Canada-China Relations committee  That is a challenge, and poses a constant threat. It’s a fact of life. History reveals that, over the last 100 years, Chinese intelligence services have focused on the Chinese diaspora, with whom they are most comfortable, since this population speaks Mandarin or one of the Chinese dialects.

Canada-China Relations committee  I don't think China lies awake at night worrying about Canada.

Canada-China Relations committee  Maybe they don't care because they have a tous azimuts foreign policy. They have folks in their embassy in Copenhagen who speak Danish. Like any great power, they do everything in detail so other people notice. They really didn't like the fact that we called them a “disruptive” actor.

Canada-China Relations committee  If you're going to cancel it or freeze it, better to not have gone in in the first place. However, I would note that while the belt and road is a totally opaque organization with no governance that's visible, it is at a scale that's at least 10 times the size of the AIIB. The belt and road is a far more challenging and difficult institution.

Canada-China Relations committee  When I look at Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, I don’t necessarily see any details that could apply to the New Brunswick situation. In principle, though, we need to make greater efforts to help seafood exporters, for example. Although we shouldn’t limit ourselves to this, one possible measure is to increase Chinese investment in Canada, in the Atlantic provinces, but this approach presents a political challenge.

Canada-China Relations committee  Could I add a few words? I haven't done the math, but I think the effects of a thoroughgoing set of sanctions in the United States would be catastrophic in the short to medium term. It would be immensely inflationary. In many cases, the necessary inputs to manufacture would not be there.

Canada-China Relations committee  I've been really wrong in my long career on certain things, particularly the Soviet Union. I could see the cracks in the wall. I thought it was all going to come down. I thought it was going to take 50 years. Eighteen months after I left my mission, it had all collapsed. Take that as a warning.

Canada-China Relations committee  It might have been....

Canada-China Relations committee  That's fair enough. The influence comes in different ways. We are but 40 million people. Again, the heavy battalions are in Asia, where provinces of China have, in some cases, triple that. India obviously as well, and Indonesia.... We have what we call the physics of power, that scale issue.

Canada-China Relations committee  Do you mind if I go first? I'm thinking of a recent column by Mr. Ibbitson, which touched on those things. I agreed with his description of the problem. I'm not sure I entirely agreed with the conclusions. It is certainly true that the Chinese population is irrevocably going to decline.

Canada-China Relations committee  You can take me out of Alberta, but you can't take the Alberta out of me. It's very true. The world is shifting in profound ways. The fact that it's rather gradual doesn't mean that it isn't happening swiftly. When I left Beijing in 2004 to go to Taiwan, and it feels like forever now, the Chinese economy was roughly one-twelfth of what it is today.

Canada-China Relations committee  It’s always tempting to only talk with countries that share our values, rather like a conversation that takes place between members of the same family. In my opinion, this is because the majority of the world is not democratic. Some one hundred countries have human rights policies that are distressing or, at least, less than stellar.

Canada-China Relations committee  Climate change makes good sense. China is 20% of the world's population, so there are going to be areas where we have common ground. Health would be another. Unfortunately, it's been damaged in the eyes of the Canadian public due to some of the factors involved in the pandemic: vaccines that didn't go forward, suspicion about the origins of COVID, etc.

Canada-China Relations committee  Thank you, Chair Hardie, for the opportunity to speak to the House of Commons China committee on Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy. I can answer questions in either French or English. It has been just over a year since the public release of the Indo-Pacific strategy, but we've already seen significant changes in the strategic environment.