June 9, 2022 – The Canada China Forum is pleased to announce that founder and CEO – Darren Touch (陶瀚生) – has been appointed as a member of Canada’s Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee, reporting to Hon. Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Committee will help shape Canada’s new flagship Indo-Pacific Strategy that will advance our interests and values in the region.
Darren joins 13 other members including former Canadian Ambassador to China Dominic Barton; founding director of the Munk School Janice Stein; and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Pierre Pettigrew.
“Canada’s relationship with the Indo-Pacific region is more important now more than ever, and young Canadians have a critical role to play in building this relationship,” said Darren. “I look forward to working with Minister Joly and the members of the Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee to advance Canadian interests and values in the Indo-Pacific.”
Darren is a Schwarzman fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Kissinger Institute on China and the United States and the Canada Institute. His research at the Wilson Center focuses on relations between Canada, China and the United States, and it examines how Canada and the United States can manage their interests with China while maintaining and strengthening the Canada–United States relationship. He is also the founder and CEO of the Canada China Forum, a youth-led non-governmental organization that seeks to convene a new generation of Canadian leaders who are globally minded and China-competent.
He graduated from the University of Ottawa with an honours bachelor’s degree in social science, political science and public administration, where he studied as a TD Scholar, and he holds a Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs degree from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Management Science in Global Affairs degree from Tsinghua University, where he studied as a Schwarzman scholar representing Canada.