Canada Foreign Minister to conclude visit to East Asia
Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly will conclude her six-day visit to East Asia today.
Joly began her trip in Seoul and Busan, where she highlighted Canada’s support for strategic concerns on the Korean Peninsula through the Canadian Armed Forces’ Operation NEON. Extended in April last year, NEON will see the periodic deployment of ships, aircraft and personnel to Northeast Asia until spring 2023.
Joly’s show of support comes after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol signed a bilateral Comprehensive Strategic Partnership last month, based on shared interests for a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Aside from its commitment to counter North Korean missile threats through sanctions and military cooperation with South Korea, Canada is largely absent from security efforts in East Asia that take place on a multilateral scale—such as AUKUS or QUAD.
Ottawa is currently realizing the value in establishing its long-term participation in the Indo-Pacific region, and is developing its own Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) independent from the de-facto US-led version. To this end, Canada will primarily establish closer ties with strategically significant nations in East Asia in the short-term, in order to show its continued military commitment before moving to develop its own IPS.
