When: Thurs Jun 13, 4 PM PT / 7 pm ET
Where: ONLINE (Zoom)
REGISTER: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iXPAPLrgRsKjqbGfeR1vxA#/registration
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/share/s5Rokiup2W4a8w2U/

Description: Governments and institutions are increasingly emphasizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) but these programs often fail to address the rise in Sinophobia, Islamophobia, Anti-Palestinian Racism, and Antisemitism accompanying recent Canadian foreign policies. Join in the conversation with a panel of anti-racist activists and scholars.

Panelists: 

• Monia Mazigh is an academic, award-winning Canadian author and human rights activist. She writes in French and English and has authored so far, a memoir, three novels, an essay and a collection of short stories, celebrated by the critique.
• Xiaobei Chen is Professor of sociology in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Carleton University.
• Alejandro Paz is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His current research is about Israeli English online journalism, and its impact on North Atlantic public opinion. He is founding co-chair of the Hearing Palestine Initiative at the University of Toronto, also helped to founding the Jewish Faculty Network, where he still serves on the steering committee.
• Jamila Ewais is lead researcher for the Anti-Racism Program at the CJPME Foundation. Our work focuses on Anti-Palestinian Racism in Canada and its intersection with other forms of racism. It also aims to advocate for the rights of the Palestinian movement in Canada and to end all forms of discrimination against them.
• Moderator: Timothy J. Stanley is professor emeritus of anti-racism education in the Faculty of Education of the University of Ottawa. An award-winning historian of racism and Chinese Canadian experience, in 1976-78 he studied at the Beijing Language’s Institute and Peking University as a participant in the official Canada-China Exchange Scholarship. He is a founding member of the Canada-China Focus Advisory Committee.

Organized by Canada-China Focus, Co-Sponsored by the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute

The “War on Terror”, the alleged “China Threat‘, wars in Ukraine and Palestine, ecological catastrophe, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cyberattacks are rapidly changing the terrain for national security policymaking. Social movements are often directly affected. Is it possible that we are seeing the consolidation of a National Security State in Canada, similar to and further integrated with the prototype in the United Sates? Canada-China Focus, a project of the UVic Centre for Global Studies and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, is making available a research award directed at those in surveillance studies, civil liberties, or related fields willing to help network scholars and concerned social movements to publicly track, analyze, and inform the public about potential impacts of the emerging policies and practices related to national security in Canada. The anticipated outcomes from this award might include, for example, the establishment of an ongoing monitoring network, the creation of a dedicated web site, preparation of related partnership research grants. The sponsors are open to suggestions. Applications from individuals or organizations welcome and would include a short proposal, budget, and references. Proposals with matching funds (in-kind or otherwise) particularly welcome. Letters of intent also accepted.

Award Amount: $10,000 for one year.

To Apply: email cover letter, proposal, and references to Canada-China Focus, ccf@uvic.ca

Deadline: July 1, 2024

Canada-China Focus is a project dedicated to creating safe spaces for discussions about Canada-China relations, preventing racial profiling, and promoting anti-racist foreign policies.

Published: May 27, 2024
Written by: Patricia Cohen, Keith Bradsher and Jim Tankersley

For more than half a century, concerns about oil shortages or a damaged climate have spurred governments to invest in alternative energy sources... no country has come close to matching the scale and tenacity of China’s support. The proof is in the production: In 2022, Beijing accounted for 85% of all clean-energy manufacturing investment in the world, according to the International Energy Agency.

Now the United States, Europe and other wealthy nations are trying frantically to catch up. Hoping to correct past missteps on industrial policy and learn from China’s successes, they are spending huge amounts on subsidizing homegrown companies while also seeking to block competing Chinese products. They have made modest inroads: Last year, the energy agency said, China’s share of new clean-energy factory investment fell to 75%.

Published: May 18, 2024
Written by: Andrew Latham

Forget the “Pax Americana.” The unipolar moment, that brief interlude where the United States reigned supreme, is over. China’s rise, coupled with a growing discontent with the American-led rules-based international order, has ushered in a new era: a multipolar world with multiple power centers jostling for influence.

This dynamic shift demands a new foreign policy strategy on the part of all states. Enter multi-alignment, a strategic response to this new multipolar reality that involves countries forging partnerships across ideological and geopolitical divides to advance their national interests.

Dossier no.76
Published: May 21, 2024

"...The U.S.-led New Cold War against China is destabilising Northeast Asia along the region’s historic fault lines as part of a broader militarisation campaign that extends from Japan and South Korea, through the Taiwan Strait and the Philippines, all the way to Australia and the Pacific Islands. Backed by Washington, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has accelerated his country’s rearmament, aiming to double military spending by 2027 and acquiring long-range missiles to strike enemy targets.3 Meanwhile, Korea’s peace process has been derailed as the U.S. expands its power projection in the region. Although North Korea has often been touted as the reason for increased militarisation, this has always been a fig leaf for U.S. containment strategies—first against the Soviet Union and today against China.

In fact, the ‘old’ Cold War never ended in Northeast Asia, its embers still burning in the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the integration of China into the global economy, the U.S. network of bilateral military alliances that was created after World War II has kept the region divided. At the same time, alongside these fault lines of conflict, countervailing movements are fighting for peace, ecological survival, and people’s well-being across Northeast Asia, from the Okinawa Islands to the buzzing metropolis of Seoul. To build a future of peace and cooperation, it is necessary to stop the U.S.-led New Cold War and dismantle the system of bilateral alliances that have impeded justice and reconciliation in the region for over 70 years"

Published May 30, 2024
Written by:  Rush Doshi; Jessica Chen Weiss and James B. Steinberg; Paul Heer; Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher

Responses to:  "No Substitute for Victory", by Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher.

Published: May 2024
Written by:  Anastasia Ufimtseva, Charlotte Atkins, & Rachael Gurney

"At the national level, Australia has been the top recipient of Canadian pension fund investment flows, receiving 45 per cent of the funds’ investment flows into this region between 2003 and 2018, and more than 50 per cent of these flows from 2019-2023. China was the second-largest recipient between 2003-2018, receiving 19 per cent of total Canadian pension fund investment flows into the region, but from 2019-2023 has only received 3 per cent of total investment flows. Canadian pension fund investment flows into China dropped to C$627M in 2020, and even further to C$423M in 2021, before ceasing in 2022.

From 2019 to 2023, India replaced China as the second-largest recipient of Canadian pension fund investment flows into the region, accounting for 25 per cent of total investment flows, a significant increase from the 10 per cent of investment flows the country received between 2003-2018."

Published: May 13, 2024
Written by: Andi Shi

The fact that great proportions of Chinese Canadians voted the same way as Beijing liked does not mean they were puppets. Casting that independent decision by many as a mindless action at a foreign government’s bidding is an insult to our intelligence.

Published: May 9, 2024
Written by: Hema Nadarajah

On May 3, China launched its “complex and ambitious” Chang’e-6 space mission, which, if successful, will be the first ever to collect samples from the far side of the moon. This mission, and other future “firsts” on the moon, Mars, and beyond are bolstering China’s plans to become a space superpower by 2045. There are already ample signs that China is enacting policies and making the necessary investments to do so. In April, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the most extensive reorganization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in a decade, with an emphasis on strengthening China’s military presence in space. And in its 2022 white paper, Beijing outlined a range of space policies focused on defending China’s national security, incentivizing its commercial space industry, boosting innovation, and making advancements in ventures such as satellite services, space tourism, and resource extraction. 

Published: May 29, 2024

On May 28, the fourth page of the People's Daily published a factual report revealing details of the meeting presided over by Chinese President Xi Jinping on the afternoon of May 23 in Jinan, Shandong Province. During this meeting with enterprises and experts.

Published: May 30, 2024
Written by: Jessica Jordan

Abstract: This article assesses local tensions that plague the U.S.-centered hub-and-spokes security framework in the Western Pacific region, which finds its most concrete expression in increasingly vulnerable legacy installations. I start by considering how people living outside the fence in places like Guam and Okinawa have tended to see the U.S. military, while summarizing global trends in U.S. base expansion and contraction outside of the continental United States (OCONUS). I tie this past to the most common dilemmas of global basing manifesting today, explain how these dilemmas have been understood, and highlight core concerns undergirding most base protest cultures. In the absence of sweeping policy changes to legal structures that disenfranchise militarized civilians in the most heavily fortified islands in the U.S. global base network, changing the way recent history is represented at U.S. controlled public sites could catalyze meaningful change within perennially troubled relationships between the U.S. military and overburdened host communities.   

Published: May 29, 2024
Written by: Jeffrey Reeves

"The recent unrest in New Caledonia highlights France’s enduring colonial legacy in Asia and shatters its self-ascribed image as a legitimate Pacific power. The Indigenous Kanak people have clearly demonstrated their interest in self-determination and their willingness to fight for independence. Rather than preserving its control of the island by force, Paris should immediately allow a new referendum to replace the illegitimate 2021 vote, which the Kanak boycotted due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

"...The current unrest is particularly significant given France’s foreign policy stance on protecting the territorial and sovereign integrity of Ukraine and self-determination of Hong Kong and Taiwan. President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to counter indigenous calls for self-governance in New Caledonia, shortly after criticizing China for its “new imperialism” in the Pacific, is strikingly hypocritical. In terms of France’s broader Indo-Pacific engagement, the strategic implications are profound both for Paris and its Western-aligned allies."

Published: May 31, 2024
Written by: Abby Budiman

"Among Asian Americans, Chinese households are among the lowest – and highest – earners"
"In 2022, Chinese American households near the top of the income ladder earned over 19 times as much as Chinese American households near the bottom of the ladder. This gap was the largest across Asian American households of different origins, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data."

Published: March 27, 2024
Written by: Ziyao Tian & Neil G. Ruiz

Asian Americans are often portrayed as educationally and financially successful when compared with other racial or ethnic groups. However, Asian origin groups in the United States vary widely in their economic status and education level. Indeed, more than 2.3 million Asian Americans – about one-in-ten – lived in poverty in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.