Caught between American and Chinese Goliaths: Canada’s Middle Power Strategy

The anticipated summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping was delayed due to instability in the Middle East, raising timely questions about how the Iran war is reshaping U.S.–China relations. The discussion also explored Canada’s role as a middle power in navigating this increasingly volatile relationship.

This annual watch party of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ China Townhall programming was followed by an in-person discussion at the Munk School’s Asian Institute, led by renowned experts.

 

 

Dr. Julian Gewirtz is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, a Senior Fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee of Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, and a non-resident fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He served in senior policymaking roles during the Biden Administration, including Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the White House National Security Council and Deputy China Coordinator at the State Department. He is the author of three books: Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s, which was named a best book of the year by Foreign Affairs and BBC History, as well as Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China, and Your Face My Flag: Poems. He was previously Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Special Advisor for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy, and Lecturer in History at Harvard University and Columbia University. In 2025, the Washington Post named him one of "50 people shaping our society.”  

 

Diana Fu is associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto and a fellow at Brookings Institution, the Wilson Center, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Her research examines popular contention, repression, civil society, and authoritarian citizenship in contemporary China. She is currently co-authoring a second book examining how the Chinese state governs the global diaspora (under contract, Cambridge). She is the author of “Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China” (Cambridge, 2018), which won best book awards from the American Political Science Association, the American Sociological Association, and the International Studies Association.  Her research and commentary have appeared BBC, Bloomberg, CBC, CNN, NPR, the Economist, and The New York Times, among others.  She was host of the TVO documentary series “China Here and Now” and of POLITICO China Watcher.  Prof. Fu received her doctorate in Politics from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar and has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College. She regularly gives public lectures and participates in track 1.5 dialogues on Canada-China and U.S.-China relations.