The author is a researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research of the University of Montreal (CERIUM). He was political advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2016-2017. He just published Canada in search of an international identity.
What a strange time! In its determination to prevent the emergence of China as a great power, the United States has, for the second time in three years, “hit the back” of an ally.
First, there was Canada. By demanding from Ottawa the arrest of a Huawei leader at the end of 2018, the United States has made Canada a mere pawn in its confrontation with China. The Trudeau government very consciously fell into the trap and, in so doing, triggered the worst diplomatic crisis in Canadian history.
Then there is now France. Australia last week abandoned its strategic cooperation and a submarine purchase contract with France to join a new military and technological alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom which aims to counter Chinese ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.
These two incidents are indicative of the way the United States organizes its relations with its allies on China. The confrontation with Beijing has been in the making for about ten years and is causing more and more collateral damage. Donald Trump started the ball rolling with the Huawei case, Joe Biden toughens his tone. He directly attacks France, whose entire Indo-Pacific strategy is to stubbornly refuse to participate in Washington’s anti-Chinese crusade. It is no longer only through the slogan “The United States first” that the country’s relations with its partners are negotiated, it is now under that dear to George Bush in the aftermath of September 11: “You are with us or you are against us. “
Under these circumstances, one would have expected the Prime Minister Justin trudeau, freshly re-elected on Monday, deals during the electoral campaign with what has become the most important global strategic development since the clash between the United States and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Second World War, the one that will structure international relations for decades to come. But no !
By a completely strange intellectual mechanism, not to say incomprehensible, the program of liberal foreign policy opens well on the observation that “the competition in which the great powers are engaged undermines peace”, but follows immediately and without logic on all the measures that a Liberal government intends to take to “make Canada a safe haven […] for those fleeing political or insecurity crises, in particular human rights defenders, journalists, feminists, LGBTQ2 activists, members of religious and ethnic minorities ”, which would inevitably result in taking burden of hundreds of thousands of people. A promise as crazy as it is unachievable.
A lack of daring
If the clash between great powers undermines peace, then where are the solutions in the liberal program? Nowhere. This inability to articulate even a few lines on such an existential issue for Canada and the world is astounding. At the same time, it comes as no surprise to those like me who study Canadian foreign policy. The reasons for Canada’s absence (not to say the exclusion) of the military alliance concluded last week between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States offer the beginnings of an explanation.
Canada is, along with the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, a member of the very exclusive Group of Five, or Five Eyes. The five collect and share the most secret information on the planet. From this group, the three members of the new alliance formed a sub-group, the ” Three Eyes », And have worked closely together for a very long time. New Zealand has excluded itself from it because of its fierce opposition to nuclear, military or civilian. For its part, Canada has become such a passive partner in the Five Eyes that he was not invited to join the “Group of three”, write experts Stephanie Carvin and Thomas Juneau in a column published last week by the Globe and Mail. Quite the opposite of Australia, which takes its membership very seriously. “It invests more resources in cultivating its relations, particularly with the United States,” write the two specialists. Australians are also better represented in Washington within major security institutions and often bring useful and actionable intelligence to the table. Ottawa cannot say the same. “
Even more, the Canadian representatives “show more reluctance than their Australian counterparts to voice a uniquely Canadian point of view. More often, they prefer to listen in silence rather than express a point of view different from that of our allies ”.
This lack of audacity, this inaction, this fear of offending its allies and promoting its interests is found in several aspects of Canadian foreign policy and makes its diplomacy illegible, which partly explains the country’s failure to be elected. to the United Nations Security Council or even to be taken seriously on the international stage.
Donald Trump was playing tactics with China, pocketing short-term financial gains. Biden plays strategic, as illustrated by the creation of the new alliance and the meeting scheduled for Friday between the members of the Quad (United States, India, Japan and Australia), this other anti-Chinese grouping. The president is in a hurry to implement his strategy of confrontation, even if it means trampling the interests of his allies. Now is the time for Canada to step out of Disneyland and face the Jurassic Park that has become the world stage. This will be the first foreign policy challenge of Justin Trudeau’s new term.
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