July 1 marked Canada’s 154th anniversary. Its history, culture, politics and economy are rooted in its European past and its North American geographic location. These contours have shaped its diplomacy, economic growth and political orientation.
Today, the world looks a lot different than it did in 1867. While Canada’s economy is still largely wedded to the North American continent, it is the Indo-Pacific region that has become the economic engine of global growth. It is home to the two largest trading agreements, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
The region is home to serious traditional and nontraditional security challenges such as assertive behavior by China in the East and South China Seas (ECS and SCS), the quashing of international agreements such as the Sino-British Joint Declaration protecting freedom of press and the independence of the judicial system in Hong Kong, weapons of mass destruction proliferation by North Korea, challenges to the rules-based order, transnational diseases and climate change.
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