OTTAWA — Against a backdrop of booming economic activity and underlying regional tensions, more than 1,400 Canadian troops are participating in a massive U.S.-led military exercise in the Pacific this month.
It's not the first time Canada has been involved in the Rim of Pacific exercise, or RIMPAC, which has been held every two years since 1974.
But this year's iteration features the largest-ever contribution of Canadian military personnel and equipment — and is the first time Canadians have occupied senior leadership positions within the predominantly American operation.
It's also the latest in a string of efforts to project the Canadian Forces' image into the Asia-Pacific region as Canada pursues economic opportunities amid an environment of simmering conflicts.
"The security domain in the region is not very solid," said retired rear-admiral Roger Girouard, who served as commander of the navy's Pacific force until 2007.
"The way to overcome these things is for more and more nations to be exerting their presence."
There is a growing sense that while the Pacific Rim has been the scene of extraordinary economic growth in recent years, China's unquenchable thirst for energy and natural resources are causes for concern.
"It raises these flashbacks to the rise of Japan before the Second World War," said Girouard.
"Japan went to war to secure its access to resources. I'm not saying that is what's going to happen, but it is on the spectrum of possibilities."
China, which has emerged as the Asia-Pacific region's military powerhouse, has already bumped up against a number of its neighbours over contested maritime boundaries and navigation rights.
It is currently in a standoff with the Philippines over a tiny atoll in the South China Sea and has been involved in an increasingly tense back-and-forth with Japan over a string of uninhabited islands in the fish- and resource-rich East China Sea.
Given the economic importance of the region and the size of the players involved, any conflict could have a major destabilizing impact that would be felt even by Canada.
"Our interests are clearly in sustaining a peaceful and regular transit of goods from Asia," said Brian Job, a defence expert at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada.
"There would be some spillover effects certainly for Canada should those economic routes be disrupted. The energy market would be in turmoil and trade would be dislocated. And more generally, you'd see an upset in relationships."
China has also been flexing its muscles in the Arctic, challenging assertions that the treasure trove of natural resources that lie below the ocean floor are the sole domain of northern nations.
"They're coming up into our Arctic saying, 'These are international resources and this is the global commons,'" Girouard said. "These cause tensions."
The U.S. has already announced it is pivoting or rebalancing its military toward Asia, from the old Cold War-era focus on Europe.
This has included posting marines in northern Australia for the first time, signing new defence agreements with Singapore and the Philippines, and basing 60 per cent of its naval forces in the region.
While Canada isn't about to deploy massive numbers of troops, ships and aircraft to the region, the Canadian Forces has made a number of inroads.
During a three-country tour through East Asia in March, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Canada had signed an agreement strengthening military ties with Japan.
Then, at the beginning of June, Defence Minister Peter MacKay attended a high-level Asia security forum in Singapore, where he talked about trying to "reconnect" Canada with "the Pacific community of nations."
MacKay also revealed that Canada was hammering out a logistics agreement with Singapore that would give the Canadian military a foothold in the region.
"Clearly there's a full-court press on the trade side, and this would be seen as complementary to that," Job said of the Conservative government's recent actions in Asia.
"There's a real co-ordinated effort to raise our profile."
What isn't clear is the degree to which the Conservative government will commit the Canadian Forces to the region — and whether it will sustain the enhanced engagement.
"The defence side of this (engaging Asia) is always going to be limited on the basis of our resources," said Job.
"It's very, very difficult to suggest that there's a rationale for any sustained military presence in the South China Sea area. But we certainly have taken steps that are quite in contrast to where we were a couple of years ago."
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