ANALYSIS: Trudeau, in quick trip to Asia, to focus on trade, security

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will become the first Canadian PM to visit Laos, where he'll participate in a summit for leaders of southeast Asian countries.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lands in Laos on Wednesday, he will have spent almost a full day in the air and yet, despite spending 24 hours to get to the Laotian capital of Vientiane, he won’t even spend 48 hours there.

But senior government officials travelling with the PM this week say the time and treasure spent so that Trudeau can attend the annual summit of leaders from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is an important part of a “strategic long-term bet” his government made several years ago to raise Canada’s profile in the region.

It’s part of the country’s Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at boosting rules-based trade and enhancing the kind of multilateral security relationships that a middle power like Canada must have to survive and thrive.

“Canada has to be building relationships both diplomatically and economically and also in the security area. And that’s what Canada has been doing through its Indo-Pacific strategy,” said Roland Paris, an international affairs professor at the University of Ottawa who briefly served as an adviser in Trudeau’s office after the 2015 election.

In a briefing given to reporters on Trudeau’s air force plane, senior government officials conceded that, for many years, Canada was not seen as a reliable partner in Asia, that its interest in its Pacific neighbours would wax and wane.

Canada may still have a ways to go improve its reputation in Asia but the bet is that having the Canadian prime minister — a G7 leader — travel to the other side of the world for face-to-face meetings with leaders from the likes of Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and other ASEAN members is the clearest way of showing Canada’s commitment to a region which just happens have the fastest-growing regional economy in the world. Government officials were also quick to point out that Canada-ASEAN trade has doubled since the Liberals took office 2015.

“This is one of the fastest-growing economic areas in the world. And if Canada wants to benefit from that through trade, we need to be building relationships,” Paris said. “The prime minister’s presence is a very concrete way of doing that.”

Trudeau will become the first-ever Canadian prime minister to visit Laos, a relatively poor landlocked nation between Vietnam and Thailand. And he will be the first Canadian prime minister to attend three ASEAN summits in a row.