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Living with China: A Middle Power Finds Its Way by Wendy Dobson

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 September 2020
DOI10.1177/0020702020954175
Published date01 September 2020
AuthorPatrick Leblond
Subject MatterBook Reviews
untitled 446
International Journal 75(3)
Burney and Hampson also leave several questions unanswered. They highlight
the need for “nimble footwork” when dealing with a changed America (p. 31), but
what exactly does this mean? They mention the importance of Arctic policy but
devote little attention to the subject. Similarly, they identify India as a primary
market for trade diversification but say nothing about how to pursue productive
negotiations, which have stymied successive Canadian governments. They advo-
cate “selective” multilateralism but offer scant guidance for deciding which mul-
tilateral bodies to support or abandon (pp. 20–21, 189). Their analysis is
conventionally state-centric, but Canada has been successful at working with
non-traditional partners—from private foundations and non-governmental organ-
izations to sub-state governments—in areas of Canadian concern. They deride as
nostalgic and vainglorious the “middle power” conception of Canada (p. 21), yet
call on Ottawa to lead multilateral efforts to strengthen the global refugee
system—a middle-power role if there ever was one—and by the end of the book,
they are using the term to describe Canada (p. 181).
No single volume could analyze every dimension of Canada’s policy response to
a changing world, and few authors have the expertise and range to cover as much
ground as Burney and Hampson do here. They are right to warn of the many risks
facing Canada and to call for a concerted response. However, as a blueprint for a
new global strategy, Braver Canada: Shaping Our Destiny in a Precarious World
talks a braver game than it delivers.
Wendy Dobson
Living with China: A Middle Power Finds Its Way
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. 184pp. $32.95 (cloth)
ISBN: 9781487504823
Reviewed By: Patrick Leblond (pleblond@uottawa.ca), University of Ottawa
Canada’s relations with China can best be characterized as volatile. After years of
equivocation,3 the federal government, soon after the Liberals’ victory in October
2015, decided to...

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