Yes. I've studied the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese politics and Chinese foreign policy for a couple of decades, including, of course, working as a diplomat, then with the International Crisis Group. There is no question that they have long-term strategies, some of which are published. We don't require access to classified government information to reach fairly clear conclusions.
To simplify, I would say that they have at least three broad objectives.
First of all, it's to make China the dominant power in East Asia—to achieve pre-eminence there and in the western Pacific.
The second is to eventually become the pre-eminent power in the international system. It's to acquire the power to reshape the international order and, ideally, purge it of liberal international norms and rules in order to make it more amenable to an authoritarian, one-party state and China's own interests.
That is an agenda it is then serving through a mercantilist economic strategy. The concern, particularly for this committee, is what China's objectives are vis-à-vis the Canadian economy and western economies, and what the geopolitical implications of this are. Ultimately, China wants to dominate global manufacturing and high technology and to relegate other countries—particularly Canada, Australia, Argentina and Brazil, for example—to supplying it with the raw materials it needs for its industrial might. The party sees manufacturing capacity and advanced technology as the keys to state power. It is seeking power as a means of preserving its rule and, ultimately, extending its influence across the world.