Canada-China Relations Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec. Now we will go to Ms. Sgro for five minutes or less.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks very much to the committee for allowing me to sit in here for a few minutes today, especially as you're studying Taiwan.

We recently came back with the parliamentary friendship group that visited in spite of the push-back. The committee stayed tough and stayed strong. Right up until we got there, I wasn't sure we were going, but we got there and nobody backed down in spite of emails and threats and the rest of it that was going to create World War III.

You know, your colleagues and mine all stayed tough and had an absolutely wonderful visit. We were so impressed on their national day with the speech the president delivered about standing up against any kind of military force, about how they were not going to rely solely on their friends and neighbours, about how they have invested billions of Taiwanese dollars into the defence system and created an all-out defence mobilization agency to protect them, and about how they were not going to stand back and let anybody push them around.

I think Ukraine has clearly created a big fear of the reality of the monster they have next door to them. I would really like to encourage the committee to visit Taiwan because I think it would be very beneficial to everyone.

We visited a lot of the businesses there. Northland Power is wind and solar. It has a huge investment there and is bidding on multi-million-dollar projects for wind and solar, and it will probably will be successful.

The University of Waterloo is signing an MOU with Taiwan right now on issues of semiconductors and various other things. Taiwan has offered to share its knowledge with academics from Canada when it comes to semiconductors and other things. It very much believes in sharing knowledge. That was very impressive.

One thing that was also really very helpful—and you heard this from Professor Robertson on the issue of your friends—is that when things are tough, that's when you need your friends to stand by you. There was a steady stream of parliamentary friendship groups going to Taiwan. We left, and another one arrived. Every week there was another country showing up in Taiwan in order to send the message clearly to China that Taiwan has a huge number of friends.

However, we have to be very careful diplomatically to continue to.... I don't think we need to tiptoe as much as we do, but I think we have to use diplomacy. It's what Professor Robertson was indicating. Taiwan got where it is because it is very diplomatic. It is quiet, and it continues to advance everything that's going to be necessary to protect itself. It's very strong economically. It has huge budget surpluses that we could only dream about, but it's investing them in areas of protection and infrastructure.

I'd like to ask Mr. Robertson or Mr. Lam about the issue of the CPTPP. That is something that Taiwan very much should be part of, wants to be part of and has a campaign to be part of. Do you think there would be much push-back? I think everybody is tiptoeing around because they're afraid to do anything, even on our visit, that is going to trigger anything. Do you think that if the CPTPP turned around and invited Taiwan to be part of it—even though China knows it doesn't deserve to be there in any way, shape or form—it would trigger a very negative reaction for Taiwan?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Dr. Lam, would you like to start?

[Dr. Tong Lam]

Thank you.

I don't know how to answer this question. It's really hard to speculate on how China would respond. Given its particular take on history and its understanding of its place in the world, I think it's extremely important: We need to have a channel that's capable of communicating with them so that it's understood that this is not an act of provocation. I think anything would have to be done in such a way.

If the question is specifically on whether it will provoke them, I think anything could potentially be read in such a way. Any acts that particularly would be seen as either isolating them or changing them are, I think, the biggest fears they would have. I think those are some of the parameters that one would have to consider for any kind of policy.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Robertson, would you comment?

[Colin Robertson]

China won't like it, but remember that when China came into the World Trade Organization and they were part of that, we recognized plurilateral trade agreements. Taiwan is also part of the World Trade Organization, so you can argue that it's simply a continuation of something that China has already agreed to do.

But of course they will react. I will say this: My five years in Hong Kong convinced me that the big challenge ahead of us is not between right and left or between our parties but between open and closed systems. That, I think, will be the fundamental challenge for our time.

On your observations about democracy and standing with your friends, we can't be shy about it, because if we are, we're going to lose it.

On supporting Taiwan to become a member of the CPTPP, they would qualify. They are an important economy. I think they would legitimately qualify. I think China wouldn't like it, but if they followed through on the logic of their having joined the WTO and recognizing the rules of the WTO, they'd have to accept it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much.

That brings us to the end of our first panel.

Thank you, Professor Robertson and Dr. Lam, for your time with us this evening. Thank you.

We'll suspend briefly while we bring in our second panel.

Just as a quick note to everyone, our—

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I apologize for interrupting you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Yes, sir, go ahead.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Can we not have some time, even if it's only a minute, to speak with this group of witnesses again?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

We have pretty much run the hour and we have a vote coming up, which will subtract from the time of our second panel. Unfortunately, we'll cut it off right now and launch the second panel. I offer my regrets there.

I have just a quick note. Our third panel tonight, based on our experience last week, will not appear because they did not have the appropriate headset. We'll go through, have the vote, and that will be it for our session tonight. We want to give everybody ample time in the second panel, which is why we'll bring them on now.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

We're back in session.

We're pleased to welcome our second panel. We have Dr. Justin Massie, a full professor at Université du Québec à Montréal and co-director of the Network for Strategic Analysis. From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, we have Jonathan Berkshire Miller, director of the Indo-Pacific program and a senior fellow.

In the first panel, by the way, we were fairly loose on the time. If we can keep to the allotted amount of time, everybody will get two opportunities to ask questions.

With that, we will invite Dr. Massie to give his opening statement of five minutes or less.

Sir, welcome to our committee.

[Dr. Justin Massie, Full Professor, Université du Québec à Montréal, and Co-Director, Network for Strategic Analysis, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening, everyone.

My presentation today will deal with three issues that are essential if we wish to understand Canada's position on the Indo-Pacific region in general and, more specifically, Canada's relationship with Taiwan.

The first issue is to clearly define the interests that Canada must defend. The second issue is to determine how vigorously we wish to defend those interests. Finally, the third issue is to determine to what extent we would like to attain our level of ambition and what measures we would take to do so.

My field of expertise is security and defence. Therefore, I'm going to concentrate on what I see as being Canada's fundamental interests in the region.

The first interest is to keep the peace, that is to say prevent Taiwan from being invaded and also prevent Taiwan from declaring its independence. We are living in extremely tense times, given the invasion in Ukraine and China's increasing power. Many analyses show that China's power could peak toward the beginning of the 2030s.

In its national security strategy, the United States recognizes that it is in decline and can do little to counter China's increasing power. All the research shows that countries whose power is waning are more inclined to take risks in tense situations.

The People's Liberation Army of China will hit its target before 2027 thanks to its efforts to scale up and modernize. China's new white paper on Taiwan clearly indicates China's desire to annex Taiwan against the will of the Taiwanese people.

Obviously, it is in our interest is to preempt any aggression on behalf of the Chinese army and maintain the status quo, i.e., the one-China policy, which confers a kind of de facto independence to Taiwan without recognizing it as such.

Our second fundamental interest in the region is to ensure free movement in shipping lanes, for example by preventing a possible Chinese blockade in the East China Sea or the South China Sea and reinforcing international law multilaterally in the field of marine safety. There is currently a lack of regulations and no multilateral consensus on conditions for accessing and using common shipping routes in the region.

Our third interest is to reduce Canada's vulnerability to hostile Chinese acts that do not constitute open conflict as such. We saw an example of this this week with Hydro-Québec. This type of situation renders Canada extremely vulnerable. We have to increase the resilience and security of our supply chains. We also have to decouple certain sectors, not the more mundane ones, but rather the strategic industries, such as high-tech and mining. Finally, we have to fight against disinformation and hostile interference targeting elections, for example.

Our fourth interest is diversifying and strengthening commercial ties in the region in general, such as those with Taiwan, but also with other partners in the region, like Japan, Australia, India, South Korea and members of the ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. We should particularly seek to enhance non-governmental ties with Taiwan in matters of information and through parliamentary, academic, commercial and technological exchanges, to name but a few.

There is another important aspect to the unfortunate situation that we are living right now, and that is the fight against the effects of climate change. The various summits on climate change show that this issue is becoming a source of tension. Canada has to incorporate climate change into its agenda when dealing with China.

Allow me to come back to a second aspect, which is the level of ambition that we can set. Canada does not have unlimited resources to draw upon. The resources that we invest in the Indo‑Pacific region will not be available for other regions, whether it be Europe, the Canadian Arctic, Africa or elsewhere. So we have to define our level of ambition. I believe we can define the role that Canada can play according to our interests.

I think Canada enjoys a much greater leadership role in certain areas, such as our strategy to counter disinformation and political interference. However, when it comes to reinforcing our cybersecurity capacity, infrastructure and institutional resilience, as well as our military defence capacities, Canada is more able to make a contribution rather than truly influence matters or even take on a leading role.

When I was talking about deterrence, I was talking about deterrence by denial, which is more frequently known as the porcupine strategy. We have to give Taiwan the capacity to offer an asymmetrical defence against China. Canada does have some limited capacity, as we can see in the present situation in Ukraine. This also applies to shipping lanes: Canada only has 12 frigates and is currently struggling to maintain two frigates in the region.

Canada is modernizing its fleet, but it will take a lot of time and require a lot of money. We are still unsure as to how many warships Canada would be able to send. That will very much limit its capacity.

The same goes for our rapid force deployment capacity. We can see that in the context of the war in Ukraine; Canada needed a lot of time to build up a contingent in Latvia. This requires resources that are difficult to find right now because of personnel shortages within the Canadian Armed Forces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Dr. Massie, I'm sorry. I'll have to interrupt you now. Your five minutes are up.

We want to turn things over now to Director Berkshire Miller for five minutes or less.

[Jonathan Berkshire Miller, Director and Senior Fellow, Indo-Pacific Program, Macdonald-Laurier Institute]

Thank you, chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to speak before you again today on the very important topic of Canada's interests in the Indo-Pacific and our relationship with Taiwan.

On the topic of the day, in my belief, Canada should recognize the benefits of a more robust relationship with Taiwan. For too long, successive Canadian governments have failed to seize opportunities to bolster ties with Taipei, largely as a result of fear that expanded ties with Taiwan would lead to punitive measures or other repercussions in the relationship with China.

In effect, we have allowed the parameters of our Taiwan relationship to be boxed in at the edges by China. In my view, this formula is far too simple. Of course, Canada has its One China policy, but that does not mean we should avoid taking steps to bolster relations with Taiwan, even if they're diplomatically unofficial in nature.

Mr. Chair, frankly put, Taiwan plays a pivotal role in the Indo-Pacific and is a robust democracy in a region where resilient and sustained democratic values are scarce. Taiwan also has a thriving civil society and an advanced technology base and shares core values with Canada on freedom of speech, open elections and the rule of law.

In this context, how should we prioritize relations with Taiwan and seize these opportunities?

First of all, I think there needs to be a recognition that Taiwan’s security is our security. Taiwan’s place in the Indo-Pacific order is ignored or quietly dismissed as politically inconvenient at our own peril.

On trade matters, Canada—in tandem with other partners, such as Japan, as the largest economy right now in this agreement—should be vocal in its support for Taiwan’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the CPTPP. That's probably the worst acronym I can imagine, but that's not to be said.

Complementing this would be the swift finalization of a foreign investment protection agreement, or FIPA, through which both sides agreed to explore talks earlier this year.

On the security matters, the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount interest both to Canada and its regional allies and partners. Geostrategically, Taiwan is in the middle of the first island chain in the western Pacific, acting as the strategic spine connecting the East China Sea in the north and the South China Sea in the south. It’s important to understand this maritime continuum, as all states in the region, including China, depend on its open lines of sea communication in order to facilitate open trade and move energy supplies and many other materials.

Any contingency or clash over Taiwan would have momentous implications for Canada and our allies. This would not be a conflict in which we could insulate ourselves. The potential for regional spillover would be acute.

A telling example of this is that Japan’s southwest archipelago sits just on the northern edge of Taiwan. The island of Yonaguni, for example, in Japan is less than 70 miles from Taiwan. Frankly, the idea that a conflict over Taiwan could be narrow and not impact the wider region is a fantasy.

While it remains unclear if the leadership in Beijing has politically made the choice to invade Taiwan, we are seeing an unprecedented level of economic and military coercion in recent days, as well as a provocative series of ballistic missile tests and military exercises around Taiwan earlier this year after the visit of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The upcoming Indo-Pacific strategy should recognize a few important points on Taiwan.

First, it should acknowledge that Taiwan’s security and stability in the Taiwan Strait are of the utmost importance.

Second, it should specifically identify the desire to enhance economic engagement with Taiwan’s dynamic economy and look for more areas for Canadian innovators and entrepreneurs to engage in a shared ecosystem premised on reliable and secure supply chains.

Third, and finally, it should identify that the Indo-Pacific region needs more co-operation in the provision of public goods and specifically identify an example of where Taiwan could help. An example of this is through its co-operation in the World Health Assembly.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, the Indo-Pacific region is rightly garnering attention in Ottawa, albeit quite late, as the global centre of geo-economic and geostrategic gravity. In the pursuit of our interests and values, it is essential to view Taiwan as a part of the solution—not a part of the problem—toward stability in this dynamic region.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for your time. I look forward to questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much, Director Miller.

Now, for our first six minutes, we'll go to Ms. Dancho.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Miller, I'm going to start with you. I would like to start off with your assessment. Whether allies come to the aid of Taiwan or not, do you believe that it will establish what the other Asian countries that may be threatened by China in the future will do and if they'll stand up to China or not?

I'm just wondering what your thoughts are. Do you think the rest of Asian countries are watching how we react and if we come to the defence of Taiwan or not?

[Jonathan Berkshire Miller]

Well, I think that absolutely they will be looking at this. I think that for too long when a lot of countries in the region have looked at Canada, the view has been one-sided. I think they've seen a Canadian government interested in investment and trade, but they haven't seen the other side of that coin, which is a robust sort of commitment to security in the region.

Another thing to be reminded of on this point is that a lot of countries in the region are also heavily invested in a contingency over Taiwan. I think there's the example I mentioned of Japan being 70 miles away from Taiwan. There's no way that a contingency or a conflict happens over Taiwan and Japan doesn't find itself somewhat involved in it.

Again, the idea of thinking of this as a narrow U.S.-China contingency doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Do you feel that if the U.S. does nothing, then Japan could be the one to act? Is that what you're saying?

[Jonathan Berkshire Miller]

I don't believe that Japan will act in isolation, but I think that if the United States is engaged in a conflict, then Japan, likely Australia and potentially even the Phillippines, as a treaty ally, would play a role. What type of role I think would take a much longer discussion, and I think that's not public, but I think they would play some sort of role in such a contingency.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

It does seem that if the Americans would, Taiwan may fare a lot better in defence, if they could. I think that's a given. If they don't, then I appreciate your perspective that others would come to the aid of Taiwan.

It seems that when the Americans discuss Taiwan, they rarely mention Canada at all. It seems that they don't feel we're a relevant player in the Indo-Pacific. We're not in AUKUS or part of the quadrilateral security dialogue, and we really haven't been doing a whole heck of a lot to equip our Arctic for defence.

I'm just wondering if you can weigh in with your thoughts on that. In the mind of the U.S., are we a relevant player in the Indo-Pacific in terms of Taiwan or others, and is that important?

[Jonathan Berkshire Miller]

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Look at the United States' Indo-Pacific strategy: I did a quick PDF search of “Canada” and it came up zero times. There's no mention of Canada.

In discussions with Americans, they won't say that they're doing this to punish you—that it's from certain decisions in your relationship with China—but “it's just that we didn't think of you”.

Is it worse to be punished or to be irrelevant in these discussions? I would argue that the irrelevance is probably a worse sort of outcome, but I think that's the reality right now on this specific matter.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Do you think that's because we haven't made ourselves a relevant player at the table in the Indo-Pacific? It seems to me that when we had the situation of the two Michaels, the Americans could have done a lot more to support us in that. They did not. Is part of the reason they did not move mountains to come to our aid that we haven't shown that we're a relevant player? I'm just wondering if that has anything to do with it. Would they have done more to help us if we were doing more to help ourselves—and our allies—and to ensure that we're part of the conversation at the table with the Indo-Pacific?