As one of the youngest leaders in the world, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is certainly making waves in the global stage as a progressive leader in the Western hemisphere. During his last Asian trip in November 2017 which saw him attended the high-profile East Asia Summit (EAS) in Manila, Trudeau was given a chair at the security table as an observer and received heartening overtures among the leaders of the ten ASEAN countries. Adding to such high-level reception was the warm and enthusiastic responses from the average Filipinos that this 'APEC Hottie' was getting, from the moment he arrived at the airport until his departure from the Philippines.
As the first Canadian leader to attend the EAS, Trudeau's presence is a strong demonstration that Ottawa is set to return to its once-active player status within this region. Of course, having voluntarily shunned away from the ASEAN affairs for decades, it is a definite fact that Canada has a lot to catch up as compared to other middle powers that actively engaged with the region throughout the years — South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the bars are too high for Canada to advance its cooperative relations with ASEAN bloc. What Ottawa can do is to build on Trudeau's young and progressive image and offer a distinctive cooperation to the Southeast Asian bloc.
To this, there are two substantial ways which Ottawa can do so. First, Canada should focus on establishing an e-commerce platform with ASEAN countries that will benefit the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of both sides. For one, this is wholly in line within the Plan of Action to Implement the Joint Declaration of ASEAN-Canada Enhanced Partnership (2016-2020) which both sides identified the SMEs as the most important private players that can facilitate and promote trade and investment between Canada and ASEAN.
But in tangible terms, Canada can coordinate with the SMEs back home to tap on this 640-million ASEAN market through the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) launched by the Malaysian (MDEC) and Alibaba Group a year ago. As a form of e-World Trade Platform (e-WTP), the DFTZ is the best entry point for the Canadian SMEs to sell their products to the ASEAN market without them setting their imprints in any of the Southeast Asian countries. Such approach reduces both the capital costs and risks for the Canadian SMEs which seek to tap on this huge market. Moreover, provided with the security needs to have its own e-payment and financing players, Canada can even encourage its own e-payment companies (such as PSI Gate and Internet Secure) to join this e-WTP initiative and serve those Southeast Asian customers that trade with Canadian sellers directly.
More importantly, Canada can also tap on the networks and opportunities provided by the Malaysian SMEs which started to venture the global market through the e-WTP. According to the research output produced by the private think tank, Anbound Malaysia, Malaysian SMEs remained to be the ones with the broadest business networks throughout the ASEAN region. Such feat is unparalleled even by its Singaporean counterparts which invested more in big emerging markets like India and China, instead of the ASEAN region. Establishing partnerships with the Malaysian SMEs, therefore, is a stepping stone for the Canadian counterparts to venture into other ASEAN markets in the long-run.
On the other side of the coin, there is no doubt that participating in the e-WTP offers the fastest and easiest way to liberalise the Canadian market in line with the concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Furthermore, the e-WTP initiative is a business initiative of the G-20 ─ the group of major economies in which Canada is also a member of it. Therefore, venturing and supporting the e-WTP initiative is at the same time, fulfilling the collective decision taken by the G-20 members during the Hangzhou Summit back in 2016. With Canada-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement looming in the future, the ASEAN SMEs are in good position to tap into this North American market as the new players on the block.
Second, given that ASEAN is the second most important Asian partner for Canada after China, there is a need to elevate the low-profile people-to-people exchanges in tandem with the increasing economic ties between both sides. One way to do this is to revamp the Canada-ASEAN Scholarships and Educational Exchanges for Development (SEED) to include Southeast Asian young bureaucrats and policy-makers (not just students and researchers) to undertake short fellowships in organisations such as think tanks and NGOs to learn the best practices and embark on knowledge transfer from these institutions. No doubt, this is still in line with SEED's twin aims of reducing poverty in ASEAN and helping the latter to achieve the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Training young bureaucrats and policy-makers, therefore, helps to ensure that the best measures and policies that they learned from Canada, are implemented on the ground in ASEAN countries.
The other way is to establish a whole new program that focuses on building the leadership capabilities of the ASEAN youths and promotes transnational networks as well as cooperation to tackle regional and global challenges. Like former US President, Barrack Obama's Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) established in 2013, Prime Minister Trudeau should have a similar initiative that features an annual dialogue with the ASEAN youths, be it face-to-face or via social media platforms. Also, leadership enhancement and exchange workshops can be implemented regionally for ASEAN youths to discuss and develop responsive measures in dealing with the pressing issues faced by their countries: civic engagement, quality education, digital economy, and sustainable development. These workshops can even be held once in a year in Canadian cities, to showcase to the Southeast Asian youths what Canada can offer in terms of building a progressive ASEAN.
As for Canadians, Ottawa can certainly devote a scholarship or student mobility program that supports the aspirations of their young millennials who wish to venture into the ASEAN region as exchange students and short-term fellows in the local institutions. With 61% of younger Canadian millennials (aged 18-24) viewed Asia favourably as shown by the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada's survey last November, it is expected that the interests to explore this 'mysterious' ASEAN region are rather high for these student groups. For this, Ottawa should encourage these future leaders to venture into this dynamic ASEAN region which still lacks substantial involvements from the young Canadians in all levels of exchanges. And not to mention these students becoming Canada's natural cultural ambassadors to those ASEAN countries that hosted them in the first place. Certainly, such channel of engagement seeks to boost Canada's soft power in the long-run.
In all, Canada needs not to compete with the other established powers in the region, such as China, US, Japan, Australia and even South Korea, in terms of offering enormous hard infrastructure financing and technology, huge markets as well as generous scholarships and research grants/fellowships. Instead, Canada can readily offer a young and progressive cooperation to ASEAN that utilises e-commerce and revitalised people-to-people exchange programs. Such distinctive cooperation will not only define the present and future Canada-ASEAN cooperation but also contributes to the integration between the East and the West.
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This commentary is the output of joint cooperation between Karl Lee Chee Leong and Anbound Malaysia.
A Canadian alumnus himself, Karl Lee Chee Leong venturing into Canada-ASEAN relations apart from his primary interest in the provincial approach of China-ASEAN cooperation. Besides being the PhD Candidate at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University (Malaysia Campus), he is also the Visiting Scholar at the School of Politics and Public Administration, Guangxi University for Nationalities (GXUN).
Chia Siang Kim is Researcher in Anbound Malaysia, a subsidiary of Anbound China which is a leading private think tank based in Beijing. Apart from his interests in Vietnamese history and religion, he is also an observer of ASEAN's affairs.
