Review of Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

Watch testimony here.

Monsieur le président, membres du comité, merci énormément de m’avoir invite.

Given the Committee’s depth of knowledge I will focus on areas that are easy to overlook.

First, strategic geography. Indo-Pacific plans often take for granted a continuation of access. For example, US planners assumed the ability to freely use the critical American base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for the Iran operations.  However, not only did the UK initially deny the US permission to use it, the UK was on the cusp of handing the Chagos archipelago, including Diego Garcia, to Mauritius – a country with close ties to China. It’s possible that, had the Iran war not happened, the strategic implications of the proposed UK-Mauritius deal would not have reached the Oval Office, and US defense posture in the Indian Ocean region would have been seriously undermined. I’m not sure we’ve planned for that.

From a Canadian perspective, the situation is even more acute in the Pacific. If you’ve been to Japan or Philippines, you know how long the flight is.  Now imagine by ship, which is how most of our trade travels.

Since the end of World War II the Central Pacific has been peaceful, and unfettered east-west travel between Asia and the Americas has been the foundation of a free, open and increasingly prosperous Indo-Pacific.  That wasn’t an accident.

Imperial Japan controlled a section of the Central Pacific almost the size of the Continental United States from 1914 until it was dislodged by American troops thirty years later in World War II.  After over 100,000 Americans died fighting on islands like Peleliu and Saipan, Washington worked with islanders to set up unique structures to try to ensure the critical Central Pacific would stay free.

The entire region was offered to become part of the United States.  The Northern Mariana Islands voted in favor and became the newest part of the U.S. in 1976.  The other islands divided into three new, independent countries, Palau, Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia or FSM.  That zone bridges the maritime space roughly between Hawaii, Philippines and Guam.

US ties with these three countries are unlike anything the US has with anyone else.  They are, beyond a doubt, America’s closest allies.

Their citizens can freely live and work in the US and serve in the US military.  Something Canadians can’t.  They receive a range of US federal government services and the US is responsible for their defense – because defending Palau, Marshall Islands and FSM means ensuring a hostile foreign power can’t block the east west flow between Asia and the mainland US – or Canada.

This leads to the second point.  We shouldn’t take this for granted. Whenever anyone talks about China taking Taiwan, operationally that means China at the very least neutering the US in these islands, and taking offline the US territories of Guam and the Marianas.

Beijing is currently actively trying to do that, and locals know it.  One of the preferred tools is corruption.

In 2023 the President of the FSM, David Panuelo wrote “we are bribed to be complicit, and bribed to be silent … The practical impact of this is that some senior officials and elected officials take actions that are contrary to the FSM’s national interest, but are consistent with the PRC’s national interest.”

The intention, he wrote, was to pull FSM “very close into Beijing’s orbit, intrinsically tying the whole of our economies and societies to them.”

The US has been countering but, until recently, the US’ definition of defense has largely been kinetic – for example $2 billion in announced military infrastructure investments in FSM alone.  But, if Beijing pays off the right lower-level environmental officers, let alone members of the FSM government itself, implementation will be bogged down, while Chinese companies move in.

What does all this mean for Canada?

Given our limited resources, I would suggest an element of the renewed strategy be to identify strategic geography that underpins a free and open Indo-Pacific then work smart with a ‘block and build’ approach.  That means help block what the Philippines calls China’s illegal coercive, aggressive and deceptive operations that corrupt local societies, politics and economics, while at the same time building real societal resilience.

So, for example for blocking, Palau would like access to Canada’s dark vessel detection technology. For building, one example of effective people-to-people work is that of Metis innovator Bruce Hardy who is leading Indigenous-led food and energy resilience work incorporating First Nations communities in Canada and the Pacific.

The US is starting to test this approach.  Agreements signed with Palau in December will result in the US sending investigators to help with corruption cases, foreign investment screening, and border security – blocking – while at the same time funding a new hospital – building.

The just announced 4,000 acre Pax Silica-related US Economic Security Zone in Philippines is another example.

The Indo-Pacific is off balance.  We need to block and build in key locations.  At this stage, sending investigators and lawyers to support partners fighting corruption can have a bigger real effect than a sending a few extra delegates to yet another multilateral cocktail party.

Merci.