With tough and uncertain negotiations happening simultaneously with the United States over NAFTA, Japan over TPP and with China (plus Southeast Asia and India down the line), Canada's trade policy is at a critical juncture. The national public good calls for a balance between necessary diversification, continued ambition and inclusion of values (the progressive agenda) wherever possible. But can...

"Under-promise and over-deliver" is usually a winning formula when it comes to politics and state visits. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's most recent visit to China seems to have been based on the opposite premise. Another basic rule for trade negotiations and foreign visits is "avoid surprises." This government doesn't appear to have embraced that one, either. What is going on? To be fair, the...

In the days after tanks rolled through the nation's capital, tens of thousands of Zimbabweans marched through the streets, many of them chanting one slogan in particular: Bob-o watengesa nyika kuma china — "[Mugabe] you have sold the country to the Chinese." More than an isolated expression of sinophobia, these words speak to a deep apprehension in Zimbabwe about China's growing role in the...

Millennials are the first generation of Canadians whose world will be shaped by the "rise of Asia" for the entirety of their adult lives. As we plug into our digitally-connected world, we have witnessed in real-time the rapid economic growth and political transformation in Asia. The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada's newest national opinion poll reveals that Canadian millennials — those aged 18...

It hasn't been a good few weeks for the Trudeau government's "progressive" trade agenda. First, the unwillingness of some countries to swallow elements of the progressive agenda was at least partially responsible for the sudden postponement of an announcement around the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) last month in Vietnam. The announcement was expected to confirm that the 11 TPP countries had...

As Prime Minister Trudeau visits China to discuss the possibility of a future bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), many Canadians are unsettled about closer ties with China. And for good reason. China's compliance with existing trade agreements has been problematic. China's widely documented practices of subsidizing exports and dumping exported goods at prices that do not reflect market costs (...

It's Monday morning, and Madison Millennial is cruising to her job at a high-tech startup downtown. Organic avocados bounce about in her Herschel courier bag as she pedals her vintage 1980s Norco through the city streets. She is well heeled, ironically detached and politically disengaged. Or, at least that's the picture the political pundits paint in their attempts to deconstruct this new...

At China's 19th Party Congress last month, President Xi Jinping laid out his vision for China taking a dominant role in global affairs. And now, we will turn our attention to Vietnam, where the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) conference will welcome leaders from the developing and established Asia-Pacific economies of the future. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads toward Asia...

The following is a guest editorial from Dr. Tran Dai Quang, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Twenty eight years ago, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum came into being. Ever since, APEC has been growing vigorously, living up to the role as the region’s premier economic forum. In a globalized and changing world and a dynamically growing Asia Pacific, APEC...

The transformative Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) represents 40 per cent of the global population and 50 per cent of world trade. Within the 21 member economies of the APEC region, micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are the drivers of growth of innovation. They account for 98 per cent of all businesses. They also provide 54 per cent of regional employment and 70 per...

The memory of the Vietnam War is still vivid in the minds of many from my generation and it will soon be brought back to life with the upcoming Ken Burns documentary by the same name. Canada played a key role during the war as a member – along with India and Poland – of the International Control Commission. After the war, Canada accepted 60,000 refugees (1979-80), opened an embassy in Hanoi (1994...

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation is home to 40 per cent of the world’s population, 50 per cent of global trade, and 60 per cent of global GDP. Over the last quarter century, APEC has shaped and transformed the global economy and supported half a billion people in their rise out of poverty. Few Canadians know much about APEC, even though Canada was one of its founding members in 1989. The...

It was not supposed to happen. Backed by a full phalanx of America's top generals and a powerful mandate to "make America great again," U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly pounded his fist on the podium, warning that letting North Korea have nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) was "not going to happen," and that North Korea would be stopped by a great "armada" and with "...

Few Canadians know much about APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and even fewer still know anything about ABAC, the APEC Business Advisory Council. This week, Toronto will be hosting the third of four annual meetings of ABAC, a council made up of three senior business leaders from each of the 21 APEC economies. The third meeting is always the most significant because council members...

This week's Conversation That Matters features Stewart Beck of the Asia Pacific Foundation on the opportunities that Donald Trump's isolationist and anti-trade rhetoric aimed at Asia present to Canada. Click here to watch the video. Did we squander the endowment that was created in 1970 by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau when Canada was the first western nation to recognize the government of the...

The Trump administration has scrambled the cards in the trade policy world. Not only will the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) be reopened — with uncertain results — but President Donald Trump has scuttled the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by announcing the United States’ withdrawal from the agreement. Canada, originally cool toward the TPP, pushed hard to be included in it. The TPP...

When U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the plug on U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January, it was a bad day for Canadian supporters of the TPP. But now it seems the TPP may still live under another guise, often referred to as the TPP 11. New studies have shown that even without U.S. participation, a transpacific agreement based on the new rules negotiated in the original...

Beijing’s Belt and Road Summit and Gala last week was not just an elaborate dinner party and display of theatrics – it was China’s version of an invitation to the global community to engage with its most ambitious trade and infrastructure project yet ­– the US$1-trillion Belt and Road Initiative. First announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative is an...

Thank you President Donald Trump. Your hard talk and the consequent uncertainty in our trading relationships is motivating Canadians to reconsider how we view Asia, particularly China. We thought it was important to poll Canadians about their views on China and a China free-trade agreement (FTA) after the U.S. inauguration to see if there were any changes in attitudes towards China. The poll was...

Was the U.S.-China summit at Mar-a-Lago a bust? A whimper instead of a bang? Certainly, on the surface, the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida earlier this month did not meet the expectations of the Fox News crowd. In fact, in the days leading up to the summit, both the Chinese and U.S. downplayed the likelihood of dramatic outcomes. In the end, it...