Transcript
Transcript: Geopolitics and the Indo-Pacific Region Series: Defining the Region, its Trends and Strategic Implications for Canada
[00:00:00 Video of planet Earth seen from space. Title page: Geopolitics and the Indo-Pacific Series, Defining the Region, Its Trends and Strategic Implications for Canada: Highlights.]
[00:00:11 Animated video of Earth, as seen from space, rotating quickly. It slows to a stop to show the Indo-Pacific region of the planet. Overlaid text on screen, as described.]
Narrator: On May 2, 2024, the Canada School of Public Service launched its Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific Series with an event titled "Defining the Region, Its Trends and Strategic Implications for Canada".
Speaker Kai Ostwald, and moderator Jeff Nankivell explored the history and diversity of the Indo-Pacific region, its economic and security dynamics, how activities in the region are reshaping geopolitics, and how Canada can engage with the region to pursue its own interests.
[00:00:46 Overlaid text on screen: What is the Indo-Pacific?]
[00:00:50 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Jeff Nankivell: What do we mean when we talk about the Indo-Pacific region? What are we talking about?
[00:00:52 Overlaid text on screen: Geopolitics and the Indo-Pacific Series, Defining the Region, Its Trends and Strategic Implications for Canada.]
Kai Ostwald: We're talking about really an immense region of the world. 40 different countries spanning from Bangladesh all the way up to Japan, and a part of the world that has increasingly gotten attention.
[00:01:05 Kai Ostwald appears full screen. Text on screen: Kai Ostwald, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia.]
Kai Ostwald: Two thirds of the world's population; a centre for economic dynamism; a place that many countries around the world recognize will play an increasingly big part in the generations ahead. And that's true for Canada as well.
[00:01:20 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Jeff Nankivell: And when we talk about the geography, can we kind of draw a map for folks?
Kai Ostwald: Yes. So, if we imagine ourselves looking west from British Columbia, we get to the topmost tip of the Indo-Pacific region with Japan, we stretch all the way down through the South China Sea. And what makes the Indo-Pacific concept unique is that we now couple that with the Indian Ocean.
So, in terms of countries, we're thinking about all the way from Japan on one end, an arc that runs through the South China Sea and the Pacific Islands all the way through the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean.
Jeff Nankivell: So, would we say the western border of this would be the Indian subcontinent, and you've got India, Pakistan, Afghanistan?
Kai Ostwald: That's right. All the way through Northeast Asia.
Jeff Nankivell: Yes.
Kai Ostwald: And of course, what's remarkable about this area, not just that it contains two thirds of the world's population and all the economic numbers that I'm sure we'll get into more, including arguably or by some projections, two thirds of the world's middle class within the foreseeable future.
[00:02:30 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: But also, the diversity of this region is striking. We have every major world religion represented in significant numbers. We have basically every political system represented from an absolute monarchy through two communist regimes, other forms of autocracy, and a number of liberal democracies. And of course, this rich mix of countries in between, systems in between, that blend features of democracy and autocracy.
On the economic front, we also have some of the world's most developed countries and some of the world's least developed countries. So, there's an immense diversity within this spectrum of countries that creates a lot of opportunities because it also creates a spectrum of interests and demands that Canada can feed into. It also creates a lot of challenges that I'm sure we'll get into in some depth.
[00:03:21 Jeff Nankivell appears full screen. Text on screen: Jeff Nankivell, President, Asia Pacific Foundation.]
Jeff Nankivell: The role of Indigenous peoples in the Indo-Pacific region. I think we could start, Kai, with the concept of Indigenous peoples in the Indo-Pacific region. I would say from an APF Canada perspective, this is an area where we have been working for a number of years and with partners in places like Taiwan; Japan; Australia; New Zealand; that have a strong tradition of recognizing, with greater and lesser success, as is the case for Canada, that there is a role for Indigenous people in their Polities.
But, as we see increased engagement by Canada's Indigenous communities in economic development in Canada, this is rapidly becoming a very important part of the picture when we look at the next few years of Canada and Asia engagement on trade and investment.
[00:04:19 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Jeff Nankivell: How is that envelope seen in the region?
Kai Ostwald: Yes, this is a big question that we could spend a couple of hours on. In fact, I have a lecture on exactly this point that I rarely finish in the allotted hour and 20 minutes.
So, I'll just say very briefly, the countries that you've listed are countries where there has been some very productive exchange. And that's in part because of the alignment between the way Indigeneity is perceived or is construed in those countries and Canada. There are other parts of the Indo-Pacific where the concept of Indigeneity is understood a bit differently than in the Canadian context.
[00:05:01 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: For example, in Malaysia and Indonesia, the dominant parties that represent the majority population think of themselves as Indigenous, and that creates very different dynamics. But what is clear is that not just in the countries that you have noted, but in others as well, in parts of the Indonesian archipelago, for example, communities are increasingly thinking of themselves as Indigenous and thinking about their rights as a virtue of that.
[00:05:38 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: And that's because when we talk about a region, we're never just talking about a geographic space. A region is ultimately a political construct. And, as a political construct, it reflects the concerns, the assumptions of the time.
[00:05:49 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: Because if we read Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy or the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States or others in the Quad, for example, it has a very different tone to it.
[00:05:58 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: There is a sense that there are inevitable geopolitical frictions that have to be addressed. Many of the Indo-Pacific strategies talk about, for example, countering or containing a rising China. And again, embedded in that idea is this notion that engagement and integration hasn't produced the outcomes that we looked for, and we instead find ourselves in a world now where there are disruptive powers.
[00:06:28 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: And Shinzo Abe, the former Prime Minister of Japan, spoke in front of India's parliament in 2007. And he talked at that point about a dynamic coupling of the Pacific and Indian Oceans to create an arc of prosperity and trade.
[00:06:40 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: And the notion there was that this Indo-Pacific, this dynamic coupling of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Oceans would create this arcus, as he called it, of prosperity that links like-minded countries. By which was meant countries that foreground democratic values; that believe in rules-based order; that believe in open economies.
[00:07:13 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: And that catalyzed greater cooperation between what's now often called the Quad. Four democratic countries: India; Japan; Australia; and the United States.
That Quad, in 2007/2008, began collaborating on security fronts, which quickly provoked the ire of China which saw this as an attempt to counter it. Something like NATO for the Pacific.
[00:07:49 Text on screen: Economic Opportunities.]
[00:07:53 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: Canada's traditional trade orientation has been to our neighbour to the south, for obvious reasons. They don't even need to be stated, they're so obvious.
[00:08:03 Kai Ostwald appears full screen. Text on screen: Kai Ostwald, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia.]
Kai Ostwald: Its other familiar trade pattern has been trans-Atlantic. And there are good reasons to believe that diversification is a strategic imperative. And that has to do partly with some of the political uncertainties we see in the United States. And obviously in an election year those may sharpen further. And it's particularly concerning because of some of the economic nationalist tendencies that we've seen emerge from the political polarization. It's worth noting that that's true on both sides. Both Democrats and Republicans are more protectionists today than was the case two decades ago.
And looking at the trans-Atlantic partnerships, we're talking about mature markets that are low growth for the foreseeable future.
[00:08:57 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: So, a heavy dependence on those is a real strategic vulnerability over the long term. So, this is not just a matter of chasing profit and growth. I think it's really a matter of ensuring Canadian security into the next couple of generations to diversify away from – and that's not to say replace, of course – but to ensure that trade is diversified across a broad enough spectrum of countries. Particularly high growth countries.
Jeff Nankivell: Yes, and I think there's a really fundamental point about that growth that we see in Asia. So, we know, on a global scale, it's pretty certain that something like 60% to 2/3 of the economic growth in the world over the next couple of decades will be in the Indo-Pacific region. So, at least 60% of that growth where the new economic opportunities are is in that region. But it's not just about the volume of that, it's about the quality of that, the nature of that. And so, you have in these countries, let's take the countries of Southeast Asia as an example, countries like Philippines; Vietnam; Thailand; Malaysia; Singapore; Vietnam; and Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia.
[00:10:22 Jeff Nankivell appears full screen. Text on screen: Jeff Nankivell, President, Asia Pacific Foundation.]
Jeff Nankivell: So, Indonesia coming on towards 300 million people. Vietnam and the Philippines with 100 million each; growing middle class, and economic growth rates that can be greater than 5% in some years. And so, 1 percentage point of growth in an economy like that, that's going through a transformation like that, represents a very different opportunity for Canadian exporters of goods and services than 1 percentage point of growth in the U.S. economy or the Western European economy.
[00:10:55 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Jeff Nankivell: Because, as you mentioned, those are mature economies. These are economies where households' consumption patterns aren't going to change dramatically with a couple of percentage points of economic growth. Whereas in a place like Indonesia, 3 or 4%, 5% economic growth, what happens is you pass through these different thresholds of income. And so, these households right across Indonesia's archipelago with 17,000 islands, 275 million people, you find 4% economic growth in a year means you could have literally tens of millions of households who are achieving a level of household income that they've never seen before.
[00:11:44 Jeff Nankivell appears full screen.]
Jeff Nankivell: And so, the first things that people buy, maybe you buy a motorbike, then you buy some household appliances, a fridge, a washing machine. Then maybe you want to buy air conditioning and you want to improve your house. And you start to be able to make a couple of trips abroad and think about educating your children abroad. And these are all markets. You want higher quality food; you're going to start to eat more packaged food as opposed to just buying in the local wet market.
[00:12:11 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Jeff Nankivell: You're urbanizing, so you're living an urban lifestyle. You're not on the farm. And the urbanization rates are one of the big stories in Asia over the last half century and will continue to be.
So, basically, households are radically changing their consumption patterns and so those markets are up for grabs. You're not fighting in Western Europe for market share from a household that's been using the same brand of pet food for the last 50 years. You're looking to sell high quality Canadian pet food to households who've never bought pet food before but are now getting into that market.
Kai Ostwald: Yes, that's right. I'm happy to turn to Southeast Asia. This is, as you know, where I've spent much of my career. Southeast Asia is seen as one of the bright spots of opportunity into the future. And you mentioned all the opportunities that a growing middle class presents, and I think those are very real. But there's another element that I think we really need to highlight, and that is that Southeast Asia, because of its geographic location on the Ring of Fire in the tropics.
The Ring of Fire is in the ring of volcanic and seismically active areas and is immensely vulnerable to natural disaster and to climate change. In the Philippines, 90% of the population lives within a few kilometres of coastline and it is hit by dozens of typhoons every year. What that means is that the region understands the imperative of sustainability, as well. That this is an existential threat for them.
[00:14:08 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: And so, I bring that up because I think the opportunities you mentioned are very real. But there are also a lot of opportunities that fall into Canada's comparative advantage for delivering green tech, for delivering more sustainable modes of growth. And those are important to focus on as well through all of this.
And that includes also food security. You mentioned the connection to China on this front.
[00:14:38 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: But there is immense concern about food security across Southeast Asia, and Canada's looked at as one of the global leaders in that area.
[00:14:47 Overlaid text on screen: Geopolitics and the Indo-Pacific Series, Defining the Region, Its Trends and Strategic Implications for Canada.]
Jeff Nankivell: Yes, of the population of the Indo-Pacific region, there are just over a billion people who are estimated to be food insecure.
[00:15:00 Text on screen: The Indo-Pacific and the Global Order.]
[00:15:04 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: Countries in Southeast Asia make clear that decoupling from China is not an option for them. It's not done out of a position of naivety. They understand the risks and the challenges of an increasingly assertive China. And I think nowhere is that more clear, at least for the Philippines and Vietnam, than in the South China Sea. We've seen reports of increasing hostilities between – "hostilities" is maybe a bit too neutral – harassment of Philippine vessels by Chinese vessels in the South China Sea. And that's just one example of many examples of confrontation that go back over a couple of decades. And I think what's clear to point out there is from a rules-based international order, at least as understood by the Court of Arbitration in 2016, China's claims in the South China Sea have no legal basis. Nonetheless, we did not see countries of Southeast Asia leverage that decision heavily to try to openly confront China on its claims in the South China Sea.
[00:16:16 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: So, what I think that illustrates is a degree of compartmentalization in Southeast Asia, as well. That there are, again, if we're thinking about the priorities that many countries have, development, development, development, the productive aspects of the relationship with China on that dimension have to be maintained. And these flash points, whether it's the South China Sea or interference in domestic politics or a number of other things, those have to be addressed, but not in such a way that endangers the productive parts of the relationship, the economic parts of the relationship.
[00:16:59 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: There are elements of the rules-based international order that, not just in Southeast Asia but across the region, are seen as vital. Recognition of territorial sovereignty is absolutely vital. This is a priority for all countries around the region. The notion that disputes should not be settled through force is seen as universally important. And we can point out there's a treaty of Amity and Cooperation that was signed by ASEAN in the 70s that makes exactly that point. Disputes should not be settled through violence, but rather through dialogue.
[00:17:40 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: What I think is important, and where the Gaza conflict has really been something of a game changer, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia, but I think to some extent across the rest of the world, is that the natural, maybe worldview of many in Southeast Asia is a realist view. Where the world is comprised of price givers and price takers. And the price givers are those who can dictate because of their size, their military, their economic influence. The price takers are those smaller countries that are not able to. And what that means is that the price takers have to accommodate the price givers in some way or another. And I think this is something that across Southeast Asia is widely understood and believed.
And that's where the rules-based international order is interesting because what it says at its core is that size and power don't matter. What matter are rules, what matter are norms. And whether it's the United States, the world's largest military power,
[00:18:45 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: or Singapore or Brunei, some of the smallest countries in the world, the same rules apply. And I think there is always a degree of skepticism about that. But what the conflict in Gaza has done, from the perspective of many in Southeast Asia – because I don't want to oversimplify it, that's a complex conflict – is really, I think, draw out in plain contrast that that's not true. That the powerful will do what they want and that will often be at the expense of those without power.
So, it sort of reinforces the natural worldview of many in Southeast Asia and sharpens the skepticism at claims that we are all bound by the same set of rules.
Jeff Nankivell: Because they don't see it in action.
[00:19:31 Text on screen: Perceptions of Canada.]
[00:19:36 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: A region as diverse as this, with almost 2/3 of the world's population, means that Canada is viewed differently in different places.
[00:19:42 Kai Ostwald appears full screen. Text on screen: Kai Ostwald, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia.]
Kai Ostwald: But I think one of the common threads, and this is especially pronounced in Southeast Asia, is that Canada has generally a very positive reception brand. Canada is well received and for reasons that are unsurprising, to some extent. Canada never colonized a country in Southeast Asia. It's not seen as having a legacy of militarizing the region, despite having been a participant in the Korean War and a very active contributor to peacekeeping or at least maintenance of tensions in the Indochina conflicts.
[00:20:25 Jeff Nankivell and Kai Ostwald appear full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: There's also a history of goodwill in the sense that CETA was very engaged throughout the region, and for a period of time, Canada was very engaged in bringing Southeast Asian students, and that's true for other parts of the Indo-Pacific, to Canadian universities. I was just startled to learn that in the 1980s there were more Malaysian students in Canada than there were American students, at universities.
But there is also the perception that Canada has been something of a fair-weather friend. Now, we've had discussions on whether this is warranted or not, and I think there are reasons why someone might want to push back on that. But the reality is that there is a perception across the region of Canada as something of a fair-weather friend who appears in the region at times, makes statements about being a Pacific nation, being committed to trans-Pacific partnerships, but then when domestic political winds change, reprioritizes again. And I think there is especially a perception that over the last 20 years or so, Canada has not been as present as a lot of other countries around the region.
[00:21:44 Kai Ostwald appears full screen.]
Kai Ostwald: And that has all sorts of implications, reputational in part, but also with the relationships that Canada has.
[00:21:52 Animated video of Earth, as seen from space. Overlaid text on screen, as described.]
Narrator: The Canada School of Public Service hosts exciting and insightful events, workshops and courses on geopolitics and national security. To learn more, contact the following email address.
[00:22:03 Overlaid text on screen: nationalsecurityprogram-programmedesecuritenationale@csps-efpc.gc.ca.]
[00:22:13 The CSPS animated logo appears onscreen. Text on screen: canada.ca/school.]
[00:22:20 The Government of Canada wordmark appears, and fades to black.]
