Canada-China Relations Committee on Nov. 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Good evening, everyone.

I call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number six 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 for its study of the Canada-People's Republic of China relations with a focus on Canada-Taiwan 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.

I would like to offer the following comments as we get into tonight's session.

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. Please mute yourself when you're not speaking.

For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen—that little planet icon—of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I'll remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

Committee members, we will have a very short business session at the end of our testimony tonight. We just have one item of note on the calendar that we may have to make an adjustment for.

I'd now like to welcome our witnesses for the first section.

From the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada, we have Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng, representative; Bryan Chiao-Lu Ping, executive director; and Ethan Han-Ming Chen, executive assistant director.

Mr. Tseng, you have five minutes for your opening statement. Welcome to the Canada-China committee.

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng, Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada]

Thank you.

Honourable Chair, vice-chairs and members of the special committee, good evening.

It is my great pleasure to be invited to attend today's hearing. In my view, there can be no better timing for such a hearing, especially in the wake of the CCP's 20th party congress, which concluded less than two weeks ago. The political report delivered by Mr. Xi Jinping on October 16 has sent a chilling message to all of us in the like-minded group, and I would like to explain why closer ties between Taiwan and Canada will now be more important than ever.

The CCP has seen Xi as a paramount leader for his third term and beyond. The new Politburo standing committee makeup has killed all hopes for economic prospects for China and the world. The reaffirmed zero-COVID policy remains a major risk for growth, there is no hope of loosening regulations on Internet platforms and the real estate industry sees no policy U-turn. In short, Xi's idea of common prosperity will push China further away from the world market. While there are still debates over what is the best strategy to deal with China—decoupling or engagement—I think the answer is getting more and more clear.

For years China has set ambitious targets for its economic growth, but as the congress concluded, its spokesman said that growth figures would no longer be important from now on. The CCP has instead stressed equality over prosperity. Effectively, it spells a return to a communism not unlike the era under Mao, and thus, China is accelerating its self-initiated decoupling in the name of self-sufficiency and self-dependency. Canada, like any other country in the world, should beware of what awaits in the future.

Taiwan and Canada are like-minded partners. We share the same values of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights and the rule of law. Our shared values and beliefs are the pillars of our comprehensive ties and are manifested in various aspects of our bilateral relations, including our actions to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom.

As you know, peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait have been challenged recently. China used the visit of U.S. House Speaker Pelosi as a pretext to launch a large-scale military exercise to intimidate Taiwan. In this critical moment, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, Defence Minister Anita Anand and Trade Minister Mary Ng stood up respectively to urge China to refrain from escalating its military threats. We appreciate such timely gestures from Canada, alongside those of other like-minded countries, and we believe that Canada should do more.

For one thing, it's mutually beneficial to promote trade and investment between Canada and Taiwan and to jointly build a resilient supply chain among democracies. Our two-way trade surpassed $10 billion Canadian in 2021, a growth of 39% from 2020. Taiwan ranks as Canada's fifth-largest trading partner in Asia, and it is Canada's sixteenth-largest export market globally. Therefore, Taiwan's CPTPP membership and foreign investment promotion and protection agreements, or FIPAs, with Canada will no doubt bring our economic relations to a new height and reinforce our supply chain resilience.

To deter authoritarian states from taking any irresponsible actions, Canada can reiterate and demonstrate its staunch commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. I hereby urge the Canadian government to stand with Taiwan and support our position as follows.

Number one, Taiwan stresses that preserving peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific is of substantial interest to countries in the region. It urges Canada to continue supporting the development of peaceful relations across the Taiwan Strait through constructive bilateral and multilateral mechanisms.

Number two, Taiwan insists that all disputes in the Indo-Pacific should be settled by peaceful means on the basis of international law, and no country should take unilateral action to change the status quo. It calls on Canada to urge the PRC to refrain from further military action across the Taiwan Strait.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Mr. Tseng, that will conclude your time. It's actually a bit more than the five minutes for your opening statement. If you have further points to make, you will be able to work them in—

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

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, could I get unanimous consent for the representative to finish his statement?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Are we good with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Mr. Tseng, please continue.

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

Thank you.

Number three, Taiwan aspires to participate meaningfully in relevant international organizations and activities to make its due contributions. It urges Canada to continue assisting Taiwan in that regard and to help promote cross-trade dialogue that is conducive to the region's peace, stability and prosperity.

Thank you all. I'll be glad to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much, Mr. Tseng.

As we get into our first round of questioning, I'd like to welcome Mr. Kurek to the committee this evening. You're here for a good time, not a long time, I understand. That's fine. I hope we show you a good time tonight.

For our first six minutes, we'll go to Mr. Chong.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Representative Ho-jen Tseng, for appearing before our committee.

You mentioned in your opening remarks that there's a debate going on about decoupling versus engagement on the part of democracies with the People's Republic of China, and that the answer is becoming more and more clear.

Do you believe it's time for democracies like Canada and Taiwan to decouple economically from the People's Republic of China, particularly in the five sensitive areas of critical minerals, semiconductors, biotechnology, telecommunications and artificial intelligence?

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

In my view, decoupling is happening, like it or not, and some of it is coming from China, as indicated very clearly in the 20th party congress political report. Even though it has been going on for a few years, the step is ongoing.

I think it is only wise to be prepared for economic decoupling to come closer and come more quickly.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that answer.

On October 15, in an interview with the Toronto Star, you warned that global leaders should be careful about lending credibility to the narrative being pushed by the People's Republic of China that recent visits to Taiwan by foreign legislators, previously treated as routine, are now provocative.

In what ways have government leaders been lending credibility to the PRC's narrative that visits by legislators, such as those from the Canadian House of Commons, are intended to provoke the PRC?

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

The way I see it is that visits by parliamentary members to Taiwan—whether they come from Canada or from other countries—have been a matter of fact for many years. They only stopped because of the pandemic and because the border control regulations made it difficult for such a routine to happen. As most countries around the world decide to live with the virus and lift border control regulations, I think we'll see more parliamentary delegations coming to Taiwan to show their support for Taiwan.

Of course, the visit of Canadian parliamentary members just a few weeks ago turned out to be a great success. The way I see it, in the media here and in Taiwan it's all very positive, except for some official responses from the Chinese embassy here. I think it's very clear that their purpose is to promote trade and investment with Taiwan. The program they went through in Taiwan very much demonstrated our purpose.

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

Do you believe these visits are reducing the chance of a war between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, in the sense that they increase the cost to China of starting such a war?

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

I do think so. I think the visits of foreign dignitaries or politicians to Taiwan to show their support are, I'm sorry to say, something that the PRC doesn't like to see. The reason they want to stop these kinds of visits is that they don't want the world to show their support for Taiwan. Their explanation is that more support for Taiwan will perhaps encourage Taiwan to go for independence.

That is totally not respecting the fact of what is going on in Taiwan. It's not the policy of the current government, and it wasn't even the policy of the previous government, that Taiwan wants to seek de jure independence. That is not our policy.

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

I have a final question.

You've said recently that President Xi, who has just secured a precedent-breaking third five-year term, will now use this third term of his to force Taiwan, through military means, to come to the table. As you know, Canada promised exploratory talks with Taiwan on a foreign investment promotion and protection agreement last January, 10 months ago, but has yet to say whether it's ready to start those talks. You've called on Ottawa to begin negotiations on free trade with Taiwan as a demonstration of support for Taiwan.

Can you tell us how important it is that these two things begin—that is, negotiations on a foreign investment promotion and protection agreement and free trade talks—not just for the mutual economic benefit of our two countries but also in the view that they increase the cost to the People's Republic of China of invading Taiwan?

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

I think there are two pillars in Taiwan supporting Taiwan's continuous development: economic development and national development as a whole. This is about our economic growth. Robust economic growth is very important to Taiwan, because that will support us to better build our self-defence capabilities. This is why we emphasize so much that the FIPA between our two countries, and the CPTPP among the trans-Pacific partners, would be very important for Taiwan. We have been working pretty much on our own to develop robust economic growth, but we are coming into a new age where doing it on our own will be more and more difficult. We need to work with partners, especially like-minded partners.

The FIPA, which stands for “foreign investment promotion and protection agreement”, is, in a way, a free trade agreement under a different name. It's very clearly important for us. This is self-evident. There's also the CPTPP. We applied to join the CPTPP in September of last year. This has a high standard for a trading bloc, higher than that set by the World Trade Organization—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Mr. Tseng, I have to interrupt you there. Mr. Chong is out of time for his portion of the questioning.

We'll now go to Mr. Fragiskatos for six minutes or less.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Sir, it seemed like you were at the tail end of your answer. If there was more to your response and you want to finish it, you can go ahead and do so.

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

No. That's okay.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Okay.

In your opening remarks you talked about resilient supply chains between democracies. I think that's a very important and compelling point that's being made.

I wonder if you could expand on that with reference to how Canada-Taiwan relations, particularly economic relations, would fit in, what it might look like to intertwine supply chains more and where we can see that happening in the relationship between our two countries.

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

I am not an economist, but from what I understand, Minister Champagne mentioned just a few days ago the building of an economic belt from New York to Montreal. I believe he's seen the strength of Montreal as an AI designing centre. This new economic belt, perhaps, is looking at electric vehicles.

I came to understand only recently that the traditional cars we drive with fossil fuels need just 18 chips, but every electric vehicle, or EV, needs 250 chips. That requirement for chips is 13 times more than it is for a traditional car.

You are very good at AI ecology, combining different AIs in a very nice design. We are very good at making chips. I think the potential for co-operation is high. If we can work together by using the strengths of Taiwan's chipmaking and your strengths in AI design, we can bring our economic relations to a new height.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

That's a very interesting point, and it relates to my second question, which is on the second track of diplomacy, as it is sometimes called, or the people-to-people ties that can sometimes strengthen relations.

Can you talk about that, and the linkages that exist in education and business? I also understand there's engagement happening between Canada and Taiwan on indigenous issues. I wonder if you could highlight that and give your view. To what extent could it help boost the intertwining of supply chains? You had a specific example there, but I think the second track of diplomacy is always helpful in advancing major goals.

[Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng]

It's very inspiring to me. I think people-to-people diplomacy, or what you call the second track of diplomacy, is the backbone of relations. You cannot have a political relation without people-to-people relations. It would be so weak and vacuous.

This people-to-people diplomacy or engagement has somehow been affected by the pandemic. If we look back only two or three years, you would be confused about exactly how much our people-to-people contact has changed. If we go back to before the pandemic, you would see that the number of tourists coming from Taiwan to Canada and vice versa was growing. This is a country that is so welcome and well-received in Taiwan. In Taiwan, it is very common for you to find that any family will have one member or friend of the family who has some connections in Canada. They have a relative, friend or classmate in Canada.

This is perhaps why even during the pandemic we had two ministers visiting Canada this year. One is our overseas community affairs minister. The other is our aboriginal affairs minister. Both of them deal with people-to-people relations, or popular affairs. It is not so much about talking about the issues of security or trade I mentioned. It's one indication telling you that people-to-people relations between our two countries are indeed very comprehensive and deep.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Our chair is giving me that look. I don't think I have more time.

If I did, I would ask you about disinformation and the way that materializes in Taiwan as a result of China's efforts. What can Canada do to help Taiwan with disinformation? Perhaps there will be an opportunity to raise that in the meeting, or perhaps other colleagues want to put it on the table.

Thank you very much for your time.