-Pacific are no longer present in the Indo-Pacific. This is a conventional view amongst Canadian security circles and institutions. In a May 2018 report, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) asserted that "President Xi Jinping is driving a multi-dimensional strategy to lift China to global dominance. This strategy integrates aggressive diplomacy, asymmetrical economic agreements, technological innovation, as well as escalating military expenditures." 27 Unlike in the Asia-Pacific framing, where economic interests eclipsed all other issues, in the Indo-Pacific, traditional security issues will play a larger role in shaping Canada's cross-Pacific strategic calculus. Tellingly, throughout the course of the Trudeau government, bilateral Canada-China military relations have become virtually non-existent. In 2019, Ottawa cancelled the aforementioned Canada-China partnership on winter warfare training that the Harper government signed in 2013. It is noteworthy that there was pushback from GAC surrounding the cancellation, yet Ottawa still went ahead (contrast this with Trudeau's decision to go ahead with involvement in the AIIB). In the Asia-Pacific era, port visits from the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) were semi-regular, but the last PLAN port visit to Canada was in December 2016, and 25. Canada's only defence treaty duties are to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 26. The language within the Indo-Pacific strategy will be intricately careful and ambiguous in certain sections, in order to avoid antagonizing China. From "outlooks," to "guidelines," to "free and open," to "strategies," the language surrounding the "Indo-Pacific" is highly pedantic in many official policy documents.   The juxtaposition between the 2016 and the 2021 statements epitomizes how Canada has become less averse to calling out China when it destabilizes international security. In March 2021, when China deployed approximately 220 ships to Whitsun Reef, a feature in the Spratly Islands that is within the Philippines' 220-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Canada's ambassador to the Philippines, Peter MacArthur, tweeted: Canada opposes recent Chinese actions in the South China Sea, including off the coast of the Philippines, that escalate tensions and undermine regional stability and the rules-based international order. 32 Canada is strengthening relationships with Indo-Pacific resident powers. The QUAD members are particularly embracing Canada's shift to the Indo-Pacific. In fact, one of the first mentions of the "Indo-Pacific" in official government language came in a press release dedicated to a 28 April 2019 meeting between Prime Minister Trudeau and then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe: The two leaders also discussed their shared vision for maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region based on the rule of law-something Canada and Japan will continue to advance through a range of initiatives. Prime Minister Trudeau announced that Canada will continue periodic deployments, over a two-year period, of Canadian Armed security issues; according to Prime Minister Trudeau's press release, these issues were: (1) North Korean missile launches, (2) "China's actions in the region, including in the South China Sea and Taiwan," and (3) Russian mobilizations on the border of Ukraine. 34 Japan is of special strategic importance given the potential for Canadian-Japanese ties, which is well-illustrated by David Welch, who convincingly advocates for a formal bilateral alliance that could reaffirm "solidarity, like-mindedness, and mutual concern." 35 Australian policymakers have likewise sought to get Canada further engaged in regional security. One sign that that is already happening came in January 2021, when Canada participated alongside the QUAD in the Sea Dragon exercise off the coast of Guam's Andersen Air Base. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) allocated a CP-140 Aurora to take part in this anti-submarine warfare exercise. Canada is seeking to build a comprehensive network of Indo-Pacific powers. To that effect, the Trudeau government has made good inroads with Vietnam. Canada is rightly concerned over Hanoi's human rights abuses, but shares interests with Vietnam on international maritime security. In vn/vn-canada-sign-mou-on-defense-cooperation-1779.html (accessed 11 February 2022). 37. Government of Canada, "12th Annual Conference on the South China Sea: Welcome dinner keynote," 9 December 2020, https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reportspublications/proactive-disclosure/cacn-national-security-dimensions-canada-china-relations-12-april-2021/pa-products.html (accessed 30 November 2021).
Hanoi uses international laws, notably UNCLOS, as security guaranteeing mechanisms; thus, Sajjan's talking points have been well-received by Hanoi's political elite that resent the loss of fishing and extraction rights due to Chinese revisionism in the South China Sea. 38 Perhaps more relevantly to Canada, apart from the geopolitical situation, Vietnam is "a vital economic player in the Indo-Pacific." 39 This was noted by GAC's press release following the 2021 establishment of the Canada-Vietnam Joint Economic Committee. The country is emerging as a vital component of the world's global supply chains.
A further case of Canada improving ties with Indo-Pacific resident powers is visa-vis Taiwan. The Trudeau government has advocated for including Taiwan in global governance and international institutions. In domestic Canadian legislatures, government officials advocated for Taiwanese observer status in the World Health Organization (WHO). They also advocated for this inclusion to the WHO's Geneva offices, in a coordinated effort with diplomats from Indo-Pacific allies and partners, namely the US, France, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Germany. The Indo-Pacific strategy, a key feature-or non-feature-will be Taiwan. Will the state be named? If so, in what context(s)?

Canada's hard security activities in the Indo-Pacific
Canada has taken an active role in the surveillance of North Korea, helping to ensure the integrity of UN sanctions. In January 2018, in conjunction with the US, Canada cohosted the Vancouver Foreign Ministers' Meeting on Security and Stability on Korean Peninsula in Vancouver. The attendees were a roster of conventional Indo-Pacific powers such as India, Japan, and South Korea; additionally, some uncommon participants in Asian regional governance took part, namely Greece. Unwilling to contradict its alliance commitments to North Korea, China did not participate and denounced the meeting. There is uncertainty surrounding whether China was invited. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang articulated Beijing's perceptions of the gathering: We all know that the so-called UN Command, as a product of the Cold War era, has long lost its relevance. As initiators of the meeting, the US and Canada co-hosted the meeting under the banner of the so-called UN Command sending states. That is Cold War mentality pure and simple, and will only drive a wedge among the international community and undermine the concerted efforts to seek proper settlement of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. 43 In May 2018, in recognition of Canada's role in maintaining international security on the Korean Peninsula, a Canadian was appointed to Deputy Commander Designate of United Nations Command (UNC) Korea.
If Canada is to be taken seriously in the Indo-Pacific, hard power deployments will be necessary. To this effect, a meaningful Canadian contribution to Indo-Pacific security is Operation NEON. Per the Government's official description, Operation NEON is: Canada's contribution to a coordinated multinational effort to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed against North Korea. The series of UN sanctions, imposed between 2006 and 2017, aim to pressure North Korea to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs and respond to North Korean nuclear weapon tests and ballistic missile launches. This operation demonstrates the importance that Canada places on security in the Asia-Pacific region, international security and the im- Operation NEON builds "on previous ad hoc sanctions enforcement operations conducted in 2018," although it was formally established in April 2019. In April 2021, the Trudeau government renewed its commitment to Operation NEON until at least April 2023. 45 Operation NEON is precisely the kind of concerted and consistent military operation that was missing in the Asia-Pacific era of Canadian foreign policy.
The surveillance of North Korean arms proliferation and economic sanctions requires a fusion of sea and air power. HMCS Chicoutimi-an archaic submarine compared to allied equivalents, and a possible liability in a combat scenariocontributed meaningfully to Operation NEON as its role was limited to surveillance. In 2018, the Royal Canadian Navy deployed HMCS Chicoutimi to Asia for 197 days and conducted a port visit to Japan. This port visit was a first in almost 50 years. 46 On air power, Canada deploys its maritime patrol aircraft, the CP-140 Auroras. Kadena Air Base on Okinawa logistically facilitates CP-140 Aurora operations.
When Canada allocates warships and aircraft to Operation NEON, the deployments are to the Indo-Pacific region generally. In order for the operation to be logistically possible, resident powers must station and refuel Canadian aircraft and vessels. By virtue of Canadian material presence in the Indo-Pacific, the Canadian military can multitask. For example, when in 2018 HMCS Calgary deployed to the Indo-Pacific, the vessel participated in anti-submarine warfare exercises alongside elements of the US, Japanese, South Korean, and Kiwi navies. Thereafter, it was dispatched to the surveillance of North Korea. Canadian commitment to the international initiative of containing North Korea often intersects with other security issues, notably China's expansionism in the South China Sea and nationalist sensitivities to controlling the Taiwan Strait. Table 1 is a chronology of Canadian naval activity in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait since the start of the Trudeau government, and shows an uptick of transits through the Trudeau years; later sailings have piqued Beijing's anxiety (Chinese warships often shadow Canadian warships in these waters). Note the stark 44. Government of Canada, "Operation NEON," 3 June 2019, https://www.canada.ca/en/department-nationaldefence/services/operations/military-operations/current-operations/operation-neon.html (accessed 29 November 2021). 45. It is noteworthy that the government's official webpages on Operation NEON have seen a change. The page in service prior to March 2020 denotes Operation NEON as an "Asia-Pacific" initiative with no mention of the "Indo-Pacific" at all, while the page in service at the time of writing now makes a reference to the "Indo-Pacific." If nothing else, this is reflective of the fact that Ottawa recognizes the importance of using the nomenclature of the "Indo-Pacific. Even if Canada will not participate in official US FONOPs, in the Indo-Pacific era, Canada has signalled its interests in countering Beijing's ambition for a restrictive order in the maritimes of East and Southeast Asia. Saliently, upper-level government  49 Recall that part of Canada's stated goals for Operation NEON is "focused on Canada's commitment to global peace and security and building ties and interoperability with partner nations." 50 To that effect, in November 2021, Canada and the US established a Strategic Dialogue on the Indo-Pacific; a stated goal in the White House press release is "to align our approaches on China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)." 51 On this US-Canada meeting, it is telling that the prime minister's press release only stated that the US and Canada established "an Indo-Pacific strategic dialogue to coordinate shared priorities." 52 There was no mention of China. The discrepancy between the two statements is a pertinent reminder not to misconstrue Canada and the US as having matching alignments on Indo-Pacific security. 53 Even if Canada is a coastal-Pacific power, Canada is not a resident power in the Indo-Pacific like the US or France. 54 That Canada is situated in the Indo-Pacific's periphery, not in the Indo-Pacific, is a consequential geopolitical distinction. Analysts should gauge Canada's involvement in the Indo-Pacific contextually vis-à-vis this geographical fact. Whether Canadian foreign policy is framed through the "Indo-Pacific" or the "Asia-Pacific," geographical realities remain. Financial realities remain as well. Logistically, deploying hard power overseas costs a lot of capital-capital that many Canadian policymakers would rather allocate proximately to Arctic defence. China is a vital lifeline for the Canadian economy; thus, confronting China carries macro-economic risk. As a middle power, Canada will have to tread carefully when it comes to tangling with the rivalries of great powers-this is the reality of international politics.
In the final assessment of Canada's hard power and the Indo-Pacific, Canada has clearly become less averse to using hard power as an instrument of containment (on North Korean arms proliferation) and as an instrument of political signification (aligning with likeminded partners and allies). Canada has also upped participation in high-action military exercises in the Indo-Pacific, such as in the US-and Australian-led Exercise Talisman Sabre. Since 2017, Canada has participated in Exercise Talisman Sabre in three consecutive iterations, having been conspicuously absent prior to 2017. 55 As aforementioned, Canada participated in the QUAD-led Sea Dragon exercise off the coast of Guam's Andersen Air Base. Canadian officials have acknowledged the importance of enhancing hard power presence in the Indo-Pacific. In 2020, when Canada finally achieved access to the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM+), Defence Minister Sajjan emphasized to the meeting's high-ranking participants that: We are building new warships, supply ships, and investing in surveillance aircraft to ensure Canada remains a consistent presence in the Indo-Pacific. And we will expand our Navy, our Air Force, Army, and Special Operations Forces ties with ASEAN countries, through high-level bilateral engagements, staff talks, and participation in military exercises. 56 Hard power matters in the Indo-Pacific. Diplomatically, it is a verifiable assurance that Canada is not aloof to the security concerns of respective Indo-Pacific resident states. Furthermore, hard power paves avenues for diplomatic engagement and can function as an "admission fee" for institutional access in regional security governance. The scale of Canada's institutional access will serve as a marker for its place in Indo-Pacific security and diplomacy-on this note, the next section examines Canadian involvement in the Indo-Pacific security architecture.

Canada's soft involvements in the Indo-Pacific security architecture
Dewitt et al. appraise that, regarding Canada's involvement in Asia-Pacific security architecture from 1990-2015: [a]lthough DND participation in military-to-military symposiums and American-led defence forums has provided important t1 platforms, Canada has not engaged with 55. Government of Canada, "HMCS Calgary sails with Indo-Pacific partners Australia, America, Japan, and South Korea on Exercise Talisman Sabre 21," 18 August 2021, http://www.navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/en/ news-operations/news-view.page?doc=hmcs-calgary-sails-with-indo-pacific-partners-australia-americajapan-and-south-korea-on-exercise-talisman-sabre-21/koejco0h (accessed 10 February 2022). 56. Government of Canada, "Speaking notes for the Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan" 9 December 2020. any other significant security organizations or forums in the region, including the ADMM-Plus[.] 57 In the Indo-Pacific era, there are signs that Canada is prioritizing Indo-Pacific security governance. After years of trying, with Vietnam as chair of ASEAN, in 2020 Canada was invited to participate in the ADMM+.
Canada's existing role in Indo-Pacific security governance is grounded in its participation at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), for which Canada is a founding member. As of 2021, the ARF consists of 27 members spanning the Asian security architecture. GAC is primarily responsible for representing Canada at meetings rather than the DND, which reflects the ethos of the forum. Historically, Canada has made contributions valued by the ARF and ASEAN broadly, such as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction, otherwise known as the Ottawa Treaty. The treaty came into effect in 2009 and introduced an international law to ban anti-personnel mines, which are weaponry that continue to haunt Indochina 50 years on.
The ARF is big on non-traditional security issues. The inefficacy of the ARF on traditional security issues is strongly conditioned by its massive constituency. More agents mean more contestations that can negate real negotiations. As a result of this shortcoming, Sang Tan rightly argues that "the ARF has unwittingly disqualified itself as the region's primary platform for security matters." 58 Rationally, Canada's interest in the East Asia Summit (EAS) and especially the ADMM+ is conditioned by a lacklustre and unsatisfactory ARF when it comes to traditional state-state security issues. Membership in the ARF grants a country no real "status-points," given how extensive the in-group is. In 2016, when Ottawa finally appointed an ambassador to ASEAN, Marie-Louise Hannan, the ambassador turned attention toward Canada's interest in participating the ADMM+ and the EAS. For years, ASEAN has respectfully denied Canada access to the ADMM+; however, as aforementioned, Canada in 2020 made headway when Defence Minister Sajjan delivered a speech at the meeting (in this speech, Sajjan referred to the Indo-Pacific, and never the Asia-Pacific). While Canada is still not a proper member of the ADMM+, Sajjan's speaking role reflects real progress, albeit incremental.
Canada has enhanced involvement in the Shangri-La Dialogue. The Shangri-La Dialogue is a Track One meeting of prestigious government officials that has included over two dozen countries. Jonathan Berkshire Miller argues that the Shangri-La Dialogue would be a suitable stage to articulate a more coherent Indo-Pacific strategy. 59 Throughout the 2000s, Canada's delegation at the Shangri-La was low ranking. This changed in the later years of the Harper government, when Canadian defence minister Peter Mackay began attending summits. In recognition of Canada's place in Asian security, Mackay had keynote speeches. Canadian attendance at the Shangri-La meetings is twofold: Canadian involvement here helps make the case for Canadian involvement in the ADMM+. When Mr. Trudeau assumed office, his government maintained Canada's valuation of the Shangri-La Dialogue, dispatching Defence Minister Sajjan. Sajjan gave keynote speeches to the Shangri-La in consecutive years from 2016 to 2019. (The 2020 and 2021 iterations were cancelled due to COVID-19.) The content of Sajjan's Shangri-La speeches indicates that Canada's security concerns are transforming. While Sajjan's keynote speech in 2016 strongly focused on terrorism, Sajjan's 2018 speech only made one reference to "terror," and it was in reference to nuclear weapons proliferation. Sajjan's 2018 speech was decidedly focused on stunning North Korea's nuclear and ballistic-missile development program; the speech was unequivocal in signalling Canada's commitment to enforcing UN sanctions. This is a small indication that Canada's concern over non-traditional security threats-notably terrorism-is slowly being eclipsed by concerns over state-state geopolitical competition in the Indo-Pacific.
The next case is the EAS. Formed in 2005, the EAS' grandiose raison d'être is to promote "peace, stability, and prosperity in East Asia." The EAS is leader-centric and more exclusive insofar as Indo-Pacific security governance goes. Since its formation, questions over which states ought to be included are recurrent: Malaysia, under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, led the case for the narrower conception, while a number of other ASEAN members and Japan argued for the inclusion of India, New Zealand and Australia. The main concern that this latter group had about the narrower membership was the risk that ultimately it would become dominated by China. 60 The inclusion of US allies-namely Japan, New Zealand, and Australia-was rendered to be sufficient to balance power within the EAS.
The EAS got off to an uncertain start, with the US and China not taking it very seriously. 61 But when the Obama administration implemented its "pivot to Asia," President Obama attended every EAS but the 2013 iteration, only because the government shutdown did not allow it. President Trump, on the other hand, clumsily missed the 2019 and 2020 summits with no good excuse. Adding insult to injury, the 2020 iteration was held via video conferencing yet no American cabinet-level official was in (virtual) attendance. In all, the EAS is only as resourceful as the great powers will it to be, and the summit suffers from some of the same "talk shop" problems as the Clinton and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov were in attendance). China was displeased with what it perceived as foreign powers infringing on its geopolitical neighbourhood, a similar misgiving the CCP has with the Indo-Pacific framing.