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HomeCanadian StrategyAndrew Latham in Responsible Statecraft: What Accounts for This Sharp Canadian Shift Against China?

Andrew Latham in Responsible Statecraft: What Accounts for This Sharp Canadian Shift Against China?

Image credit: G20 Indonesia

By Andrew Latham

Senior Fellow Andrew Latham writes for Responsible Statecraft on how after years of engagement and accommodation, Trudeau’s government is taking a much tougher tone with Beijing in addition to the recent aftermath of his informal talks with Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Indonesia.

Canada’s shifting China policy is an artifact of an age-old dynamic in international relations: balancing. Balancing, of course, is the tendency of a state or group of states, when dealing with a rising or increasingly assertive power, to take steps to make it more difficult for the more powerful state to impose its preferences on the weaker ones. And that is precisely what Canada, like many other middle powers — Australia comes most readily to mind — is doing today.

READ HERE

Andrew Latham (@aalatham) is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy and a Professor at Macalester College.

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