Mr. Chairman, I have not put in any written remarks, but I did want to make a few comments before the session begins.
First, let me say it's a pleasure to appear before the committee. Some of my views are public on issues such as Huawei and the Meng case, and the detention of the two Michaels, so I won't spend a lot of time dealing with those issues, but I'm happy to answer questions with respect to any of them or on my views with respect to any of them.
On the broader issue with respect to China, I think two things that happened in the last week or two are important. One is the meeting between the Americans and the Chinese on climate change. The other is the comments made today by the American Secretary of State in London, in which he essentially said that the goal of the United States was not the containment of China but rather that the competition with China, the relationship with China, needed to be conducted in an appropriate way in accordance with the multilateral system that we and in particular the Americans have spent many years trying to build since the Second World War.
I thought both of those events were important, and they suggest that there is perhaps a better way forward than under the previous American administration, but obviously that will take some time to develop.
My background, Mr. Chairman, is largely on the intelligence side. Indeed, I spent over 25 years in intelligence. I did want to make a couple of points with respect to that area.
First, let me say that there is more than one country that collects intelligence in Canada. China is by no means the only one that does so. It is, however, probably our largest counter-intelligence target, and that would have been true back as far as the late 1990s, so that isn't really a change.
The methods that China uses have not really changed either. There are some new cyber-tools that were not as advanced in the late 1990s, but those are in many respects only tools that allow agencies to do things that they did through other means in an earlier time.
The Chinese have over the years exercised a wide range of intelligence collection capabilities, including what we used to call “vacuum-cleaner collection”, which was everybody collecting all the time, so any visiting delegation would spend some of its time appearing in places where they were not supposed to be to take photographs or collect other information.
They also have very professional organizations that are dedicated to collecting intelligence in the normal ways that intelligence agencies, both in the west and in other parts of the world, collect information.
The Chinese also spend a great deal of time in developing those who they see as supporting their interests. Not all countries are so heavily engaged in that exercise as the Chinese, but certainly over the years the Chinese have emphasized developing the relationships that they see as possibly advancing the interests of China in dealing with a country like Canada or with other countries.
Finally, let me say that I think there is a tendency—or at least I have observed a tendency, because so little happens in the counter-intelligence world, or apparently so little happens in the counter-intelligence world—to believe that nothing is happening. Speaking as an intelligence professional, I guess, I would make the comment, which I hope is useful to the members of the committee, that the fact that you're not seeing anything doesn't mean that nothing is happening.
Counter-intelligence is not like counterterrorism, wherein the goal is to arrest a terrorist and either expel them from Canada or imprison them. Counter-intelligence is a much more long-term and much slower investigation, in which prosecution is not necessarily the aim of the game at the end of the day—