INCREASINGLY DISRUPTIVE — Ahead of the long-awaited release of Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Sunday, the mood in the country was electric.
Not because of the Indo-Pacific strategy per se, but because Canada had just scored its first-ever goal at the men’s World Cup, two minutes into its match against Croatia. The whole country was watching. Even Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU had tweeted “Game two, here we go” just minutes before the match. An hour and change later, Foreign Affairs Minister MÉLANIE JOLY took to a podium at the Port of Vancouver to unveil the strategy that was to set a new tone in Canada’s relations with China. — But by this time, the mood had changed somewhat. Croatia was up 2-1 at halftime, and Canadians were feeling tense. “The central tenet of our Indo-Pacific strategy is acting in Canada’s national interest without compromising our values,” Joly said. — The overview: Joly promised nearly C$2.3 billion in new spending over the next five years, to be used in part to expand Canada’s military and naval presence in the region and to bolster its intelligence and cybersecurity networks to guard against foreign interference. Canada also wants to expand trade in the region, including with India, and plans to launch a new trade gateway in southeast Asia and to appoint an Indo-Pacific trade representative. The strategy also includes sections on fighting climate change in the Indo-Pacific region and supporting human rights. International Development Minister HARJIT SAJJAN was on hand in Vancouver to speak to some of that, but it was hard to hear him over the country’s collective groan at 12:30 p.m. when Croatia scored yet again, all but dashing Canada’s hopes of a World Cup victory. — By 1 p.m., the press conference was over, and Canada had been eliminated. The ministers in Vancouver had donuts to share. Everyone else quietly finished their beers and went home. AND WHAT ABOUT CHINA? — You may recall the Globe and Mail reported last summer that the first draft of the Indo-Pacific strategy made no mention of China. Well, the final version definitely does, calling it “an increasingly disruptive global power.” Here are a few other notable lines that signal Ottawa’s new approach to Beijing: — “China’s rise, enabled by the same international rules and norms that it now increasingly disregards, has had an enormous impact on the Indo-Pacific, and it has ambitions to become the leading power in the region.” — “China is looking to shape the international order into a more permissive environment for interests and values that increasingly depart from ours.” — “At the same time, China’s sheer size and influence makes cooperation necessary to address some of the world’s existential pressures, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, global health and nuclear proliferation. And China’s economy offers significant opportunities for Canadian exporters.” — “Our approach to China is shaped by a realistic and clear-eyed assessment of today’s China. In areas of profound disagreement, we will challenge China, including when it engages in coercive behaviour.” THE HEADLINES — Everything about the announcement of the Indo-Pacific strategy was a little, shall we say, anticlimactic. Its arrival, years in the making, was heralded in a Friday afternoon news release, shortly after the prime minister had finished his hours-long testimony before the Emergencies Act inquiry. The event itself happened in the middle of Canada’s historic World Cup soccer match. Several reporters only got a look at the document two minutes before the press conference began. The strategy wasn’t made public for nearly another two hours. Trudeau, who managed to tweet about soccer AND tennis earlier on Sunday, didn’t get around to the new strategy until 6 p.m. And a technical briefing to help reporters get a better handle on its contents was scheduled for, uh, today. — But by the time Joly started speaking on Sunday, we already had a pretty good idea what was in the document. On Saturday, the Globe and Mail’s ROBERT FIFE and STEVEN CHASE were out with a preview of the new money going to national security agencies to fight “foreign influence and disinformation campaigns.” First thing Sunday morning, Bloomberg’s MATHIEU DION had a piece out that focused on a pledge to revise the Investment Canada Act to address concerns about Chinese state-owned enterprises. And the CBC’s MURRAY BREWSTER had a story out mid-morning on the “surprisingly blunt language” used to describe China. — Related: Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. WAYNE EYRE told CTV’s Question Period Sunday that Canada’s military would be “hard-pressed” to launch another large-scale operation, given personnel and equipment shortages. Did someone forward you this Playbook? Click here to sign up for your own . | 
