Yes, Madam Chair, I definitely concur with most of the points.
I think we want to parse Chinese interest in the Russian shipping and resource sectors as yielding somewhat different outcomes. We have seen Chinese investment in the liquefied natural gas sector, particularly in the Yamal Peninsula with the Yamal-2 project, which is the one example of Chinese investment in the Arctic on a grand scale.
What's also telling is that despite all of the win-win rhetoric and enthusiasm from Beijing towards Moscow's development aspirations for the northern sea route, the actual money invested in building up infrastructure along that route or building up the transportation arteries to connect the northern sea route to Eurasian markets is actually very modest. I think this speaks to the fact that this is largely a transactional relationship to date.
As Canadians, we also need to remember that as much as we have the Arctic as part of our identity, as Professor Roussel said a few moments ago, so does Russia. They're very proud, so the notion that somehow China would be treated as an equal within the Russian Arctic I think is something very unpalatable to the Russian psyche.
In some respects, I'm also concerned that we need to be careful. China does represent risks in our Arctic and elsewhere in particular sectors—influence through economic activities and concerns about science and research security—but we have to be careful not to elevate them to the status of a peer competitor in the Arctic itself. They are not an Arctic state. They have none of the sovereignty or rights associated with being an Arctic state. It's really important that we don't elevate them up to a stature within this discussion that quite frankly they don't deserve and they don't warrant, based upon what their rights and footprint are within the region.