Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would also like to thank our witnesses. It is late for everyone, so I thank you for being with us to give us your insight.
Mr. Huebert, I have to tell you that I find your presentation on the Arctic absolutely fascinating.
Some of your writing can be found in a text entitled “Debating Arctic Security, Selected Writings, 2010-2021”, written by yourself and P. Whitney Lackenbauer. The authors' thesis seems to be that the People's Republic of China will assign greater weight to regions located closest and sees the world as a series of concentric circles where closeness diminishes as you move away.
As a result, the authors argue, the People's Republic of China may initiate provocative actions closer to itself, but refrain from doing so in regions farther away, such as the Arctic. However, listening to you, we might think that China not only takes a close interest in what happens in the Arctic, but is in the process of developing the operational capacity to interject itself in that region.
How do you reconcile that vision of concentric circles, as cited by Mr. Dean and Mr. Lackenbauer in the text that contains some of your writings, with the vision you presented to us, which seems instead to point to the threat that China represents for a region like the Arctic?