Event Date: February 25, 2026 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: FSS 4006, 120 University Private, University of Ottawa

Presented by CIPS and the Asian Studies Network (ASN)

For decades, Canada believed it could gently shape China into a responsible global actor through diplomacy, commerce, and cultural exchange. But as this clear-eyed, searing account reveals, it was China that ended up reshaping us. In The Beaver and The Dragon, acclaimed sinologist Charles Burton takes readers inside Canada’s most fateful geopolitical miscalculation. Drawing on a lifetime of engagement ― from dorm rooms at Fudan University to behind-closed-doors diplomacy in Beijing ― Burton chronicles China’s strategic ascent and the naïveté that allowed it to happen. From Tiananmen to hostage diplomacy, this book captures the history we lived through but failed to understand. These essays, written in real time across four Canadian governments, expose the illusions of engagement and the emergence of an authoritarian power that seeks to dominate the 21st century. These essays, spanning 2009 to 2025, expose the sharp power tactics and global ambitions that define Xi Jinping’s China. But Burton also leaves us with a challenge ― and a hope ― that democratic resilience can reclaim the future.

Learn more about his book, The Beaver and the Dragon: How China Out-Manoeuvred Canada’s Diplomacy, Security, and Sovereignty:

Speaker:

Charles Burton is Senior Fellow at Sinopsis specializing in China’s domestic affairs and international relations, with extensive publications on these topics. He has been commissioned by Canadian and international agencies to produce strategic reports on China’s relations with the Western and developing worlds. He served as a counsellor at the Canadian Embassy to China in the early 1990s and late 1990s – 2000s. He previously worked for the Communications Security Establishment at the Canadian Department of National Defence. From 1989 to 2020, he was a professor in the Department of Political Science at Brock University, focusing on comparative politics, China-Canada relations, and human rights. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, having also studied at Cambridge University and Fudan University. After achieving his doctorate, he was Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Post-Doctoral Scholar at the University of Alberta.

Commentator:

Dr. Balkan Devlen is the Director of the Transatlantic Program and Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He is a professor, foreign policy analyst, and consultant with over two decades of experience across three continents. Dr. Devlen is also an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University.

Chair:

André Laliberté is a Full Professor at the School of Political Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Research Co-Chair in Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa.