Canada-China Relations Committee on Oct. 18th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to the fourth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the Canada—People's Republic of China Relationship.

I've heard skiing described as a series of linked recoveries, and I think that also describes our process for putting these sessions together late on Tuesday evening. We've had to do a bit of playmaking along the way here, but we'll go through the preliminaries for the benefit of the people on Zoom. We'll get that done, and then I think we'll also have a decision to make around the vote that's expected a bit later this evening.

Pursuant to the order of reference of May 16, 2022, the committee is meeting on its study of Canada-People's Republic of China relations.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. For the benefit of the witnesses and members, please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike, and then please mute yourself when you're not speaking. For interpretation, for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French audio. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I'll remind meeting participants that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand if we're in that kind of a session. For members on Zoom, use the “raise hand” function. I'll keep an eye on the screen for you. Of course, we'll try to maintain a speaking order as best we can.

Before we welcome our witnesses, I believe Mr. Chong wishes to raise a point.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes, I have a point of order, Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

There have been discussions with various members of the committee, and I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the committee to sit until 8:25 p.m. tonight, then suspend for the vote that is to take place at 8:30, and then come out of suspension when the vote has been completed and members have returned to the committee.

I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to do that, which will allow our second and third panels of witnesses to maximize the availability of their time to provide testimony to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I'd also add that we'll probably ask for unanimous consent to continue on for a wee while after the bells start ringing.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

That was my suggestion. The bells will start ringing at eight o'clock. The votes are at 8:30. I believe that if you seek it, you'll find unanimous consent to suspend at 8:25 p.m.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Well, let's seek it. Is everybody in agreement? Do we have unanimous consent for that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I think we're in good shape. Thank you very much.

I'd like to welcome witnesses for our first hour.

Oh, there's one other thing before I forget. In our second panel, Dr. Sophie Richardson from Human Rights Watch, who you will see was scheduled to be here, unfortunately did not receive the proper headset in time to participate, and for purposes of interpretation, we have to make sure that the right equipment is being used. The clerk is making arrangements to have Dr. Richardson, who's a very valued witness in this process, appear at our next session—just to flag that for you.

Welcoming our witnesses for the first hour, as an individual, we have Dr. David Curtis Wright, associate professor of history at the University of Calgary, and as an individual, Guy Saint-Jacques, consultant and director.

Mr. Saint-Jacques, I believe we'll start with you for five minutes or less.

[Guy Saint-Jacques, Consultant and Director, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship.

Thank you for inviting me to appear before you. My presentation will be mainly in English, but I will be happy to answer questions in French.

Let me start first with the China of Xi Jinping.

As you know, the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is ongoing. While we know that Xi Jinping will get a third mandate as secretary general of the party, the only suspense is whether he will have to compromise with other factions in the makeup of the standing committee of the politburo. Also, will he get a new title, chairman or leader of the people, which would give him status similar to that of Mao Zedong?

Based on his speech at the opening of the session, we know he is not changing course, as his goal remains to make China the greatest superpower by 2049. He warned CCP members to be ready to “withstand high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms”. He stressed also the need to tell the China story, to promote China's narrative, to present a China that is credible and respectable, and to better show China's culture to the world.

We also have to recognize that China has become much more influential in international organizations, where it is trying to control the debate, change the norms to its advantage and avoid criticism of its practices and policies. Most recently, this happened at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, where China and its supporters managed to prevent a debate on the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Bachelet, on the situation in Xinjiang.

Let me now turn to the bilateral relationship. Despite the release of Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels one year ago, our relationship with China is still very difficult, with almost no political dialogue. China keeps saying that Canada must learn from its mistakes. This illustrates how difficult it has become for all western countries to engage with Chinese diplomats, as they reject any criticism and they follow the instruction of Xi Jinping to push back.

The good news is that China has agreed to the nomination of Jennifer May as Canada's new ambassador to China. Mrs. May is a career diplomat who will do well in Beijing because of her relevant prior experience and her competencies, including in Mandarin, and I wish her the best of luck.

Ottawa has been struggling with how to deal with China. We were first promised, a few years back, a revised engagement strategy with China by Minister Champagne, but the process got derailed. It then morphed into an Indo-Pacific strategy that Minister Joly has been working on for a year now. We learned recently that, after all, it won't be unveiled before the Prime Minister goes to the APEC summit next month, so that's another delay.... This is puzzling, to say the least.

While Ottawa is faced with the challenge of dealing with a bully that does not respect international law, it must still find ways to deal with it and push back when its values and interests are threatened. This should normally lead to an engagement strategy that is much more strategic and limited to areas where it is in our interest to pursue co-operation with China, assuming, of course, that it wants to entertain a more limited relationship.

For example, on the environment, Canada has already a reputable record of providing assistance. We could provide China with clean technologies, liquefied natural gas and green or blue hydrogen to help China reduce its coal addiction. On public health and pandemics, Canada should continue to collaborate with China, especially to ensure it doesn't cut corners. Nuclear proliferation is another area that requires more discussion.

It's also crucial that Canada work closely with its allies to develop common strategies to oppose China's abhorrent behaviour. One way to do this would be to strengthen the multilateral system and ensure that UN organizations, including the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization, play their part and can be used to counter China.

In this respect, I was very encouraged by last week's speech by Minister Freeland before the Brookings Institution in Washington, where she emphasized the need to reduce our vulnerability to totalitarian regimes, both in trade and politically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Monsieur Saint-Jacques, I believe we've gone through your five minutes. I'm sure you'll have more to say. We can maybe work that in as you respond to questions from the members here. Thank you very much for your presentation.

Dr. Wright, you're up next, for five minutes or less.

[Dr. David Curtis Wright, Associate Professor of History, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I teach a course in Taiwan history at the University of Calgary. Every other year, I teach it. I'm now completing a book on the White Terror in Taiwan, or Chiang Kai-shek's crackdown on suspected Communist agents between 1947 and 1986 or so.

I've been thinking and worrying about Taiwan for over four decades now. I first went to Taiwan in 1980 when I was still a teenager, and I have been criss-crossing the Pacific to and from that beautiful island ever since. I am still as besotted with it today as I was in September 1980, but now I worry more than ever about mainland China's military threat to the island.

In the free and democratic world, we feel an easy and natural affinity with fellow democratic countries and societies and long deeply to be in solidarity with them and protect them, if we can, against threats by non-democratic and anti-democratic dictatorships, but ironically and tragically, some of the steps that democratic countries wish to take towards protecting Taiwan's democracy may in fact achieve just the opposite result.

As far as Taiwan today is concerned, are high-profile visits by political bigwigs from democratic countries the best way to support Taiwan? What if they make us feel good but make hundreds of millions of people in mainland China feel very bad indeed?

As I wrote in the Calgary Herald on August 6 this year:

On the mainland, a large majority of Chinese support unification with Taiwan, even by force if necessary, not out of mindless pugnacity or sheer cussedness, but because they feel deeply, in their bones, that China's loss of Taiwan in 1895 is a longstanding grave historical injustice to China, one that must not remain unredressed indefinitely.

My wife of 38 years, who is with me here tonight, was born in Taiwan to Chinese parents who fled the mainland in 1949 in the face of the Communist takeover. She both strongly dislikes Chinese Communism and understands very well that the overwhelming majority of people who identify as Chinese, including her, will never accept Taiwan formalizing and normalizing its current de facto independence. For her and the overwhelming majority of people in mainland China, China's loss of Taiwan to Japan in 1895 remains a deep humiliation, one that will never be erased until the effects of the Treaty of Shimonoseki are fully reversed.

Today, she greatly fears that the failure of or refusal by many Taiwanese today to take this threat seriously will end in unspeakable tragedy for Taiwan.

I am sure that the situation in Ukraine right now does indeed give the CCP and the People's Liberation Army significant pause and great cause for concern, but this does not mean that the CCP will abandon the option of military force against Taiwan. China may defer its plans to invade Taiwan, but it will never abandon them.

Make no mistake: China will attack Taiwan if it becomes convinced that Taiwan will always decline any and all overtures for peaceful annexation. China's sabre-rattling and gruff pronouncements about Taiwan may look bellicose and buffoonish, and they may well be, but this does not mean China is bluffing. It is not.

I do not presume to advise this committee on all aspects of Canada-China relations, but your difficult—and prickly right now—management of these relations will require careful, prudent and multivalent formulations. I ask only that this committee take Beijing's firm and recently reiterated commitments regarding Taiwan into account as it navigates the troubled waters of Canada's relations with China.

A line in the ancient Chinese text Tao Te Ching says this: “No other folly or calamity is greater than underestimating one's opponent.”

I implore this committee and this Parliament not to underestimate or downplay or discount Beijing's resolve in this regard.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much, Dr. Wright.

It's time now for our first round of questioning.

With that, I'd like to welcome Mr. Seeback and Mr. Kmiec as our new Conservative members on this committee.

Thank you. It's good to have you here.

Madame Normandin is representing the Bloc in place of Mr. Bergeron tonight, and Ms. Kwan is here in place of Ms. McPherson. On the screen, I recognize Mr. Iacono, who doesn't look a bit like Jean Yip but will be replacing her tonight.

With that, we'll go to our first questions, with six minutes for Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate our witnesses giving their opening remarks.

I know my father was deeply humiliated when he fled mainland China ahead of the Communist advance southward, never to return to that land, immigrating to Canada in 1952, and severing his entire life, as millions of others have done over the last number of decades, because of the authoritarianism and human rights violations of that state. I want to make sure, Mr. Chair, that goes on the record.

I have a question for Mr. Saint-Jacques. As he mentioned in his opening statement, the government is working on an Indo-Pacific strategy that has been talked about for some time. Does Mr. Saint-Jacques believe this document should identify the People's Republic of China as a strategic rival, as has been done by some of Canada's closest allies, such as Germany, the United States and other very close formal allies?

[Guy Saint-Jacques]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

I think we have learned a lot about China in the last three or four years. Of course, the detention of the two Michaels was a very difficult period, but we also learned that China is adept at using trade as a weapon. We suffered a loss of $4.5 billion in exports after the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. More recently, Australia was at the receiving end after former prime minister Scott Morrison asked for a full investigation into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We also know how much repression has increased in China under Xi Jinping. In listening to Xi Jinping's speech last Sunday, it was clear he feels he is on a mission and wants to change the norms and standards at international organizations. From my perspective, it should be easy for Ottawa to conclude that China has become a strategic rival and competitor, and that we have to align very closely with our friends and allies.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Saint-Jacques. I have another question.

You mentioned the big meeting taking place, currently, in Beijing, which will crown President Xi for his unprecedented third term and possibly provide him with the title Mao once had. However, there are signs that China is faltering. In fact, yesterday the Government of China delayed the release of key economic and GDP data, and rumours are flying around that it's because the data isn't very good. China's growth has dropped precipitously, as has a key element of their economy: their housing market. There have been many companies going bankrupt and runs on banks. That has been evident in China.

I'm wondering if you could comment on Xi's goal of creating China as the world's greatest superpower in the context of an economy that is faltering and a demography that is about to peak and decline.

Perhaps Dr. Wright could also comment on that.

[Guy Saint-Jacques]

I think you describe very well the situation General Secretary Xi is facing. In fact, housing represents 25% of the Chinese GDP. Housing construction is down 40% this year. The unemployment rate among young people 18 to 24 is 20%, and there's a lot of dissatisfaction among young people. Add to this the fact that this year we will probably see the start of the decline of the Chinese population, because last year there were 10.6 million births, but the number of deaths was over nine million. This year, probably, the number of deaths will be over the number of births.

If you add to this the deaths at the municipal level and the impact of bad management of COVID-19 on the Chinese economy, according to institutions like the World Bank, growth will be reduced by 2%, which means China will be lucky to have a growth rate of 2.8% to maybe three point something—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Saint-Jacques.

I'd like to hear from Dr. Wright on the challenges President Xi will have in light of declining economic growth relative to that over the last 20 years and also relative to their demographic challenges.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Please give us a short answer if you can, Dr. Wright. Thank you.

[Dr. David Curtis Wright]

The economic decline is going to be very difficult for China, I think. China is still an overwhelmingly export-oriented economy, and as world economic conditions worsen, they will worsen in China as well. There will be a lot of political implications to this, and I think Xi Jinping is gearing up for them. As for demography, by 2035 there will be only three point something working individuals for every elderly person in China. No public pension system in the world could withstand that kind of strain. That is why Xi Jinping is trying to download the responsibility back onto children, as it traditionally was. There are people—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Dr. Wright. I appreciate your input, but we've run out of time for Mr. Chong.

It is time now to turn to Mr. Oliphant for six minutes or less.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you again to both the witnesses for being here.

I'm probably going to focus a bit more on Mr. Saint-Jacques tonight.

Just to give Dr. Wright notice, we may want you to come back when we get more into Taiwan, which will be a study in the very near future. That's just to give you a little heads-up that I think your expertise could be helpful.

Thank you, Mr. Saint-Jacques, for your comments. As always they were thoughtful and strong, and you avoided jargon or rhetoric, which you do very well, so thank you for that.

I want to give you a chance to finish your remarks, because I always think your finishes are strong. I was getting a little sense, without your using the jargon that the government has been using, around the areas of co-operation, competition, challenge and co-existing—the four Cs that Minister Garneau used.... You didn't use them, but they seemed to be in line with your approach as we come out of, perhaps, what was formerly a naive approach to China and into a more “eyes wide open” approach.

Do you have any comments on that?

[Guy Saint-Jacques]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant. In fact, I was getting to the part of my speech where I was congratulating the government on the adoption of the declaration against arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations in February of last year, and I was going to add that in fact now is the time to maybe put some teeth into that declaration by talking with allies to agree on common responses, including sanctions, if China uses such tactics again.

I agree, as I said in my remarks, that we have to engage with China. That being said, I'm not sure that China will want to engage with us. Messages coming, for instance, from the Chinese ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, are discouraging. He keeps saying that we have to learn from our mistakes, but, assuming they want to play games and that Ambassador May is able to make progress, we have to define areas in which it's in our interest and also in the interest of China to work with us.

I mentioned environment and climate change. Canada has had long-standing co-operation with China. We helped to create the Chinese ministry of the environment through the development assistance provided by CIDA. We helped to create the dairy industry. We helped in many areas, and we were financing the functioning of the China Council until a few years ago.

On health, I don't know the situation now, but we used to have very good collaborations between Canadian scientists and Canadian doctors and their Chinese counterparts. Unfortunately the arrest of Meng Wanzhou derailed such co-operation.

This being said, I was quite encouraged to hear Minister Freeland in her speech last week in Washington, because in my view she understands very clearly the challenges we face with China, which is a country that has become more and more aggressive and assertive on the international scene and one that does not listen very well to criticism. China has also started to decouple its economy from the rest of the world, which means Canada has to work a lot more closely with allies in all kinds of political and commercial subjects to try to develop common approaches and positions with regard to China.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Because my time is very limited, I want you to comment a little.... In that search for allies, we have a difficult situation following the UN Human Rights Council report that High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet did, that China was successful in gathering its allies together, perhaps more successful than we were. Have you any comments on that?

[Guy Saint-Jacques]

Clearly, we have to try to reinforce multilateral institutions. Canada is a small country when we look at it from an international perspective, and we need well-functioning international organizations, be they the World Health Organization or the World Trade Organization.

It's true that China has been using its assistance through the belt and road initiative and its development assistance to rally support, mostly from developing countries, to good effect. As you said, the latest example came when the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva decided not to study the report of Ms. Bachelet, which was a big disappointment.

For that, I think it's possible to work with allies, to work with developing countries, to try to convince them that their interests are better served by well-functioning, multilateral organizations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant. That's your time.

Ms. Normandin, you have six minutes or less.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'd like to thank the witnesses for taking part in this meeting. I'm very happy to participate in this committee's work because I always learn so much.

Mr. Saint‑Jacques, I'd like to come back to what Mr. Oliphant just mentioned about the allies Canada can call upon on the international scene, particularly in terms of security.

As we know, Canada is not part of the AUKUS alliance. Some say that it's a missed opportunity. Others say that Canada was simply not invited, perhaps because of a lack of seriousness in some respects. Very recently, a French ambassador to Canada was somewhat critical of Canada's approach to continental defence. He was talking about Canada's aging fleet of submarines.

Could you tell me what you think Canada could do to become a more credible partner for potential allies, particularly in terms of national security?