Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly’s trip to Beijing from July 18–20, 2024, was the first official visit by a Canadian foreign minister since the arrest of Huawei’s CFO and the “two Michaels” in 2018 that sent bilateral relations into a deep freeze.

Though the visit by no means signals a thaw in relations, it carries several significant implications. In the years when the two Michaels were held by the Chinese authorities, and our key exports to China were punished by arbitrary non-tariff barriers, the Canadian government made several attempts to send a delegation to Beijing to negotiate to no avail.  

Far from serving as a stabilizing force, NATO’s presence in the Indo-Pacific would inflame regional tensions without providing increased security.

Since identifying China as a “systemic challenge” in its 2022 Strategic Concept, NATO has been pursuing closer strategic and operational relations with Japan, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand, collectively known as its Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) partners. According to recent reports, NATO leadership plans came closer to formalizing a NATO+IP4 security alignment at this week’s summit in Washington, DC. NATO justifies its expansion into the Asia-Pacific as essential for maintaining the global rules-based order. European scholar Luis Simon has argued that a NATO+IP4 security partnership would create a “cross-theater deterrence ecosystem for Europe and the Indo-Pacific” capable of countering “great power revisionism” in both regions.

Published: July 18, 2024
Written by: Stop Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Advocacy Group

The Stop Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Advocacy Group Association of Canada (SAAHCAG) is a not-for-profit and non-partisan community organization based in British Columbia, dedicated to fostering social harmony, combating racism, and strengthening community ties among Canadians of Asian descent.

Our mission is to enhance public understanding of racism and hate crimes within Canada, and to empower our communities to actively report and monitor these incidents. We are committed to eradicating racism and ending hate crimes by advocating for social equality and embracing multicultural values. We actively disseminate information about Canada’s laws, government initiatives, law enforcement strategies, and both international and national efforts aimed at combating racism and hate crimes. We recognize the serious risk foreign interference poses to Canada’s democratic integrity and advocate for vigilance and preventive measures against such threats. While we appreciate the efforts of the Foreign Interference Commission to address these issues thoroughly, we remain concerned about the risks of inequality, marginalization, and stigmatization that may affect our community during the public inquiry process.

The Philippines says it has “reached an understanding” with China on resupply missions to a beached Filipino naval ship that has been a key flashpoint between the two countries in the South China Sea

The Chinese foreign ministry confirmed the “temporary arrangement” with the two sides agreeing to jointly manage maritime differences and de-escalate the situation in the South China Sea.

The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) did not provide details on the “provisional arrangement’ agreed on Sunday for the resupply missions to the Sierra Madre but said it followed “frank and constructive discussions” between the two sides earlier this month.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi has had a busy week in which two devastating conflicts have loomed large.

Wang started by gathering 14 Palestinian factions for reconciliation talks in Beijing, including bitter rivals Hamas and Fatah, before meeting on Wednesday with Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba – the first time China has hosted a top Ukrainian official since Russia’s invasion nearly two and half years ago.

The juxtaposed diplomacy – where talks were closely linked to the grinding wars in Gaza and Ukraine, respectively – came as Beijing vies to present itself as a geopolitical heavyweight in a world increasingly divided by both conflicts.

 
Palestinian rivals including Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government at talks hosted by China, Beijing said on Tuesday, a deal meant to deliver a post-war Gaza administration but quickly rejected by Israel as it seeks to crush Hamas.

Analysts said the agreement would prove hard to implement, with complications including the deep enmity between Palestinian factions and Western opposition to Hamas having any role in governance. No timetable was declared for implementation.

The Beijing Declaration was signed at the closing ceremony of a reconciliation dialogue among 14 Palestinian factions held in China's capital from July 21-23, according to the readout.

A few years ago, China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry shook hands on a pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030. China took the challenge seriously, very seriously, it will meet its end-of-2030 emissions target this year (2024), six years early.

In the blink of an eye, China is constructing wind and solar farms that are equivalent to building five large nuclear power stations per week! Yes, per week. They understand the multitude of risks of climate change, especially since it is happening in real time right in everybody’s face, and they’re doing something about it faster than the rest of the world combined.

In the late 1970s, I spent some months at Stanford University working on a new book. It was subsequently published under the title China’s Global Role: An Analysis of Peking’s National Power Capabilities in the Context of an Evolving International System.

I argued that China was not a great power. Its population was the largest in the world. Its land area made it number 3. But its economy, its science and technology, its financial resources, and more made it a second level power and essentially a Third World country.

... I do not apologize for saying back then that China was not a leading country in terms of national power capabilities. I was not wrong. China made record speed to change that. Some American leaders, not to mention, many pundits, warn that China will soon pass the U.S. to become the world’s number one power.