Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to both the witnesses.
Just before we continue, Ms. Fortier asked me to correct the record. She mentioned that we are looking at hosting the ASEAN summit in 2029, but it's the APEC summit.
I think it's important for us to remember that ASEAN is 11 countries, whereas APEC is 21 economies. That's a really important group that brings together the economies of the Pacific, including Taiwan. That's why it's referred to as economies.
There are a couple of things I want to dig down on.
Professor Martel, you're giving us a high challenge, because it's always easier to be generalists than to be specific.
The Indo-Pacific strategy, which involves 17 departments and agencies, was high level, and it does end up leading, when we don't get specific, to some in-and-out thinking. You've asked us to be more specific about where we do our work, not just sectorally but digging down within sectors very strategically. I agree. I think it's really important. Dealing with 40 countries in that Indo-Pacific region is hard to do. Then you get into hundreds of sectors. How do we do that? How do we get the intelligence, the work, done?
What I want you to say, without putting words in your mouth, is that we need a larger foreign service that is able to be on the ground and out there gathering the information to be very specific about where we should be. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm trying to get that out.