I will use a very specific example to illustrate that point. My colleagues and I, the heads of the Five Eyes intelligence services, took the unprecedented avenue of meeting together in public for the first time in our history in October of last year at Stanford University in the context of talking about innovation and the need to secure innovation for the well-being, prosperity and security of our countries in the future. We had a common assessment, the heads of Five Eyes, that specifically the work of the PRC against all of us, against essentially any organization that has information or know-how that the PRC is interested in, puts us at risk because there is an institutional approach through the thousand talents programs, through covert espionage activities and through open arrangements and investments to try to get information.
What is done in an overt way is not the problem. In the case of the PRC, there is a very specific set of conditions that apply, and the Chinese Communist Party has been very clear that their goal is to have, for example, the most advanced and modern military by 2049. In order to do so, the President of China, Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party, chairs a committee of military-civil fusion. In all of the information, know-how and data they acquire, there is an institutional approach to try to leverage it and turn it into a military advantage.
From that point of view, Mr. Fragiskatos, you're right to say that it's not just Canada under threat, but any other country that has something the PRC is interested in acquiring.