NO PLACE FOR NOSTALGIA
Since then, the fraying of the world order has only deepened, in the form of a war in Iran which has entered its third week and shows no clear end in sight. Amid that, Mr Trump continues to pursue his tariff policy with new trade probes targeting key trading partners – increasingly leaving middle powers like Canada to fend for themselves.
This kind of “middle power pragmatism” also applies to Southeast Asian countries, which know this game well, especially since the end of the Cold War.
India, which has been actively diversifying its trade partners, most notably by finalising what has been dubbed the “mother of all deals” with the European Union, is also learning that despite being a nuclear power, it is not – or at least not yet – the great power it aspires to be.
Veteran former Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan sees Canada’s foreign policy shift as trying to put into practice Mr Carney’s Davos speech.
“But in reality, this is what India, Australia, Japan, South Korea had already been doing with each other and other powers, big, middle and small, for quite some time,” Mr Kausikan told me.
As Mr Carney said at Davos, there is no place for nostalgia. Canada now finds itself in the same boat as other middle powers, sailing rough seas. It is also in the interest of other middle powers, like India, to navigate underlying tensions diplomatically.
Nirmal Ghosh, a former foreign correspondent, is an author and independent writer based in Singapore. He writes a monthly column for CNA, published every third Friday.