I call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 43 of the House of Commons Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship. 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.
This is for everybody in the room, but the MPs are now quite accustomed to making sure their earpieces are well away from the microphones. We don't want feedback hurting our interpreters, and that has happened. We have had some pretty serious incidents. Just be aware of that.
We are meeting, of course, in a hybrid format with members attending in person and remotely using the Zoom application. Wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic. Please mute yourself when you're not speaking.
For interpretation, for those on Zoom, you have a choice at the bottom of the screen. Just look for that little planet and click on it. You can choose floor audio, English or French. For those in the room, of course, you have the earpiece and the channel available to you.
Just as a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair. They should be, but quite often they are not. That's okay. That's just the way things have progressed as we have gone along.
We're meeting today on the matter of Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy. I want to welcome our witnesses for our first panel today and thank them for their patience while we got a vote out of the way. It was national pharmacare tonight, third reading. It's on its way to the Senate, I would presume.
From the University of British Columbia, we have Kai Ostwald, associate professor, Institute of Asian Research.
From the University of Delaware, we have Alice Ba, professor, international relations and comparative politics, University of Delaware, by video conference.
From the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, we have Hugh Stephens, distinguished fellow—both generally and by title, I presume—again by video conference.
Each of you has up to five minutes, but make it shorter, if you can manage it, because we have lost a bit of time tonight.
We will begin with Mr. Ostwald.