Summary
A political construct, the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region is a strategic environment that will shape the 21st century. Home to both India and China, the term is being adopted by governments who see the region as holding both unparalleled economic opportunities along with deeply concerning security challenges. While the ‘Indo-Pacific’ as a term has been favoured by India and the United States, it has also been met with skepticism in Australia and China. Despite the controversy, the Indo-Pacific is an important term that captures and defines a vast region that is strategically important for Canada. This symposium hopes to assess Canada’s policy preferences within the region and asks how prepared Ottawa is for this complex political landscape.
Despite the controversy however, the Indo-Pacific is an important term that captures and defines a vast region that is of vast strategic importance to Canada. Yet is Canada prepared for engaging this region at a time of increased global populism, trade protectionism, and political challenges to the liberal order especially within a post-Covid 19 era?
September 25, 2021 Symposium:
This conference is a collaboration of participants who shared working paper and research presentations that speak to themes around Canada and the Asia Pacific Policy Project’s (CAPPP) core research clusters. These primary themes include: Human Security; Economics and Trade; Humanitarian and Emergencies, as well as; Small Cities and Diverse Regions of the Asia Pacific.
The one-day event is bringing together 12 scholars throughout the province to discuss the theme ‘Canada and the Indo-Pacific Strategic Environment’. Participants will be asked to address themes of political agency, interdisciplinary, and public policy strategy under the broad theme of ‘Canada and the Indo-Pacific Strategic Environment’. The conference will offer the latest update in Canada’s efforts to engage Asia, and especially China. Furthermore, it hopes to draw on the interconnectedness between political science and interdisciplinary studies while bringing in the themes of agency and strategy.
Participants:
Professor Kenneth Christie is the Program Head and a Professor in the Human Security and Peacebuilding graduate programs. Christie is a political scientist, author, editor and international academic who has taught and conducted research at universities in the U.S., Singapore, South Africa, Norway and Dubai. Working all over the world has given him a unique perspective on peace, development and human security. His work has focused on issues of human rights, security and democratization. He is widely published as an author and editor with eleven books to his credit. His most recent book, co-edited with Marion Boulby, Migration, Refugees and Human Security in the Mediterranean and MENA was published by Palgrave MacMillan (2018). Today, he is working on issues of human security and its links to ethnic and state formation/failure in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Christie is also working on issues of de-radicalization, terrorism and human rights as well as populism (historical and contemporary) and corporate social responsibility. The work he produces is truly interdisciplinary and collaborative in nature.
Dr. Taylor Brydges is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Urban Environments at the University of Toronto (Mississauga). Prior to joining the University of Toronto, Dr. Brydges was a Research Principle at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney. Her research focuses on sustainable production and consumption, the circular economy, and the fashion industry. Working with Dr Monique Retamal, Taylor led the development of the ongoing project, “Sustainable Fashion in Australia and sectoral resilience during the pandemic.” She is also involved in supporting the work of the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Taylor holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies (with Minors in Political Science and Sociology) and a Master of Arts in Human Geography from the University of Toronto. She completed her PhD in Human Geography at Uppsala University in Sweden. From 2018-2021, she was the sole PI on the project “Circular is the New Black: Investigating the Implementation of Circular Economy Principles in the Swedish Fashion Industry,” funded by the Swedish Research Council. This research was carried out at Stockholm University, Sweden and the Institute for Sustainable Futures.
Professor Paul Evans (PhD with distinction Dalhousie University 1982) has been a Professor at the University of British Columbia since 1999, teaching Asian and trans-Pacific international relations. His work was based at the Institute of Asian Research and the Liu Institute for Global Issues which are both located in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA). On January 1, 2021, Dr. Evans was appointed the HSBC Chair in Asian Research. Between 2005 and 2008, he was seconded from UBC to serve as the Co-CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. A regionalist rather than country specialist, he has held visiting fellowships at the Australian National University (1988); National Chengchi University in Taiwan (1989); Chulalongkorn University (1989); the East-West Center (1995); the National Institute for Research Advancement in Tokyo (1999); Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (2019); and the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore (2020) and spoken at universities and think tanks across the region.
Dr Mary Hanlon is a College Professor in Sociology at Okanagan College, Canada. She completed her PhD (2019) in Sociology from The University of Edinburgh, investigating transnational fashion and apparel related efforts in the wake of the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. Dr. Hanlon’s research themes and interests include: transnational social movements and related activism (online and offline), work & labour rights, environmental justice, global fashion and apparel production and consumption, digital sociology, research methods, and knowledge dissemination.
Dr Robert J. Hanlon is an Associate Professor in Political Science and Director of the Canada and the Asia Pacific Policy Project at Thompson Rivers University. His research explores the links between human security and corporate social responsibility in emerging Asian economies. Prior to joining TRU, Dr. Hanlon served as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia. He has taught at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the Royal Military College of Canada. Outside academia, Dr. Hanlon has worked for the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, as well as the High Commission of Canada in Australia. He holds a PhD in International Relations and Asian Politics from City University of Hong Kong, a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution from the University of Queensland, as well as a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Victoria. He has been a visiting scholar at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (Oxford), the Liu Institute for Global Issues (UBC), the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration (Chulalongkorn), the Balsillie School of International Affairs (Waterloo), as well as the University of Hong Kong.
Dr. Scott Harrison is a Senior Program Manager at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia. His research interests include Canada–Asia relations, indigenous people’s history, Asian Cold War history, contemporary Asia, and Japan studies. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Waterloo
Selina L. Haynes is a researcher in Global Studies at Vancouver Island University whose most recent work focuses on the politics of ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity.
Quinton Huang is a Junior Research Scholar for the Engaging Asia pillar at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada. He works on sub-national relations between Canada and Asia, including sister/friendship cities agreements, trade relations, transnational education, and Indigenous-to-Indigenous connections across the Pacific. Quinton also co-host The Twenties Generation, a podcast showcasing the experiences, perspectives and aspirations of people in their twenties, with his college friend Brandon. He is a contributor to The Noodle Shop, a Medium publication featuring young Asian voices, and the Divided Families Podcast, which focuses on stories about family separation around the world.
Dr. Matt Hussain is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Management at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan campus. His interdisciplinary research includes broad thematic areas of poverty, health inequities, transnational migration, social justice and governance, seeking to create bridges among research, practice, and pedagogy. Dr. Husain’s work features in a range of journal articles, book chapters and edited volumes as well as received press coverage in The Times Higher Education.
Professor Victor V. Ramraj is Professor of Law and Chair in Asia-Pacific Legal Relations at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Since 2017, he has served as Director of the of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives. Before returning to Canada in 2014, he spent 16 years at the National University of Singapore, and was twice seconded to the Centre for Transnational Legal Studies in London. He also teaches regularly in the LLM in Business Law at Chulalongkorn University. His recent research interests and publications span comparative public law, transnational regulation, and the regulatory challenges arising from the state-company relationship. He has published dozens of articles and book chapters in leading publications in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa and has seven edited or co-edited volumes to his credit, including Emergency Powers in Asia: Exploring the Limits of Legality (with A.K. Thiruvengadam, Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Covid-19 in Asia: Law and Policy Contexts (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Professor Wenran Jiang is an advisor to the Institute of Peace and Diplomacy. Named by the Alberta Venture magazine as one of the 50 most influential people in Alberta for 2014, Dr. Wenran Jiang is the President of Canada-China Energy and Environment Forum. He organized 13 large-scale annual conferences between Canada and China on energy and environment issues between 2004 and 2017. He was a tenured professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. During his tenure as the Founding Director (2005-08) of the University’s China Institute, Dr. Jiang played a leading role in securing a donation of $37.2 million permanent endowment from the Alberta government. Before he took early retirement in 2017, Dr. Jiang was also a Japan Foundation Fellow, a Resident Fellow and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington DC, Special Advisor to Alberta Department of Energy on Asian market diversification. He also served as Special Advisor on China to the US and Canada based Energy Council, a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia and a visiting professor at School of Business, China University of Petroleum (Beijing).
Dr. Terry Kading is associate professor of political science at Thompson Rivers University where he teaches courses in Canadian politics, comparative politics, and local government. He is also involved in several community-based research projects with a focus on social and economic challenges in the small city.
Dr Eric Li is an Associate Professor and the Principal’s Research Chair (Tier 2) in Social Innovation for Health Equity and Food Security at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan campus. His research includes social enterprise and social innovation, not-for-profit marketing, pro-social behaviour, multicultural marketing and consumption, consumer well-being, health promotion, consumer privacy, food economy and market system, fashion and popular culture, and digital marketing and social media marketing.
Professor Che-Hui (Eric) Lien is a Professor of Marketing in the School of Business and Economics at Thompson Rivers University. His research interests include services marketing, market segmentation, internet marketing, social media marketing, marketing analytics, branding, cross-culture marketing, as well as retailing in emerging markets
Johnathan Berkshire Miller is an international affairs professional with expertise on security, defence and intelligence issues in Northeast Asia. He has held a variety of positions in the private and public sector. Currently, he is a Senior Fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) and Director of the Indo-Pacific Program and Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Additionally, he currently holds senior fellowships on East Asia with the New York-based EastWest Institute and the Asian Forum Japan, based in Tokyo. Miller is founder and Director of the Council on International Policy in Ottawa. He also holds appointments as Canada’s ASEAN Regional Forum Expert and Eminent Person (EEP) and as a Responsible Leader for the BMW Foundation. Previously, he was an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, based in Tokyo. Miller also held a fellowship on Japan with the Pacific Forum CSIS from 2013-16, and has held a number of other visiting fellowships on Asian security matters, including at JIIA and the National Institute of Defense Studies (Ministry of Defense – Japan).
Dr. Bala Nikku Bala Raju Nikku is currently with School of Social Work and Human Service, Faculty of Education and Social Work at Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada. Formerly he was with School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He served as the the founding director of the Nepal School of Social Work. Dr.Nikku received his PhD from the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. In 2015 he was awarded with a COFUND Senior Research Fellowship at the Durham University, UK. He served on the executive boards of International Association of Schools of Social Work and of the Asian and Pacific Association of Social Work Education. His research interests include social work education in post conflict and transition countries, disasters, children, Age care, international social work, comparative social policy in Asia and university community engagement. Dr Nikku currently serving as a member of the editorial advisory boards of International Social Work Journal (Sage); Journal of International Social Issues (Winona State University); Practice: Social Work in Action (Routledge) and as associate editor of Social Work Education: The International Journal (Routledge).
Dr. Mark S. Williams is Chair of Political Studies and Teaching Professor of Political Studies and Global Studies at Vancouver Island University where he has been faculty since 2013. He teaches in both the Political Studies department and the Global Studies department. Prior to joining VIU, Dr, Williams completed a PhD in Political Science (International Relations) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, an MA in Political Science (Comparative Politics) and a BA (Political Science/Environmental Studies) at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario.