Canada, China and the Asia-Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges

Canada, China and the Asia-Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges

Institute for the Study of the Americas
Senate Room, 1st Floor, Senate House, University of London, Friday 29 June 2012

 

Speakers include:

 

• Gordon Campbell (High Commissioner for Canada to the UK) 
• Joseph Caron (former Canadian Ambassador to China, Japan and India and Asia Consultant, Vancouver)
• Nicolas Maclean CMG (Chief Executive, MWM (Asia) and former Senior Fellow for International Affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS))
• Jennifer Welsh (Professor in International Relations, Somerville College, University of Oxford)

 

Attendance is free of charge. To register please email Tony McCulloch by 25 June 2012.

 

 

Programme

9.30 am Registration and refreshments

 

10.00 am Welcome by Professor Iwan Morgan, Institute for the Study of the Americas

 

10.15 am Keynote address: His Excellency Gordon Campbell, the High Commissioner for Canada to the UK  “Canada, China and the Asia-Pacific region – Opportunities and Challenges”

 

11.15 am Refreshments

 

11.30 am Joseph Caron, Former Canadian ambassador to China, Japan and India & Asia consultant, Vancouver,  “Canada in the Asia-Pacific – how did we get there, and where are we going?”

 

Discussant: Alan Hallsworth, Professor, Faculty of Management and Law, University of Surrey

 

12.45 pm Lunch

 

1.30 pm Jennifer Welsh, Professor in International Relations, Somerville College, University of Oxford, 
“Canada’s international policy - the Asia-Pacific region in its global context”

 

Discussant: Tony McCulloch, Associate Fellow, Institute for the Study of the Americas, London

 

2.45 pm Refreshments

 

3.15pm Nicolas Maclean CMG, Chief Executive, MWM (Asia) and former Senior Fellow for International Affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, “Canada and the Asia-Pacific – the European business perspective”

 

Discussant: Andrew Halper, Head of CMS UK China Group, London

 

4.30pm – End of conference

 

The Intimacies of Four Continents - Public Lecture

The Intimacies of Four Continents


Tuesday 15th May, 17:30-19:30pm
Chancellor's Hall, Senate House, University of London


Speaker: Professor Lisa Lowe, School of Advanced Study Visiting Fellow for 2011/12, University of San Diego, California.

This lecture examines liberal ideas of citizenship, free labor, and free trade, in light of transatlantic and transpacific encounters between Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It revisits the meaning of the liberal policy of "free trade," by way of a discussion of British literary representations of the colonial trades in cotton, silk and opium, and observes that British engagements with China during and after the Opium Wars constituted the conditions for "free trade," inasmuch as it inaugurated new modes of imperial sovereignty.

A reception will follow the lecture. All welcome to attend.

For further info please email: sas.events@sas.ac.uk

Canada-European Union Free Trade Agreement Conference - 18 November 2011

Canada-European Union Free Trade Agreement Conference

Macdonald House, Grosvenor Square, London, UK
18 November 2011

Since 2009, diplomats from Canada and the European Union have been in negotiations to produce a comprehensive trade agreement known as CETA. For people in the EU, the agreement would provide improved access to the Canadian market, a relatively small but prosperous country. For Canadians, CETA is perhaps even more important, for it provides alternatives to export dependency on the United States.

On 17 October, the ninth and final round of negotiations began. It is now a good time for academics to discuss the agreement and its implications for Canadians and Europeans. A small conference about CETA has been organized. It will take place at Macdonald House in London, UK on 18 November. [Nearest Tube Station: Bond Street]

Programme: Canada-EU Trade Agreement Conference

1pm Brian Parrot, Minister Counsellor (Commercial and Economic), Canadian High Commission. Welcome statement.

1:10pm Alan Hallsworth, Portsmouth Business School, and Tim Rooth, University of Portsmouth (40 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion). "Historical Perspectives on CETA"

2:00pm Malcolm Fairbrother, Lecturer in Global Policy and Politics, University of Bristol. "Canadian Trade Policies from the FTA to the CETA: Myths and Facts" (20 minutes for presentation, 10 minutes for Q&A)

2:30pm Andrew Smith, Coventry University. "Applying the Concepts of Cultural Distance and Imagined Communities to Understanding Canadian Economic Diplomacy" (20 minutes for presentation, 10 minutes for Q&A)

3:00pm COFFEE BREAK

3:15pm Robert Hage, (retired Canadian diplomat), "Changing Canada: the Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement." (20 minutes for presentation, 10 minutes for Q&A)

3:45pm Roundtable Discussion

4:15pm Conference Ends

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP Andrew Smith before 15 November 2010.

This conference has been generously supported by Coventry University, the London Canadian Studies Association (LoCSA), and the Canadian High Commission.

West India Committee archives - handlist now available

Another newly added handlist added to the ULRLS Archives catalogue.

The West India Committee was formed in the 18th century, by London merchants, engaged in the West Indian trade, and absentee owners of West Indian estates. The Committee acted as a pressure group for West Indian interests, principally in the support of the sugar and rum trades and, in the first decades of its existence, in opposition to the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery. Following the abolition of slavery the Committee shifted its work firstly towards the encouragement of immigrant labour from India, China and Africa, and then from the 1840s to 1856 to opposing the removal of preferential sugar duties for West Indian sugar. Later in the 19th century, there were further moves to support cane-sugar grown in the West Indies against the new threat of beet sugar which was now being grown in Europe. The West India Committee mounted a strong anti-bounty campaign, as well as seeking alternative markets for West Indian cane sugar in the United States.


When bounties were eventually abolished throughout Europe in 1902, a concerted effort was made to widen the interests of the Committee beyond sugar alone, to the promotion of West Indian trade in general. The organization grew to include many members residing in the West Indies, and the Committee turned to representing their interests. The West India Committee was succeeded by the Caribbean Council for Europe, active also on trade issues, for example in relation to the Lome Agreement, in which the European Union granted some preferential terms to countries within the ACP (African Caribbean and Pacific States) group.

The Commonwealth Studies Library holds a microfilm copy of the early records of the West India Committee

M915 West India Committee minutes 1769-1924 [microfilm] contains:

Minutes and papers of the West India Committee and its predecessors, sub-committees and related organisations, including:

• West India Merchants
• West India Planters and Merchants
• Admiralty Committee of the West India Merchants
• Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants Appointed to Oppose the Abolition of the Slave Trade
• Literary Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants
• Merchants, Owners and Masters of Ships
• Jamaica Planters and Merchants
• Country Committees and Proprietors’ Groups: eg. Demerara and Berbice (later British Guiana), Jamaica, Trinidad, and Importers of West Indian Cocoa committees
• British and Colonial Anti Bounty Association
• Board of Commissioners of Grenada and St. Vincent
• Meeting of MPs Interested in the West Indian Colonies

(microfilm copy of original at the University of West Indies, Trinidad)

and two collections of archives from the West India Committee

West India Committee: Acquired Papers ICS96 1750-1988

This collection was acquired with the West India Committee Library and includes reports and accounts and lists of members; the Chinese Emigration Committee Rough Memorandum Book, 1857-1859; Library catalogues; and albums of press cuttings and othe rpapers relating to the work of the West India Committee, its members and events in the West Indies (including albums relating to sugar bounties and free trade, the 1907 earthquake in Jamaica, the West Indian Contingent Committee and the British West Indies Regiment, visits by Sir Algernon Edward Aspinall, Secretary of the West India Committee, to the West Indies, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad, royal tours, the West India Club, Hurricane Janet and the West Indies Hurricane Relief Fund, constitutional crisis in British Guiana 1953-54, and elections in British Honduras 1954). The collection also includes watercolours and sketch maps of Tobago, St Vincent and Antigua, by Sir William Young [1749-1815], Governor of Tobago [1807-1815] and a number of photograph albums.

West India Committee: Official Archives ICS97 1799-1999
This collection was donated by the West India Committee in 1999. It contains offical records of the West India Committee from about 1900. These include minutes of Annual General Meetings, Executive Committee, Management Committee and various Sub-Committees; minutes of the West Indian Contingent Committee 1915-1919; minutes of the War Services and Ladies' Committees 1939-1940; minutes of the Merchants' and Shippers' Standing Committee, and of the Passage Accommodation Sub-Committee 1949-1954; minutes of the Committee for Exports to the Caribbean, later the West Indian Trade Advisory Group 1965-1980; meeting papers, Annual Reports, lists of members, financial records and extensive files of correspondence and general files on topics including Post Lome negotiations, the rum trade, the rice trade, the banana trade, and tourism. The collection includes photographs relating to Caribbean personalities and countries.

Archive collections - Sandbach Tinne & Co

Another new list attached to the ULRLS Archives catalogue is that of Sandbach Tinne and Co.


Sandbach Tinne and Co (ICS70)

Founded in 1782 in Demerara, now part of Guyana, Sandbach, Tinne & Co., were shipowners, produce brokers, general merchants and plantation owners, exporting sugar, coffee, molasses and rum from the West Indies. James McInroy came to Demerara in 1782, and planted or acquired a sugar plantation soon after his arrival. By 1790 he was joined by Samuel Sandbach, Charles Stewart Parker and George Robertson, and the company, McInroy Sandbach & Co. was founded. At first the head office was in Glasgow under the name McInroy Parker & Co., and in 1804 a branch was founded in Liverpool, which later became the company headquaters. In 1813 Philip Tinne was taken into the partnership and the company became known as Sandbach, Tinne & Co in Liverpool, and McInroy Sandbach & Co in Demerara (in 1861 changed to Sandbach Parker & Co). They were importers and exporters, shipping and estate agents, mainly concerned with sugar, coffee, molasses and rum, but also in 'prime Gold Coast Negroes' (J Rodway: 'History of British Guiana', 1893). The families intermarried and the sons and sons-in-law entered the business.

Although the company passed through a number of name changes, Sandbach Tinne & Co., is the name by which the company is generally known. Branches of the company were opened in Glasgow (briefly), Montreal (West India Co.) and Trinidad.

The records held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies collections include correspondence between McInroy Sandbach & Co. of Demerara (now Guyana) and McInroy Parker & Co of Glasgow [later Sandbach Tinne & Co of Liverpool] concerning sugar, rum, coffee, and fishing and cotton trades, shipments, the purchase and sale of estates, and political and economic conditions in the Caribbean and Europe, covering the period from 1807 to 1882.

The Senate House Library also holds a collection of correspondence relating to the trade of Sandbach, Tinné and Co. with British Guiana, from 1808-1909, MS 677, including correspondence with McInroy, Parker & Co. of Glasgow (9 letters, 1817-1829), with McInroy, Sandbach & Co. of Demerara, British Guiana (about 40 letters 1815-1852), with Blackwood, Conor and Co. from 1879 and with Sandbach, Parker and Co. from 1870. The letters concern the shipping of coffee, rum, sugar, cotton, and other merchandise to England, and contain incidental references to French, Dutch and English plantations in Guiana, financial arrangements, the state of crops and the labour force, and the use of machinery in plantations e.g. for cane-grinding. 

Other records for the firm are held at the Guyana University Library; the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; the Lancashire Record Office; the Liverpool Record Office and the National Museums Liverpool, Maritime Archives and Library.

Commodities of Empire

The Commodities of Empire Project is an official British Academy Research Project, Commodities of Empire is a collaboration between the Open University's Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies and the University of London School of Advanced Study's Institute for the Study of the Americas.

The project recognises the links between imperial expansion, global trade and the ongoing industrial revolution, and explores the networks through which commodities including included foodstuffs (wheat, rice, bananas); industrial crops (cotton, rubber, linseed and palm oils); stimulants (sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, tobacco and opium); and ores (tin, copper, gold, diamonds) circulated within, and in the spaces between, empires.

A special 'Commodities of Empire' issue in the Journal of Global History was published in Spring 2009 (Vol 4, No.1). The project website also contains a series of online working papers.

These have been published since 2007 and topics include sugar, engineering and commerce in nineteenth-century Cuba; tobacco in the Dominican Republic; the role of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic coal route; the United Kingdom and the political economy of the global oil-producing nuts and seeds during the 1930s;

the history of Bengali raw silk; obscenity, empire and global networks; coffee and decolonisation in Kenya; tapioca-cassava; cotton, imperialism and public-private development in Britain’s African colonies, 1900-1918; the Kongo rubber trade; Indian Pale Ale; the battle for rubber in the Second World War; and Cuban popular resistance to the 1953 London Sugar Agreement.

Insights into the 'Banana Wars'

We are pleased to announce we hav added a handlist to the archives of the Caribbean Banana Exporters' Association to our archives catalogue. We wish to thank Norris Saakwa-Mante, an archives volunteer with us late last year, who worked on creating this list.

The Caribbean Banana Exporters Association established a London lobby in 1988 to defend its rights during pending trade discussions and disputes under both the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the lobby remains active. The CBEA comprises representatives of banana growers and exporting companies from all the Caribbean countries that are involved in the banana export trade. These are Belize, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Surinam and the four Windward Islands- St Lucia, Dominica, St Vincent & the Grenadines, and Grenada. The collection held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Archives provides insight into the disputes and the underlying political and economic concern, as well as revealing how the campaign to protect Caribbean growers used lobbying and public relations techniques within the UK, the European Union and the United States. The dispute came to a resolution late 2009, with a decision by the European Union to sign an agreement with Latin American countries to end the long running trade war. The new accord slashes import taxes on bananas from Latin America, from Euro 176 (US$262 dollars) a tonne to Euro 114 (US$170 dollars) over the next seven years. Caribbean governments have criticised the accord and have joined African and Pacific countries in warning that the new accord with Latin America would severely impact upon their struggling economies.

The list of records held is available at http://archives.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/resources/ICS148.pdf