UVic’s longest running Centre celebrates 30 years of bridging the Pacific

For nearly two years leading up to a culminating federal election in the fall of 1988, Canadians were embroiled in a national debate about whether to ratify free trade with the US¹ in “the biggest trade agreement ever concluded between two countries”^2,3. During the same period, however, Canada had “discovered” Asia and “economic recalculation of the national interest” resulted in official adoption of the Asia-Pacific as “the focus of its newest aspirations on the world stage”⁴. Owing to its geographical position, British Columbia became the main beneficiary of federal funds allocated towards cultivating connections across the Pacific. At the University of Victoria (UVic), situated in the provincial capital on the very edge of the continent – a smidgen closer to Tokyo than to London - plans materialized to foster a “Centre of Specialization in Pacific Asia trade relations and international commercial law”⁵ around a core of three permanent research chairs (Economic Relations with China, Economic Relations with Japan, and Asia-Pacific Legal Relations). 

The decision on a name should be taken with some care, since the name establishes an image that will remain with the Centre for many years. A pronounceable acronym is also of some value. Familiar terms like “studies” or “research” should be avoided as too narrow or academic-sounding. Neither the term “Asia” nor the term “Pacific,” by itself, describes the region intended, while the term “Pacific Rim” seems more trendy than helpful. Therefore, we suggest that the Centre might be named “The Centre for Asian and Pacific Initiatives” or “The Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives.” Either way, the inevitable acronym would probably be CAPI.

- from an early internal planning document

UVic’s Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI) was officially opened at the Begbie (now Murray and Anne Fraser) Building on April 15th, 1988⁶. Chinese-Canadian philanthropist David Lam was honoured at the ceremony in recognition of the contribution from the David and Dorothy Lam Endowment. A few months after CAPI’s opening, Dr. Lam became BC’s 25th Lieutenant Governor, the first person of Asian ancestry to serve as a vice-regal in Canada⁷. Less than two weeks later still, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney - who had put forward Lam for appointment, and who was on the cusp of his a second mandate in the “free trade” election referred to in the opening to this article - delivered a formal apology to Japanese Canadians who had been interned in camps in British Columbia’s interior during World War II. 

On the eve of the 1988 federal election, CAPI hosted a panel discussion on Asia-Pacific trade and security as part of the Williamsburg Conference, which convened a distinguished group of international Asia-Pacific experts from government, industry, academia, and policy groups at Dunsmuir Lodge, UVic’s former holding on the Saanich Peninsula⁸. As CAPI’s inaugural Director and China Chair Ralph Huenemann remarked about the conference participants at the time: "The kinds of people who are involved are on the firing line; they don't usually have much time for reflection"⁹. The Lams, newly settled in their official residence on Rockland Avenue, hosted the participants for dinner.

On a crisp November night thirty years later, 140 of CAPI’s closest friends gathered at the Inn at Laurel Point on Victoria’s Inner Harbour (photo below) for some reflection and dinner of their own in celebration of the Centre’s three decades of “bridging the Pacific.” The evening’s keynote was delivered by internationally renowned, Indo-American author Amitav Ghosh (e.g., the Ibis trilogy), known for historical narratives that tend to be “transnational in sweep, moving restlessly across countries, continents and oceans”¹⁰.

It is a fitting description for CAPI also, which has established itself as one of the university’s “crown jewels”¹¹ and a vital link to the Asia Pacific region through a vast array of activities both at home and abroad. From facilitating justice system capacity-building in Cambodia and Vietnam, creating the early professional literature on ocean law in Southeast Asia and supporting research into waste-pickers in Bangladesh, labour migration in Indonesia, and coral reef recovery off Christmas Island, to organizing international conferences on Chinese politics and hosting Thai royalty, “CAPI spells ‘initiatives’ in real terms”¹². As the campus “clearing house” for all matters Asia-Pacific, one of CAPI’s primary domestic roles has been to act as an extra-departmental resource for the Asia-oriented faculty, students, and staff on campus who are otherwise isolated in their home units with respect to their geographical concentration.

[CAPI] formed a central focus around which Asian interests at UVic could coalesce, intermingle and benefit and learn from each other. Seldom was an idea pitched that included an Asian element that did not receive some support from the CAPI Director of the time. However the scope of CAPI was far from parochial . . . It hosted conferences, published books, participated in grant applications and was recognised as a key player on both sides of the Pacific in a wide range of Asian initiatives. 

Phil Dearden, UVic Geography’s “hot shot prof"¹³ (personal correspondence, August 2018). Dearden has been a dedicated “Asianist” and CAPI collaborator since the Centre’s early days.

This year also marks the fifteenth anniversary of CAPI’s flagship internship program, which has sent 171 Canadian post-secondary students on life-changing placements with 51 different non-governmental organizations across the Asia-Pacific for a cumulative total of 85 years. CAPI’s lower-profile professional training programs have brought hundreds of Chinese post-secondary students to the campus and surrounds for weeklong leadership development sessions; CAPI has also developed and delivered on-demand training for judges and trauma care specialists from Thailand.

CAPI also houses the national “Landscapes of Injustice” project, which focuses on Japanese-Canadian dispossession during WWII (the long under-recognized counterpart of internment) and the Centre continues to host a continuous stream of cutting edge thinkers and practitioners to engage with the most pressing issues in the region. In a highly connected and mobile world characterized by progressively blurry boundaries, CAPI increasingly hosts programming dedicated to themes of a transnational nature: Asian involvement in Africa, “migration, mobility, and displacement,” and a “Southeast Asia in global context” roundtable discussion series. CAPI’s current “Regulating Globalization in South and Southeast Asia” project, in particular, has served as a powerful conduit for bringing new faces and partnerships to campus and facilitating unique overseas research experiences for early-career UVic faculty. This July, in the first of two planned conferences connected to the project, program participants will convene at the nascent Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law, the first law school in Bhutan, to present on issues of public law, legal orders, and governance.

Thirty years ago, with an eye to the future, Canada cast its gaze leftwards, across the Pacific, with the intention of engaging with an economically re-emerging Asia. CAPI came to be as an outcropping of this ambition. Today, as the university’s longest running Centre, CAPI stands as a testament to the importance of this vast and diverse region and to the people who have endeavoured to understand it.

“Everyone still thinks we are bigger than we are, which is the best tribute of all.”

Bill Neilson, upon his retirement in 2004 after twelve years as CAPI Director

For more of CAPI's history, view the CAPI 30th anniversary book (pdf)