About This Event

In November 2022, Canada released its long-awaited Indo-Pacific Strategy. Laid out as a whole-of-government approach, the strategy attempts to establish Canada’s identity as a Pacific nation along five interconnected strategic objectives. First, it sets out Canada’s intent to promote peace, resilience, and security. Second, Ottawa lays out its efforts in expanded trade and investment, and supply chain resilience. Third, it lays out Canada’s intent to expand people-to-people connections across the region. Fourth, it lays out Canada’s intent to build a sustainable and green future, including the investment in green technologies. Finally, the strategy lays out Canada’s intent to diversify and increase its partnerships in the region, including with ASEAN, the US, its Five Eyes partners, and G7. On January 9, 2023, four excellent panelists discussed these topics with our regional audience.

Speakers

Maryruth Belsey Priebe is the Director for Women, Peace & Security (WPS) Programs and a Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum International, a Harvard International Relations graduate student, and the author of numerous articles. Using social science, feminist foreign policy perspectives/analyses/theories, and data analysis, her research focuses on the nexus of gender, climate change, and peace and security in the Asia-Pacific. Maryruth’s circular food economy policy work has been selected for inclusion in the OpenIDEO Food Systems Game Changers Lab, and she has held several research and fellowship positions focused on women’s leadership. She is also a member of Harvard’s Climate Leaders Program and the Research Network on Women, Peace & Security and is a volunteer for multiple gender-climate causes. Maryruth tweets @greenwriting.

Jonathan Berkshire Miller is an international affairs professional with expertise in security, defense, and geo-economic issues in the Indo-Pacific. He has held a variety of positions in the private and public sectors. Currently, he is a senior fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). Miller is also Director and Senior Fellow of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Ottawa-based Macdonald Laurier Institute, a Senior Fellow on East Asia for the Tokyo-based Asian Forum Japan, and the Director and Co-founder of the Council on International Policy. He also holds appointments as Canada’s ASEAN Regional Forum Expert and Eminent Person (EEP) and as a Responsible Leader for the BMW Foundation. Previously, he was an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, based in Tokyo, and was a Young Leader and Fellow with Pacific Forum from 2013-16.

Dr. Stephen R. Nagy is a Senior Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University, Tokyo. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation (APF) in Canada, a Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, and a Visiting Fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA). In March 2010, he was appointed a Senior Fellow with the Global Institute of Asian Regional Integration (GIARI), Waseda University. He is also a member of the Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies’ International Affairs Research Centre (IARC) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Major General Greg Smith is an Infantry Officer originally from Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. His field and headquarters postings include the Canadian Army, Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, and within the Vice Chief of Defence Staff Group. He has deployed to Croatia, Afghanistan, and Iraq and served in NATO in Mons, Belgium. He possesses postgraduate degrees in war studies, defence studies, and public administration; is a Fellow of the US National Defence University, the NATO Defence College Rome, and the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies; and was a Visiting Defence Fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University. He is currently Director General of International Security Policy in Ottawa.