Thank you very much for the introduction. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you.

I want to make four points in my opening remarks. First, Southeast Asia's economic and geopolitical importance is rapidly increasing. You know that. You wouldn't be here otherwise, but I will note a couple of points to substantiate that.

Southeast Asia has 11 countries and 675 million people. As a block, it's the world's fifth-largest economy and is rapidly growing, with an expanding middle class and favourable demographic structures on the whole that position it well to sustain high growth rates for the next two, three or four decades. All of that makes it one of the most sought-out regions of the world for economic partnership and trade diversification. Of course, its location at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region and inclination to multilateralism make it important for geopolitical reasons as well.

The second point is that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, is the primary vehicle for coordinating regional activities and interests. It's an odd organization, though. A noted diplomat from Singapore, Bilahari Kausikan, has called it a cow, not a thoroughbred, and it's important to understand that, because, of course, if you approach a cow expecting it to run like a horse, you're going to be disappointed. The reasons for that are several.

I will begin by saying that ASEAN is an intergovernmental organization, not like the European Union, a supranational government. What that means is that it has no independent power. It doesn't have legal authority over its member states. It's not a military alliance. It is led by a small secretariat. To put into context how small, it has approximately 400 people, with a budget of around $20 million U.S. per year. By contrast, the European Union has somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 staff and a budget of 170 billion euros—orders of magnitude greater.

ASEAN's main purpose is to facilitate dialogue and coordinate engagement, both within the region and beyond the region. It does this through regional forums. The ASEAN Summit is the most important, with heads of government. The East Asia Summit is another key one. Canada is not part of it but does participate in the ASEAN Regional Forum.

ASEAN operates on the basis of consensus and non-interference in members' domestic affairs, which essentially means it's a talking organization for facilitating talking. It has been criticized as ineffective for this. I imagine in the question period we'll come up with examples of why it's ineffective and where it's ineffective, but there are reasons for ASEAN being structured as it is. The success, I think, in some cases is also underappreciated.

The third big point is that Southeast Asia is highly diverse in almost every conceivable way, but a couple of key commonalities are relevant for this committee. The first is that across the 10 member states of ASEAN, there is almost a uniform prioritization of economic development as the key focus of governments. The preferred way to do that is through multilateral engagement. Foreign policy is typically driven by developmental objectives, not by other considerations.

Importantly, for us, China is, for better or worse, the most important economic partner to every state in Southeast Asia. It's seen as critical for continued growth, especially with concerns around the U.S.'s commitment to the region growing and signs of U.S. protectionism on the increase. There is, of course, a lot of concern about growing Chinese assertiveness across Southeast Asia, but the general view is that China has to be lived with. Of course, Southeast Asia is geographically in China's backyard.

Given that, there is mounting fear that great power competition between China and the United States will force Southeast Asian countries to pick sides. There is little interest in that. In fact, there's a lot of concern about that pressure.

The 2019 “ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific” articulates those positions clearly. It calls for an Indo-Pacific region that is inclusive—that includes China—that resolves disputes through dialogue rather than through coercion and that recognizes ASEAN's centrality, which is a key point that ASEAN member states frequently emphasize. What's meant by that is that ASEAN states preserve maximum autonomy for themselves and agency to determine their affairs without undue external pressures.

The fourth and final point is that ASEAN and Southeast Asia matter for Canada's Indo-Pacific ambitions, obviously, or else we wouldn't be here. I don't want to oversell Southeast Asia. The region is complicated. Engaging it has risks. However, there's also significant potential as an economic and strategic partner for Canada. That's especially as tensions with China and India remain high and there are concerns about protectionism in the U.S., the European Union posting slow growth rates, and so on and so forth.

There's a foundation for Canada's engagement with the region. Canada has been active in Southeast Asia since the 1950s. Brand Canada is generally well recognized and well received, but—I'm just reflecting views from the region here—Canada has also developed a reputation since the 1990s as being something of a fair-weather friend by being less present in the region than other middle powers that have a history of engaging the region.