Certainly.
I’d like to thank the Chairman and Committee members for the opportunity to appear this evening.
I would like to focus my remarks on China's approach to global governance and its implications for Canada.
The foundations of the current order were built after the Second World War and are anchored, as we all know, in the United Nations and the Bretton Woods system. For many years, Canadian foreign policy under both Liberal and Conservative governments was based on the premise that including China in the institutions of global governance would encourage it to become a responsible member of the international community and socialize it to adopt western norms and values.
Today I would suggest that we need to revisit that premise. In addition to its apparent steps to acquire a dominant position in the world, militarily and economically, China has embarked on a quest to acquire a dominant role in global governance.
The first pillar of that strategy is to strengthen its position and leadership within existing international institutions, particularly within the UN system and its specialized agencies.
The second pillar is a more ambitious quest to build a new economic order centred on the BRICS, which one day—and I stress “one day”—may parallel the Bretton Woods trading and monetary system.
To achieve this goal, China is using its wealth and power through its trillion-dollar belt and road initiative, which I think you're all familiar with, but it has developed a number of other new initiatives. These include the global development initiative and the global security initiative, which are also part of that blueprint for a new world order, and more recently its much-touted global civilization initiative and community with a shared future. However, its ambitions don't stop there.
The Human Rights Council, as we all know, has been one of China's targets in the UN system. UN peacekeeping is another area where China is expanding its role and influence. Over the past three decades, China has provided 50,000 peacekeepers to some 30 UN peacekeeping missions. It's the second-largest funder of those missions and today contributes more peacekeepers than any other permanent member of the Security Council.
Chinese personnel and staff also occupy many critical positions in the UN Economic and Social Council. It would also like to fill the leadership position of the department of peacekeeping operations, which today is filled by a French national and that probably isn't going to change for a bit.
Why does this matter?
Over the years, UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations have played an essential role in fostering democracy, advancing human rights and contributing to developing open markets. China's reputation and influence in those missions will move the goalposts away from democratization and good governance. China is also actively expanding its influence in bodies like the International Telecommunication Union, the International Organization for Standardization, the International Electrotechnical Commission and the third-generation partnership project. These are all vital standard-setting bodies for a wide variety of highly innovative Internet-based technologies, which, as we now know, are the focus of intense competition between China and the United States and its western allies.
Why does this matter?
A dominant position in these organizations, especially in the key global technology standard-setting bodies, gives a country control at the leading edge of the technological frontier, especially in setting technical protocols, standards for data exchanges, formatting and communications network security and performance, thus conferring a competitive advantage to its technology sector.
The second pillar of that global governance strategy is centred on creating its own separate international institutions and global forums, such as expanding BRICS, which has added six new members. China is also keen to replace the American dollar's dominance as a global reserve currency and the economic clout that comes with it.
Now, that's not going to happen any time soon because China would have to lift its capital restrictions for the renminbi, but never say never. The world is changing. The renminbi's global use is being aided by renminbi-clearing banks, the People's Bank of China's bilateral swap lines and China's cross-border interbank payment system.