Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 14th, 2022

[Weldon Epp]

Let me respond to it in a moment, but I will take the opportunity just to provide an important clarification in response not to this member's question but to the question raised earlier by Mr. Chong.

I did not mean to infer or imply, in saying that the Indo-Pacific strategy would be made public, that the entire strategy will or won't be. That will be the government's decision, and I cannot, as an official, predict that. The intent is to publicly and diplomatically communicate very robustly our strategic objectives and the way in which that strategy will advance those. I apologize if I misspoke. I didn't mean it to be literally that the strategy or policy as such will be released. You can understand that elements of it may continue to be classified, given their sensitivity.

The intent is to engage, to the question just raised, on the wide range of Canadian interests we have in the region. Canada is no stranger to the region. We have a long history of engaging not just in security and in governance or trade but also in development.

To the question on the feminist foreign policy, the government's policy has not changed. As we look at creative and new ways to use development assistance tools to more effectively engage on shared goals and values with our partners in the Indo-Pacific, we anticipate a very big opportunity to continue to advance the principles and objectives of the feminist foreign assistance policy of the government.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm not talking about the FIAP. I'm talking about the feminist foreign policy, not the feminist international assistance policy.

I'm assuming that I'm out of time, so maybe I'll get more clarity on that in the next round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

If Mr. Epp wants to put in a very quick answer to that last point, he's welcome to. Otherwise, we can follow up. We're now at inside of five minutes.

[Weldon Epp]

I'm sorry. The point I would like to make is that the Indo-Pacific strategy will be building upon the foundations of the government's policies, including its feminist international policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. McPherson.

Thank you, Mr. Epp.

Colleagues, we will suspend now to allow everybody to cast their vote. We will come back in, I would say, about 15 minutes. That would be the normal time frame. We stand suspended until then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

We will continue our discussion. We left off in round two, after Ms. McPherson. I will now turn over the floor to Mr. Aboultaif for a five-minute intervention.

Mr. Aboultaif, you have the floor.

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

Mr. Chair, could I raise a point of order? I don't know if this is a point of order or not. You can rule on it, if you wish.

During Mr. Epp's responses to Mr. Genuis's comment, the conversation was about senior officials from Canada having met with officials from Taipei. I just wanted to say—and it's not my ego at stake here, and I may not be senior—that in 2021 I had three meetings with officials from both the Taipei office here in Ottawa and the cultural office in Toronto. I think this should be on the record, that we regularly have relatively senior conversations with them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Oliphant, thank you. I'm not sure that's a point of order, but you'll have the opportunity to clarify that further, if you wish, in your own intervention, which is coming up.

Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

On that point of order, this is clearly an abuse of points of order. I'm interested in the update. Mr. Oliphant has rounds of questioning available to him. This is an abuse of process—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

That's exactly what I pointed out to him.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

—and, frankly, it should come off his time if he tries to engage a thing. Just deduct it from his time, and he can proceed with the rest of it, because it's not really fair to others to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Genuis, thank you very much. In the meantime, the clock is running. I will give the floor to Mr. Aboultaif right away.

Please go ahead, for five minutes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unless it's not coming out of my own time.... Thanks again.

Mr. Epp, would you be able, for the sake of this report, to identify the one China policy for us, in a brief fashion, if you can.

[Weldon Epp]

I'd be happy to.

Canada's one China policy forms the basis of Canada's bilateral official relations with China, but the policy has also allowed us to maintain unofficial but valuable people-to-people ties—trade and investment ties—with Taiwan. At the time of Canada's recognition of the PRC, Canada took note of China's position on Taiwan, neither endorsing nor challenging that position.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The position you mentioned has been consistent for 50 years. There is no position right now on Taiwan joining the CPTPP. There is no position on Huawei when it comes to Canada-China relations.

There is a new reality that the relationship with China is not the same after the situation with the two Michaels. For the sake of the report, or the new policy you are drafting or working on, if there is no position on Taiwan joining the CPTPP and there is no clear position on Huawei, what is the shape of that policy going to be? What is in it that will be any different from the policy we have had for 50 years?

[Weldon Epp]

Mr. Chair, I hope members will understand that I am not in a position to speak on advice to ministers that is under development. I can assure the members of this committee that Canada's one China policy and the way in which Canada has used that policy to navigate both official relations with China in pursuing our interests with the PRC but also unofficial relations with Taiwan, have been marked by a very flexible approach. The policy is in effect, by design, strategically ambiguous. It is not particularly prescriptive.

We spoke about that a bit earlier in this conversation with respect to levels of access and such. By design, our one China policy and how we manage our interaction with Taiwan have successfully, for 50 years, allowed us to do more and more things that are in Canada's interest: growing trade and engaging further on education ties and on research and development, precisely because we have taken a very ambiguous and flexible approach.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'm sorry to cut you off.

After the two Michaels, there is no more flexibility. We've probably seen the ugly side of how far China can go in punishing countries like Canada, where the relationship was basically very balanced, as you just mentioned.

How far do you think China would go beyond what happened during the two Michaels situation? We don't really know the details of that, so how far can they go, and what will that mean for our future relationships and for the Indo-Pacific policy we are trying to put together?

[Weldon Epp]

A moment ago, I was speaking specifically to the flexibility and the long-standing Canadian durability of our one China policy vis-à-vis Taiwan, and how we manage those relations, but with respect to the concerns raised by the honourable member, obviously, all Canadians share deep concern.

There was broad support—not just within Canada, but around the world—for creative new diplomacy to define and call out the sort of activity we see increasingly from China, which is disruptive to existing international rules, order and principles. The arbitrary detention initiative, which is coming up on its first anniversary soon and continues to garner support, is an example of that.

I would also mention that there is increasing work with the like-minded to push back on what we would call economic coercion from China. I mentioned earlier the position of the government with respect to—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Epp, do you believe that we need to have a fundamental change to our China policy, moving forward?

[Weldon Epp]

Mr. Chair, I don't think it's about my personal views in this regard. We continue to serve the government with advice on how to evolve our approach to China—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

What does that advice look like?

[Weldon Epp]

The government has been on the record a number of times—including in front of the parliamentary committee on China that was enacted before the last Parliament—explaining, at a very high level, that the approach has evolved. We have a new assessment of China. Canada will challenge China where we see it breaking or undermining international rules and principles, and we'll co-operate with China where we're able. We need to continue to compete, with like-minded and other partners, to provide solutions and approaches that keep with the evolving geopolitical dynamic that we are—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Epp, thank you very much. We'll have to leave it there in the interest of time.

We will now go to our next intervenor.

Mr. Sarai, you have five minutes. Go ahead, sir.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

China's military has increased the frequency and number of its flights in Taiwan's air defence identification zone, and it has crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

What considerations appear to be motivating China's increased military activity in and near the Taiwan Strait?

[Weldon Epp]

Mr. Chair, I'll start by replying to that at a high level and then I'll turn to my colleague Mr. Hamilton to see if he wants to add.

It's an excellent question. We're in close touch with the like-minded, but we also speak to think tanks, including in Beijing, to understand China's motivations. I spoke earlier to the [Technical difficulty—Editor] higher-level motivations that China has been quite clear about. It sees reunification with Taiwan as an essential part of achieving its goals of meeting its centennial of the revolution in 2049 as a rejuvenated great power.

The ways in which it would hope to achieve those objectives, from a rhetorical point of view, have been quite consistent. If you look at it since 1979, when the party shifted from talking about the liberation of Taiwan in a more aggressive sense to talking about peaceful reunification, the rhetorical frame has been largely consistent, including under Xi Jinping in his speeches, most recently last year.

What is changing, apart from the rhetoric, is that we see incredible investment in its military capacity to keep options open, you might say, to take advantage of a changing geopolitical environment and of China's growing economic might, which has made an asymmetry both economically but militarily possible in 2022 in a way that it wasn't in 1979.

As China has grown and become more powerful, not surprisingly that potential option for its goal of reunification has been heavily invested in. As I said earlier, we continue to monitor and be concerned about other approaches, not just military. We encourage both sides to buy the time to maintain stability and dialogue for the possibility of a peaceful resolution of their outstanding issues.