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and colleagues were educated in Canada. Although they are proud and confident of their Asian heritage, they do not want to be pegged as “Asian experts” who are only needed when there is an Asian business issue to be handled. This stereotyping, which on the surface may seem positive, can be a career obstacle, psychologically if not materially. 56 It is ironic that non-Asian Canadians who have consciously set out to develop Asian expertise by studying a language and attending one of the Asian business studies courses available in Canada believe they are often overlooked by Canadian business. Anecdotal evidence suggests managers will often turn instead to Asian Canadians whose claim to Asian expertise is only a language skill. A group of graduates of the Asia Pacific Co-operative Management Program at Vancouver’s Capilano College, who spent time working in Asia, reported that while employers in Canada appeared to value their functional skills, they saw no real business benefit in their experience of Asia. 6 It was seen by employers as mostly a “character builder.” On the other hand, non-Canadian companies in Asia were quick to pick up their services and were prepared to pay a premium for their international expertise. Some Canadian managers seem to feel that postings in Asia or those requiring frequent travel to Asia are choice positions that should go to senior employees whose skill is in knowing their own companies and products, rather than in having a high level of competency in Asian business practices. Alternately, when they think language is a factor, they hire English-speaking local staff to operate their overseas offices for them. A survey in 1997 of Canadian companies with offices in Japan, our largest Asian market, found that only about 15 of the 70 Canadian companies responding had Canadians in the most senior position. (By contrast, 356 out of 450 Japanese companies operating in Canada had Japanese CEOs.) 7 The survey found that “only a small percentage of the companies surveyed appeared at all interested in hiring graduates produced by [Canada’s Asian business] programs.” 8 This trend seems to be continuing in Canada, with employers looking to Asian Canadians as the equivalent of “local hires.” BRAIN DRAIN IN THE MAKING The risk for Canada and the challenge for policymakers is that, as globalization gives even greater mobility to highly qualified staff, Asian business graduates or Asian Canadian professionals will feel frustrated at home and will seek greater acceptance elsewhere. (Of course, this concern is not exclusive to professionals with Asian backgrounds.) There is already anecdotal evidence of some Canadian-educated children of Asian immigrants returning to their parents’ former homelands because of a perceived or real lack of career opportunities in Canada. If young Asian Canadians do not feel they are reaching their full potential in their careers, or Asian business graduates feel their qualifications are overlooked at home, they may leave Canada, exacerbating the brain drain. Canada has gained from its ability to attract business immigrants with connections to Hong Kong, Taiwan, China or India. But we cannot forever be confident of our attraction as a future home for these skilled and affluent immigrants. A time will come when we will have to compete more keenly with other countries for educated individuals with international business know-how. Instead of looking overseas, Canada should start to look inward to the talented human resource pool already in the country. Among this group are young bicultural Asian Canadians who are in a unique position to be trained in
usiness skills to enhance Canada-Asia ties. This is not a restatement of the hidden advantage model. It involves business and government recognizing the unique crosscultural skills of many of the locally educated Asian Canadians, then encouraging them to acquire the tools they lack to fulfill their role as valuable members of the Canadian business community. They would then join the non-Asian Canadians who are following the same path. Some Asian Canadians have already set out to do this without any special government encouragement. For instance, of the 342 graduates of Capilano College’s postgraduate Asian business program over the past 12 years, some 17% were of Asian background. Through their business immigration programs, the Canadian and provincial governments already recognize the benefits to Canada of people with international business skills. We now have a great opportunity to develop these skills locally, through the promotion of more courses in Asian business studies. These are not just for Asian-Canadian students — any students with an Asian language background should find these courses especially attractive. However, this will be a wasted effort if Canadian companies fail to recognize the need for, and make use of, these skills in developing Asian business. The attitude encountered by some Asian business graduates that they should “forget about Asia until the economy picks up” is fortunately not universal as increasing Canadian investment in Asia shows. However, it does reflect the reality that far too many Canadian businesses do not yet know that they don’t know Asia. 57
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asia pacific foundation of canada 1
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Page 5 and 6: October 2000, we will hold the firs
Page 7 and 8: OVERVIEW 1 asia in convalescence 7
Page 9 and 10: ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Page 11 and 12: GRADE ‘98 Inward Investment C- In
Page 13 and 14: THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBALIZATION Unde
Page 15 and 16: The largest pool of investable Cana
Page 17 and 18: enabled Canada to take a stronger r
Page 19 and 20: emoval. However, most of the change
Page 21 and 22: MAJOR EVENTS 2 a year in review 21
Page 23 and 24: stock markets were climbing. As the
Page 25 and 26: six-fold in Thailand. With the exce
Page 27 and 28: the past played a very small role i
Page 29 and 30: it had allowed in recent years. A m
Page 31 and 32: SECURITY BACKTRACK While economic c
Page 33 and 34: Outbreaks of violence in other part
Page 35 and 36: ECONOMIC RELATIONS 3 looking for a
Page 37 and 38: TODAY’S DELAY IS TOMORROW’S LOS
Page 39 and 40: ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Page 41 and 42: to achieve operating efficiencies t
Page 43 and 44: Finally, foreign investment by Cana
Page 45 and 46: NORTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION 4 too mu
Page 47 and 48: similar to that with the US with on
Page 49 and 50: British Columbia provides a recent
Page 51 and 52: part of US-assembled goods bound fo
Page 53 and 54: ASIAN EXPERTISE 5 hidden advantage
Page 55: cautioned that “not every Asian C
Page 59 and 60: 6 DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE ODA for a
Page 61 and 62: the term “development assistance
Page 63 and 64: The report emphasizes the need to
Page 65 and 66: ASIA PACIFIC FOUNDATION OF CANADA 7
Page 67 and 68: CANADIAN EDUCATION CENTRE NETWORK T
Page 69 and 70: NOTES CHAPTER 1 1. Based on markets
Page 71 and 72: NOTES 5. Research by Tamim Bayoumi
Page 73 and 74: REFERENCES —. Statistics Canada.
Page 75 and 76: REFERENCES United Nations Conferenc
Page 77 and 78: STATISTICAL APPENDIX ASIAN MOTHER T
Page 79: STATISTICAL APPENDIX CANADA’S TRA
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