In early November, Global News journalist Sam Cooper reported on intelligence gathered by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service alleging that China has been interfering in Canadian politics, most notably by transferring funds to a handful of candidates in the 2019 federal election. But the article is based on unsubstantiated claims and dubious allegations.

Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy is an embarrassment, a strident polemic, not diplomacy. If implemented it will end any possibility of substantive Canada-China cooperation on the environment, an imperative in the face of the global climate emergency. It also increases the possibility of war and the use of nuclear weapons, the other existential crisis of this era.

At this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, held in Thailand, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Canadian military presence in the Pacific will be deepened once more. Leading officials in Ottawa have stated that the increase in Canadian military personnel in the “Indo-Pacific” is aimed at countering China’s role in the region.

Canada has material interests in demonizing China and urging other countries to reduce trade with the country or decouple from its economy entirely. Foremost amongst those interests is Canada’s burgeoning battery metals industry, which Canadian political leaders and industry figures are attempting to develop into a profitable international alternative to China.

When it comes to foreign policy, no matter what party is in power, it’s more of the same. The Liberals came to office promising to back away from the Conservative’s low-level war against Iran. With the prime minister joining a chorus calling for the removal of the Iranian regime, Canada has again ramped up tensions with the Western Asian nation.

It’s becoming commonplace to suggest that a multipolar world order is emerging, one that will replace the US-dominated world system that has reined since the end of the Second World War and faced no serious challengers since the fall of the Soviet Union. As Greg Shupak writes, what is certain is that the old order will not fall without a great deal of struggle.

The US has gambled big in its latest sanctions on Chinese companies in the semiconductor industry, believing it can kneecap China and retain its global dominance. From the slogans of globalization and “free trade” of the neoliberal 1990s, Washington has reverted to good old technology denial regimes that the US and its allies followed during the Cold War.

Professor Richard Wolff discusses the powerful economic partnership of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). “They are the engine of the world economy in a way that was once said of Western Europe, North America and Japan. The engine, the powerhouse, the growth mobile, all of that. That’s moved, friends. And it’s moved in large part to the BRICS.”

In the context of Britain’s colonial administrations of terror, the 1975 constitutional coup in Australia may hardly seem worth remembering. However, the removal of Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s reformist Labor government must be included, even though if pales in comparison to British atrocities in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean that occurred under her reign.

RIMPAC 2022 comes at a sensitive moment when the US and its allies have stepped up provocative actions in East Asia, aimed mainly at China, a rising power that seemingly challenges US hegemony in the Pacific. However, for many people including Indigenous Pacific Islanders, US militarism remains front and centre in their fight for sovereignty and peace.