Evidence of meeting #69 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Indo-Pacific Strategy Secretariat, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
One of the strategic objectives is to improve trade, investment and supply chain resilience. In fact, it's one of the most robust and dynamic parts of the strategy.
We have an agenda of team Canada trade missions to the region. The Prime Minister recently announced five more during his time there, I think, in addition to support for Canadian exporters through programs like CanExport, for which we're seeing very high levels of interest from the Canadian private sector.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Collins. That brings our first hour to an end.
I want to thank our witnesses for their presence here. It's always good to see you here as opposed to on a television screen.
With that, we'll suspend and go to our next hour.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Colleagues, time is the enemy. We should get started again.
For our second hour, we have the representative of Taiwan. We appreciate your presence here, sir, along with your colleagues. You have five minutes in which to make your initial presentation. I'll leave you to introduce your colleagues.
With that, thank you.
Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
Chairman McKay and members of the Standing Committee on National Defence, good afternoon.
I would like to start by thanking you for the invitation to appear before this committee. I appreciate every opportunity to share my views from Taiwanese perspectives.
The topic today is the situation in the Indo-Pacific. As I dived into this topic and tried to sort out my findings, I encountered the difficulty of focusing only on the Indo-Pacific. The more I looked into it, the more I was convinced that no region in the world is exempt from the geopolitical complexities we face today. What is happening in the Indo-Pacific is unavoidably related to what is taking place in other parts of the world and vice versa, notably in Ukraine, central Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
To many of us, the most unnerving geopolitical risks today are to be found in either the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S.-China rivalry or the North Korean aggression and tension in the Taiwan Strait. Perhaps the war in Ukraine looms larger and more imminent than the other potential conflicts. However, as we have witnessed, Russia, China and North Korea are gradually moving to cuddle up more closely with each other, forming a cohesive alliance to help buttress their regimes and swat what they perceive as external pressures. We must realize that our struggle goes beyond the Indo-Pacific.
In between Russia and China, there has always been more of a mutually supportive economic and diplomatic relationship, not to mention hard-core military co-operation. However, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has gradually faced uphill battles, the Russia-Chinese relationship seems to have strengthened into a stealthy, semi-military alliance which North Korea was recently invited to join as part of a trilateral bloc.
One dictator is hard enough to predict; imagine three.
Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, gave a major speech at the School of Advanced International Studies, SAIS, at Johns Hopkins University last week. He said:
What we're experiencing now is more than a test of the post-Cold War order. It’s the end of it.... There is a growing recognition that several of the core assumptions that shaped our...post-Cold War era no longer hold....
Decades of relative geopolitical stability have given way to an intensifying competition with authoritarian powers, revisionist powers.
Media quickly picked up the gist of Mr. Blinken's speech: The post-Cold War era is over. A new one is forming.
The proposal from Mr. Blinken is to adopt a new concept of “diplomatic variable geometry” to cope with the challenges of the incoming era. I do not fully grasp the meaning of the concept yet, but I'm sure that as we forge ahead, the rivalries between democracies and autocracies will only magnify as time goes on.
To conclude, I would like to point out that at the beginning of this year, we might still have thought that the most serious geopolitical uncertainties came from the Ukraine theatre, the U.S.-China confrontation, the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait, as I mentioned earlier. However, as we look forward from now, the somewhat unexpected rapid downturn of the Chinese economy and its spillover effect may well overshadow other regional concerns. Potentially, China's economic failure could be the biggest geopolitical risk in the years ahead.
What we have seen in the Chinese economic difficulties may be only fermenting. If China's economy continues to deteriorate, and with nothing to hold it back, the consequences will most likely not stop at its economy but will be a combination of social, economic and political emergencies. There will likely be a systemic crisis and overall transformation affecting every aspect of China and spilling over to regions beyond.
In short, there is a huge uncertainty hovering over China.
For Taiwan, much is at stake in terms of our close trade relations.
I'm ready to respond to your questions.
Let me stop here. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Representative Tseng.
The first six minutes go to Mrs. Gallant.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you.
Excellency, on Monday, 103 PLA aircraft and nine PLA naval warships were detected around Taiwan, the most since the 91 that flew over in April. At what point is a formal invasion of Taiwan declared?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
Well, that incursion of Chinese warplanes intruding into our ADIZ has become a very usual practice that we see on almost a daily basis. As we are approaching the presidential election, you are going to see more of that, because this is part of the Chinese grey zone tactics to affect the sentiment in Taiwan in terms of which political party to support.
I want to point out that the purpose of this military exercise, including the incursion into our ADIZ by the warplanes, is really to frame an insecure image of Taiwan, as the narrative in Taiwan today is war versus peace. There are different presidential candidates arguing for different scenarios, but this kind of military exercise in our ADIZ will be a way to aid and abet those narratives that are pointing to a scenario that is likely to have a war between the two sides. Of course, that may be intimidating some of the voters in Taiwan to vote for the candidates in favour of peace. As a matter of fact, this is part of cognitive warfare, so I want to urge you to pay attention to that possibility as well.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Taiwan is exposed to political election interference as well.
How credible does Taipei think the threats are by President Xi to launch continuous nuclear attacks on Japan until it surrenders unconditionally should Japan intervene in Beijing's invasion of Taiwan? How seriously is Taipei taking that threat?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
As a matter of fact, China is speeding up its nuclear arsenal. Right now, the estimation is that China possesses about 350 nuclear warheads, nuclear bombs, which is not enough to present deterrence for the other powers to hold back with their retaliation, but China is speeding up its build-up of its nuclear arsenal.
What is worrisome here is the fact that Mr. Putin's reference to nuclear weapons in Ukraine seems to be having some effect on more forceful assistance from the western camp to Ukraine. Maybe Mr. Xi Jinping would see something that he can take advantage of with nuclear power. As a matter of fact, in his 20th Communist Party Congress, which took place in October of last year, he specifically mentioned a building up of nuclear-powered strategic weapons for China to be able to use in wartime, so I think that this is something very alarming to us.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
How does the combined military might of the People's Republic of China and its allies measure up against that of Taiwan, the U.S. and all the allies of Taiwan?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
Well, China doesn't have too many allies, does it? Actually, most of the Chinese allies are the so-called ROC countries that are in difficulty or in trouble in different ways.
The only allies I've mentioned that are able to pose some kind of threat are North Korea and Russia, and they are getting closer to each other recently. This is really something that we should watch more. The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, was in Russia only a week ago, and now they are already talking about Mr. Putin going to visit China next month.
The report is that Mr. Kim is also visiting China in October. The purpose is to participate in the so-called belt and road initiative summit. This is the third time for this summit to take place in China. Most likely, the three heads of the countries in the summit would have a summit meeting. The meeting of these three countries—North Korea, Russia and China—would be very worrisome.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Recently, the government of Taipei offered the Government of Canada assistance in combatting PRC propaganda and political interference.
To your knowledge, has our government taken advantage of and acted upon that offer from Taipei?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
No, we haven't had a response from the Canadian side yet.
Liberal
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today at the national defence committee.
We're seeing the rise of misinformation. We're seeing the rise of disinformation as a tool that certain states use to achieve their strategic goals, their strategic objectives. How is Taiwan being impacted by this trend, and what steps is it taking to combat this misinformation and disinformation?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
No matter if it's misinformation or disinformation, it's all part of their grey-zone tactics. It is also a part of their cognitive warfare. The purpose is, really, to penetrate our society and plant the seed for disharmony. Sometimes it's very effective, especially in election times. This is when you need to choose someone. It can be used as a strategy for affecting Taiwan's presidential election.
Taiwan has been facing this kind of situation for years. Our society has become much more mature in recent years and knows how to deal with this. To be honest, I don't think Chinese cognitive warfare is reaping the benefit that it expected to get.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
What can Canada and Taiwan do to support each other in this domain?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
In recent months, after the pandemic was over, we've already had three parliamentary delegations from Canada visit Taiwan. I think every one of them had programs in their itinerary for visiting officials or visiting our NGOs. That is really very active, very much in the centre of our fight against disinformation. Those kinds of communications, those kinds of visits, would be very conducive to our co-operation.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
There's a lot of discussion within the group of allies, particularly the U.S., around de-risking the supply chain, particularly with China.
With respect to natural resources, critical minerals and advanced manufacturing, can you give us any insight on where Canada and Taiwan can deepen our industrial and economic relationship?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
This supply chain issue is something that we regard as very important now. There are dialogues going on between officials of our two countries. We think that Canada is very fortunate to have a very important place to take in terms of the global supply chain.
Specifically, I want to point out your critical minerals. This is very important. We have dialogues going on, but right now they are not mature yet. There are different objectives in this, because it is not trade that you are talking about; you are actually looking for investment in Canada to develop the critical minerals. Perhaps we are not ready for investment yet. We are talking more about trade.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
During your remarks, for which we only we allowed you five minutes—I would have loved to have heard a bit more—you talked about geopolitical stability and you talked about the Cold War being over and a new one dawning. Can you expand on that?
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
People are still talking about our being in the post-Cold War era, as if after the end of the Cold War there is a special period that we can designate in international relations with some characteristics attached to that. Mr. Antony Blinken says that no, that era is over.
We don't know what the new era is that is coming, but obviously it is very different from what we have been living in during the post-Cold War era. It will be much more complicated. It wouldn't be a Cold War era, because it's pretty much black and white. Now it is not the post-Cold War era, because there are a lot of interactions. The risk of the de-linking of the supply chain is part of this era, the new era that is going to come. That was actually very pervasive in the post-Cold War era. It is a new time that we are going to encounter.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
I will take the last 45 seconds.
If we are in a post-Cold War era, which I agree with, and the one China policy was made in the Cold War era, do you think there should be a change in the one China policy?
