Wednesday, March 25th, 2015 Canada and China in the 21st Century: A Book Launch and Discussion with David Mulroney

Description

In Middle Kingdom: What Canadians Need to Know about China in the 21st Century, David Mulroney argues that China’s rise is having a direct impact on our prosperity, our health and well-being, and our security here in Canada. The road to achieving many of our middle-power aspirations now runs through the Middle Kingdom. We need to start paying closer attention. China has become Canada’s second largest economic partner, not as important as the U.S., but far bigger than all the rest. Canada exerts a magnetic pull on Chinese tourists and students. It’s also a popular destination for Chinese home buyers in search of a new life or simply looking for a safe place to park money. An assertive China is challenging the balance of power in the Pacific, and it is more than willing to reach across borders, including Canada’s, to steal technologies and to confront challenges to its ideology. We must do better. David Mulroney is uniquely positioned to discuss this issue as the former ambassador to China, and as a leader in forming a successful strategy in Afghanistan. He discusses what our challenges in Afghanistan were and how we eventually got it right, and how these lessons can be applied to the future challenges of China, and beyond. Cutting right to the heart of the issue, Middle Power, Middle Kingdom is an intimate account of how foreign policy works, and how policies must be changed if Canada is to prosper.

David Mulroney served as Ambassador of Canada to the People’s Republic of China from 2009 to 2012. Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Minister responsible for the Afghanistan Task Force, overseeing interdepartmental coordination of all aspects of Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. He is currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.