Canada’s foreign minister Anita Anand used the sidelines of an ASEAN summit in Manila on Wednesday to press simultaneously on two of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints, calling the Middle East crisis “quite grave” and urging the warring parties to negotiate a permanent ceasefire, while also describing a recent maritime confrontation between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea as “troubling” and pledging Ottawa’s support for international law.
Speaking on the margins of the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference in the Philippine capital, Anand said Canada’s position on the intensifying US-Iran war was unambiguous: that all parties must return to the negotiating table before the human and infrastructural toll grows further.
“The situation is quite grave, and we very much hope that parties will come to the table and ensure that the permanent ceasefire is negotiated and held,” Anand said.
She stressed that civilian life and civilian infrastructure must be protected regardless of the war’s trajectory, saying Canada would “always call for de-escalation, a ceasefire, and respect for humanitarian considerations and human life,” and that hospitals, schools and other non-military sites must be shielded from the fighting that has now entered its fifth month.
On The South China Sea
Anand’s second major theme of the day was the ongoing territorial contest in the South China Sea, where a recent maritime confrontation between Philippine and Chinese vessels has raised fresh anxiety among Southeast Asian nations already wary of Beijing’s assertive posture in the disputed waters. Canada, which has made the Indo-Pacific one of its stated foreign policy priorities, did not mince words over the episode.
“Without question, the incident is troubling, and we are concerned,” Anand said. “We do not agree with intimidation as a means of addressing disputes.”
She reaffirmed Ottawa’s position that maritime disagreements in the region must be resolved through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, and restated Canada’s longstanding commitment to what she described as a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” a formulation that aligns Ottawa with the language used by the United States, Japan and Australia in their own regional postures. Anand drew a deliberate line between the South China Sea dispute and the Middle East crisis, framing both through the same underlying principle.
“Whether we’re talking about the Indo-Pacific, the Strait of Hormuz, or waterways generally, there is a need to remember that the structure of freely navigable waters and international law is a guidepost that we can gravitate towards,” she said.
A Meeting With Wang Yi
On the margins of the same summit, Anand held bilateral talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during which she said the pair discussed both bilateral ties and broader regional security. She acknowledged that Indo-Pacific tensions had featured prominently.
“In terms of the broader geopolitical situation, we did spend some time on the Indo-Pacific, and I raised my concerns,” she said, declining to elaborate on specific points of exchange.
The meeting reflects a careful balancing act Ottawa has sought to maintain: engaging Beijing diplomatically even while publicly challenging Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea and aligning broadly with the Indo-Pacific architecture favoured by Canada’s western allies.
Trade Diversification Tops The Manila Agenda
Away from the security headlines, Anand said the single most pressing item on Canada’s agenda in Manila was advancing a free trade agreement between Canada and ASEAN, framing it as part of Ottawa’s wider push to reduce its economic dependence on the United States following years of trade tension with Washington.
“Making sure that there’s unanimity towards concluding the FTA between ASEAN and Canada, that’s our top priority here at this summit,” Anand said. The push for trade diversification reflects a broader strategic recalibration in Canadian foreign policy under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government, which has emphasised building new economic relationships across the Indo-Pacific in part as a hedge against US President Trump’s unpredictable trade posture.
By presenting the ASEAN trade deal alongside its security concerns on the South China Sea and the Middle East, Ottawa is signalling that it views the two tracks, commercial and diplomatic, as mutually reinforcing rather than competing priorities across an increasingly volatile region.
