I think this is one of the key points. Canada has to show that it has an independent foreign policy. The tendency, sometimes, is.... We were saying that China is a disruptive country, and now we're saying that it can be a strategic partner. We don't gain anything by creating these polarizing narratives.
One way to demonstrate our independence is to maintain links with Taiwan, as I said before. It's also important that these links be part of a regional approach, and there are countries in Southeast Asia, such as Japan and Korea, that also value this relationship.
It's important to show China, for that matter, that Canada can build alliances and maintain an independent foreign policy. What has to be outlined is that one way of doing it is through trade. Often we forget that there are 23 flights every day from Taiwan to China, and there's a lot of investment by Taiwanese businesses in China.
It's important to have a complex understanding. The reality is complex, but I think Canada gains by having a foreign policy, a new revived or revised Indo-Pacific strategy, that maintains some consistency in the way it characterizes its relationship through that approach and uses language that does not place Canada in a rhetorical trap, so that afterwards people can't say, “Oh, but Canada said such a thing.”
This is what I was saying earlier in terms of the next strategy having more nuance but also a more specialized and better knowledge of the region. The Asia Pacific Foundation is doing great work—