Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
So I am not going to argue with success. In six weeks time, the premiers
and I- along with business people from across the country - will leave for a
new Team Canada mission to South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines
(Chrétien 1996).
Five of the eight Team Canada Missions were to Asia with three other
missions to regions of the United States: outside the US, China (alone)
was visited twice. The Canadian caravan was not modest. In the 1994
China Mission, aside from the Prime Minister, provincial ministers and
their entourages, almost 200 business people were among the official
party. Sixty-five business deals were announced as a 'result' of the trip,
valued at almost $9 billion (Government of Canada 2002).
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By the 2001
Mission, with almost 600 delegates including 18 media groups, the Team
Canada growth machine had graduated from a caravan to a circus whose
expansive tent was unfurled in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Some
might think the mission had lost its focus. Trip notes for the second day
in Beijing feature:
Tara Birtwhistle, Principal Dancer for Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the
oldest ballet company in North America, [who] prepares for the 'pas de deux'
of
Sleeping Beauty
with Han Po, Principal Dancer of the National Ballet of
China. Ms. Birtwhistle is an excellent example of Team Canada's commit-
ment to culture (Government of Canada 2005).
The following day Team Canada returned to basics as the Prime Minister
announced 65 contracts worth $1.4 billion and 139 other forms of agree-
ment worth $3.65 billion. No stone was left unturned in the inspection of
China's economy and ecology: among the unfinished business were nego-
tiations opened by the Managing Director of the Pacific Rim Endangered
Species Centre to purchase a group of pandas for Canada.
The Pacific Rim qua Political Economy
Arif Dirlik has asked, 'What is in a rim?' Reviewing the development of the
Pacific Rim as an idea he suggests that it was a Euro-American invention,
its substance the pursuit of economic ends (Dirlik 1998). Granted that the
construction of the Rim as a functional region is economically motivated,
its purpose to lubricate commercial exchange between its parts, any advan-
tage is shared also by elites in Asia-Pacific countries who have enjoyed large
balance of trade surpluses with North America. In one respect, Dirlik's
topic appears quickly dated in its emphasis on the rise of Japan as the Rim's
'one grand event' (Cumings 1998: 69), for ten years on, the awakening of
China appears even more portentous. But returning to his question, whether
