By Anthony V. Rinna
Keen to boost its presence in the Pacific, Canada is well placed to help soothe tensions in East Asia.
Much ink has been spilled of late on the tensions between China and the United States over the South and East China Seas. As Canada begins to assert its own interests in the Asia-Pacific, it may have the opportunity to play the role of intermediary in China-U.S. strategic and military relations. This potential comes in particular from Canada’s long-standing military ties with the U.S. and its own position as a benign and relatively harmless actor. Specifically, its current rapprochement with China, especially in the military and strategic arena, makes this a possibility. If Canada is in fact able to balance Sino-American strategic relations, it will be a major foreign policy victory for Canada, which is currently seeking to assert itself in global affairs.
China’s strategic relations with the U.S. are already integrated into one political triangle. Bobo Lo, a research fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House, has described a China-Russia-U.S. triangle in which China is the node that balances out Russia and the United States, especially in terms of their own respective roles on the world stage. While Russia and the United States occasionally use China against one another (the so-called “China card”), China is hardly a pawn; rather it is a strategic actor executing its own interests and political will. In terms of the potential Canada-China-U.S. triangle, Canada seems to be in a position to play this role as well, albeit in a different form.
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