Canada-China Relations Committee on Aug. 17th, 2020

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I want to begin with Professor Medeiros. Professor, I only have six minutes, as you know.

Can you spend a couple of minutes on the following? It's a question not directly relating to Hong Kong, but it's important because I think Canada's foreign policy choices, even with respect to Hong Kong, will be shaped by the evolution of the U.S.-China relationship.

Recently you gave an interview to NPR in which you said the following about U.S.-China relations: “[The two countries have] gone through some very difficult times in 1989 after the Tiananmen massacre, but it looks like we're increasingly on a trajectory to a long-term strategic competition.”

Where do you see the U.S.-China relationship going? As I said, I think it shapes Canada's foreign policy choices indirectly, even with respect to Hong Kong.

[Evan S. Medeiros]

Thanks. It's a great question.

I spent my entire professional career studying the U.S.-China relationship, and then, when I was at the National Security Council, I was fortunate enough to basically be at the control panel. My considered judgment today is that the relationship is on a trajectory toward not only strategic competition but perhaps strategic confrontation if the Trump administration continues in the different direction. I worked for President Obama, so I have a lot of differences with the current trajectory, but you have to understand that there are structural problems at the heart of the U.S.-China relationship. We have differences over security issues like Taiwan, and U.S. forces in east Asia. We have differences over economic issues. We have differences over technology and increasingly on questions of ideology. Those are hard-wired differences in the relationship that have to do with interests and identity.

What I see is that we're in a period of greater divergence than convergence in our long-term interests. Combine those structural differences with the fact that we have lots of issues to argue about, such as Hong Kong right now, growing Chinese coercion over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and then, of course, technology policy, which seems to be in the news every day. As a Democrat who worked for President Obama, I am deeply concerned about the trajectory of the relationship.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have another question for you, and then I'll turn the same question over to Professor Ong, if I may.

We do hear about the need for multilateral approaches to be taken here. I think that's quite warranted. It's one thing to say that, though; I think the more important questions are these: What should a coalition of like-minded countries actually focus on? What areas, what specific actions, are most likely to have an impact on the Chinese regime's actions? What are they most likely to listen to? What particular tools can this coalition look to put in place?

[Evan S. Medeiros]

My view is that it needs to be issue-specific. You can't make an omnibus statement. That's generally not how international diplomacy works. On the Hong Kong issue, the question is this: What do you want to accomplish? Which countries' interests converge enough to put a coalition together? I mentioned the four earlier. Then, what can those four countries agree on in terms of practical steps, whether it's naming and shaming, actual sanctions, or opportunities like immigration and scholarships?

The way I see it, it's very issue-specific. It's all about what steps you can take to accomplish common goals. I think we're already seeing this on Hong Kong because of the agreement to withdraw from extradition treaties and to cut down on law enforcement co-operation. In the United States, at least, there are debates about taking steps similar to those of the U.K. on immigration. Perhaps Canada is interested in doing the same.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Professor Ong, I did say that I wanted to ask you that question, but Professor Medeiros put his finger on something that he'd mentioned in his introduction, so I want to take it in a different direction, if I could.

We heard today at this committee, and we've heard in previous meetings, about the need for Canada to look to policies that would have our country continue to provide refuge to individuals fleeing persecution, in this case, Hong Kong. What are your thoughts on that approach? Perhaps you can expand on that, looking specifically at Hong Kong and the issues that a number of political activists continue to face there. Is this an effective way for Canada to exert some impact on the Hong Kong issue and to help Hong Kongers who are facing great difficulty?

[Lynette H. Ong]

Thank you for the question. It's an important one.

In my view, the battle of Hong Kong is not a short-term game. We need to have a long-term trajectory. We need to be patient with it. Canada is a country that protects and preserves the liberal order. I think we should be helping to sustain the movement and the battle against a very huge authoritarian regime. Opening our door to activists, to people who have suffered and fought in the battle, and to talent from Hong Kong I think will go a long way toward helping in this fight in the medium to long run.

This is what we should be thinking about.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fragiskatos.

We now go to Mr. Bergeron for six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for contributing to the committee's work with their most insightful comments.

I will follow up on my colleagues' questions about the international coalition.

Mr. Medeiros, you are wholeheartedly calling for a kind of solidarity among the Western democracies to influence decisions in Beijing, particularly between the United States, Canada and a number of other Western democracies.

However, under the Trump administration, we see the United States blowing hot and cold with China, sometimes showing its teeth and at other times clearing the air. John Bolton, former national security advisor to the Trump administration, even revealed recently that Donald Trump had asked the Chinese authorities to help him win the election by purchasing products in certain states that are key to the election.

Under the circumstances, is it even possible to form a coalition like that with the United States? For example, how are the Taiwanese to feel, because they may well be a bargaining chip, so to speak, in the U.S. authorities' political calculations?

[Evan S. Medeiros]

Thank you very much. It's an excellent question, Mr. Bergeron. I'll take it in two parts.

First, regarding U.S. policy, my view is that international coalitions are much more credible when a member of the coalition, such as the United States, acts consistently. One of my concerns about the Trump administration's foreign policy is on this question of values and democracy promotion. They've been deeply inconsistent, which undermines American credibility and ultimately reduces the ability to forge coalitions in situations like Hong Kong and then to be credible in the eyes of Beijing.

I hope that in the future, perhaps after the election and regardless of its results, America re-embraces democracy promotion, because it's only through America being credible that we can build these more consistently reliable coalitions on these kinds of issues.

Regarding your question on Taiwan, the simple fact is Taiwan cannot and should not be a bargaining chip. It's not a very effective bargaining chip, and I think ultimately we would be betraying our commitments to our values and to the 24 million people who reside on Taiwan. Ultimately, if we started treating Taiwan as a bargaining chip in the Canada-China or the U.S.-China relationship, all we really would be doing is handing a substantial amount of leverage to Beijing and letting them know that we're indifferent about the future of Taiwan, which in my view is certainly not in American interests.

I think a question for you and other members of this special committee is how you want to deal with the question of Taiwan, because I think Taiwan too often is treated and seen as a pawn in the U.S.-China relationship, when in fact Taiwan should be treated in and of itself.

Of course, America has a very special relationship with Taiwan. I understand that, and that's not necessarily applicable to your situation, but I think there are things that you can do, and perhaps should do, on the question of Taiwan, that are independent of the Canada-China relationship. That would then bolster your credibility in your dealings with the Chinese.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Medeiros.

On the issue of sanctions, you co-wrote an article with Michael Green in which you say that sanctions are more likely to harm the Hong Kong economy than the Beijing economy. I would like to seize on that idea of yours to ask Ms. Ong this next question.

You mentioned that Xi Jinping's power is on somewhat shaky ground right now. Could international sanctions reassert Xi Jinping's authority over the Chinese or, on the contrary, undermine his credibility with his own people?

[Lynette H. Ong]

Thank you for that question. It is an important one.

I think that sanctions could have implications that go both ways. I would imagine that sanctions may be spun by the regime to shore up nationalism. They could be spun and framed as foreign sanctions versus China, and that will in turn help to bolster the regime. I think that sanctions that hurt Hong Kong and that in turn hurt the Beijing leadership might actually not help us to achieve our objective at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Ong.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

Now we have Mr. Harris for six minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for their presentations.

Dr. Medeiros, I'm interested in your comments on this matter.

You talked about American foreign policy, and I have before me an article from over the weekend talking about Secretary of State Pompeo's speech in the Czech Republic last week. In his remarks, in the same speech, he said, “What’s happening now isn’t Cold War 2.0.” He talked about the challenge of resisting the CCP threat as being in some ways much more difficult; saying that the CCP is “enmeshed in our economies, in our politics, in our societies in ways the Soviet Union never was”, and made other references. All the references, apparently, to China were not to the People's Republic of China or to the government but to the Communist Party.

The language in his speech about it not being a cold war seems to me rather ideological in nature and not diplomatic in terms of a strategic action by a state vis-à-vis another state. Is that language helpful, or are we really talking about an ideological battle with the Communist Party, as opposed to dealing with authoritarianism or anti-democratic activity, etc.? Could you comment on that, please?

[Evan S. Medeiros]

Sure, Mr. Harris.

The way I think about the U.S.-China relationship is that there are four principal areas of strategic competition: security, economics, technology and, increasingly, ideology.

The ideology dimension has come to the fore in recent years because of actions such as the promulgation of the national security law in Hong Kong, and also because of the way in which the Chinese have been promoting their view of political and economic governance abroad, which has raised the question and produced the debate in the United States about whether there is a systemic competition of ideas between America and China, somewhat like what happened with the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

I myself have not come to the conclusion that it is existential for the United States that China represents the kind of threat that the Soviet Union did, but I believe the Trump administration has come to that conclusion. They believe that China is trying to tear down the democratic world and replace it with the China model, if in fact there is a China model.

I think we need to be aware of the differences in values. We shouldn't be pulling punches, because there are big differences and China engages in behaviour that promotes its values, but do we really want to make it a cold war? There are some huge differences between the previous Cold War and the emerging U.S.-China strategic competition. I think what's important is to put boundaries around the ideological dimension of the U.S.-China relationship in order to put it in the context of the other areas of strategic competition.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I was concerned, Chair, about whether such characterizations and cold war references are actually helpful in building coalitions.

Professor Ong, you referred to the Chinese Communist Party in terms of the strategic interests of its leadership and the elite and how that would affect the kinds of actions that are being taken, which I see as a different thing.

You have said in the past, in talking about working together with other countries, that the United States and Canada have different interests, or that they do not always have the same interests, and that we need to chart an independent course of foreign policy with China. We have shared interests, but there are areas where policies should diverge, particularly given that Canada is a lesser power. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit and perhaps describe some of those differences.

[Lynette H. Ong]

China's relationship with the U.S. is very different from the type of relationship it has with other western liberal nations. With regard to U.S. and China relations, I think they are strategic competitors. I don't think Canada and China are necessarily strategic competitors. The U.S. sees China's rise in technological dominance and in other sectors as that of a rising competitor, whereas for Canada I think in some areas there's more scope for collaboration. In other areas, though, we should also be very mindful of the authoritarian nature of this political system and what that might do to Canadian interests.

I think the strategic calculation of being a competitor or a collaborator, and in what sectors that sort of calculation should apply, is very different when it comes to the perspective of the United States and Canada. That is why I think under the Trump administration the rhetoric is really not helping in putting together a united front and a concerted effort and push against China. If there's a change in the presidency in November, I'm more hopeful of an effective coalition against China. A western coalition without the United States is actually doable, but it's not as effective.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

We will begin the five-minute round with Ms. Alleslev, please.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses. As each of you has pointed out, our ability to take appropriate action in terms of our own foreign policy and as members of the multinational community is entirely dependent on the accuracy of the information we have with which to understand the situation and chart a path forward.

Toward that end, Mr. Cheung, you made some very important points around the threats to Canadian businesses operating in China, as well as the threats to Canadian citizens here on Canadian soil, from various forms of influence and coercion from the People's Republic of China. As parliamentarians, it's our responsibility to provide some information and advice and a course of action. We need to perhaps put in place legislation that would mitigate or at least protect in some regard Canadians on Canadian soil from the influence of the People's Republic of China and to protect to some extent those Canadian businesses operating in China.

Could you provide us with some recommendations, some specifics, on what type of legislation and what actions Canada could take to achieve those two very important goals?

[Alvin Y.H. Cheung]

In that connection, I would endorse some of the suggestions made by previous witnesses. In particular, that would be the creation of a point person within the government to address issues regarding threats to Canadian businesses operating in China and Canadian citizens in Canada. Beyond that, it would be the creation of a register of foreign lobbyists, not in the interest of inhibiting people from expressing what they like but to make sure that people are properly informed as to who is saying what, and for what reasons they might be doing so.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Could you cite any examples of those types of threats that you're aware of that have occurred for Canadian businesses in China? Would you have any idea of whether the situation is escalating or is pretty much the same?

[Alvin Y.H. Cheung]

I cannot speak directly to what's happening with Canadian businesses in the mainland. As far as Hong Kong is concerned, I've seen reports thus far relating to the British financial institutions HSBC and Standard Chartered. I would expect that similar pressure would be applied to Canadian institutions, although, again, I cannot speak with any certainty as to whether that has already happened.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

You also mentioned how important it is for us to have accurate information and that there are all kinds of pressures against those who would provide us with that accurate information to not do so, because of the threats and consequences that they may face.

How do we know and what can we do to ensure that we are getting the right information accurately and in a timely fashion, so that we can make appropriate and informed decisions?

[Alvin Y.H. Cheung]

Fundamentally I think that a large part of the problem is that when people feel threatened—as the reports that many other witnesses have referred to in the past in relation to harassment intimidation of activists in Canada mentioned—they try to get help from one particular governmental department or bureau, yet they are sent to another and another and another until eventually they give up. There should be ideally a one-stop shop.