Carneys China trip shows energy is Canadas gateway to Asia

Canada has a lot to gain in Asia. From his attendance at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in October 2025 to his recent visit in Beijing, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s diplomatic trips to Asia show that Canada has both an interest and a need to enter the huge Asian market.

The Indo-Pacific region is now the world’s main economic engine, contributing up to 60% of global growth. While Japan and South Korea recorded growth rates of between 1% to 2% for 2025, China is maintaining a growth rate of 4.2%, India of 6.6% and the ASEAN nations (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam) are growing at a rate of 4.3%.

Asian countries may have different goals — some are working to establish economic momentum while others are striving for high-income status. But they all share the common goal of finding reliable, accessible and operational energy sources.

On the first day of Carney’s trip to China Canada agreed to cooperate with China more on both clean and conventional sources of energy. In the coming years, the stability and diversification of energy suppliers will be key issues. The needs are very real and will only increase. So who will benefit?

Redefining the geopolitical landscape

In February 2025, US President Donald Trump declared a trade war on Canada and Mexico, even before turning his attention to China, a longtime American foe. From that point on, economic diversification became a strategic priority for Ottawa.

Elected in April on a promise that he was the right man to handle Trump’s threats, Carney used completely different language from that his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, on the importance of economic issues. In his election victory speech, Carney said he wanted to turn Canada into an energy superpower, both in clean and conventional energy.

This shift towards the economy, national security and pragmatism is well aligned with the needs of Asian countries, who are also seeking to diversify their supply chains and find stable and politically credible trading partners.

Canada’s appeal

According to Statistics Canada, combustible minerals (including oil, natural gas and coal), mineral oils and their derivatives accounted for 25% of Canadian exports in 2024. In fact, energy resources are Canada’s leading export. However, 89.33% of these resources are shipped to the United States; Canada’s largest export to ASEAN countries is grain.

If Canada wants to become an energy superpower, as Carney hopes, it will need to develop trade partnerships and, above all, energy partnerships with countries other than the US. The rapidly growing Asian market, which is seeking stability and energy security, could represent a viable long-term opportunity.

Dependence on fossil fuels remains the norm in the region. According to data from the International Energy Agency, industry and transport account for the largest share of energy demand. This will continue to grow as industrialization and urbanization accelerate, particularly in emerging countries.

Coal remains by far the main source of energy, accounting for 49.3% of primary energy consumption in the Indo-Pacific region and 57% of electricity generation. However, coal resources are starting to run out.

Developed economies such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore import almost 100 per cent of their oil and gas, and China, the world’s largest importer of crude oil and gas, hit the import record of crude oil in 2025, with 11.5 million barrels per day (b/d). This means Indonesia and Malaysia are able to export their fossil fuels.

Indonesia is the world’s leading exporter of coal, and Malaysia is a major exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Nonetheless, the ASEAN Oil and Gas Updates 2024 report shows that Southeast Asia is facing a gradual depletion of its oil reserves and is expected to become a net importer of gas by 2027.

The region’s governments are in almost unanimous agreement about two major priorities. The first is ensuring and preserving their energy security, defined by the International Energy Agency as the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price. The second is transitioning to cleaner forms of energy than coal.

To achieve these two objectives, countries are stepping up their energy diversification initiatives and investing heavily in infrastructure construction. In Southeast Asia, new regasification and liquefaction plants are multiplying.

In 2023, the region had a total regasification capacity of 57.76 mtpa (million tonnes per annum) and a liquefaction capacity of 64.1 mtpa, with ambitious expansion plans in place for now to 2030, particularly in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.

In China, the LNG infrastructure is scaling much faster and at far greater volume, With 161 mtpa of regasification capacity operational and a further 110 mtpa under construction.

Can Canada truly compete?

Canada has recently equipped itself with the means to compete with the US, which has been exporting LNG on a massive scale since 2016 from terminals in the Gulf of Mexico, although these shipments transit through the Panama Canal, a costly detour.

From that perspective, Canada has a considerable competitive advantage with a port terminal directly accessible from the West Coast. In July 2025, the first ship carrying Canadian LNG to Asia departed from the port of Kitimat, British Columbia. Of the five multinationals that contributed most to this project, four are Asian: Petronas (Malaysia), PetroChina (China), Mitsubishi Corporation (Japan) and KOGAS (South Korea).

On the oil side, despite delays and soaring construction costs, the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline network has increased Canada’s export capacity to 890,000 barrels per day, paving the way for exports to Asian partners from the country’s West Coast. Now, with more than Asian oil customer, Canada has seen the price per barrel rise rapidly in just months.

Even though it didn’t export any LNG before 2016, the US became the world’s leading exporter in 2023 and its exports continue to break records. The market is there. The question is: who will reap the benefits, Canada or other countries?

Yaxin Zhou is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Montreal.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.