National Defence Committee on Sept. 21st, 2023

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Part of my question on that is that we see some of the economic challenges Argentina has with IMF repayments, but China is stepping in to backstop some of those loans and is also purchasing media and military bases there. I find that very interesting. I appreciate your additional comments on that.

My next question is in regard to cyber. You also spoke about election interference. We are talking quite a lot in this country about election interference from China. You talked about how you have a mature population that has become aware of these tactics. Although this isn't a new situation for Canada, I think it's certainly more on the radar for Canadian citizens now.

Based on your experience, could you give us any advice on how to ensure the population becomes aware of the tactics of foreign interference?

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

In Taiwan, when we talk about cyber-attacks, we are referring specifically to attacks on critical infrastructure or on the government's online home page as a way to steal information from important databases and things like that. Again, these are part of China's grey zone tactics.

The other part is disinformation. One very concrete part, actually, is cyber-attacks—“concrete” in the sense that you can count the number of attacks and—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. I apologize, but insincerely.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It would be delightful if we could actually get the Minister of Digital Affairs here. I think all of us who went on that trip were very impressed by how Taiwan handles cognitive warfare and cyber-attacks.

Madame Normandin, you have two and a half minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

As we heard earlier, Taiwan is solely responsible for the production of its military capabilities. I gather it is nearly impossible to acquire defence systems on the international market.

There are two parts to my question. First, I would like to know why it appears to be so difficult to make acquisitions on the international market. Secondly, is this expected to change in the future? Would it be helpful for Canada to offer Taiwan more assistance in the production of military materiel?

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

Excuse me; what did you say? Did you ask if it is difficult to go into the international market?

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I am referring to the possibility of acquiring defence systems on the international market.

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

We have a very unique international status. The U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Japan are actually the only countries that have a security commitment to Taiwan.

The U.S. has a law called the Taiwan Relations Act, in which there is a very clear stipulation that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are taken with grave concern. Also, in the same part of the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. will provide self-defence weaponry to Taiwan. As time goes on, we'll get more of that kind of support from the United States, proportionate to the threat we face from mainland China.

It used to be possible within the international market, but now, because of intimidation from mainland China, any country willing to deal with Taiwan in arms sales will face retaliation from and be penalized by the PRC. This is why. Otherwise, we would be happy to approach and to reach out to you. You have many advanced weaponry systems we would be very interested in.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Mathyssen, you have two and half minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

When we visited, there was a great deal of excitement about the report by the Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship. That was presented often during our trip.

The official response from the Government of Canada has been provided. Could you provide your response to their response, if you felt anything was missing? How did you feel about it?

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

In responding to the 18 recommendations proposed by the report by the special committee on the Canada-PRC relationship, the federal government has responded by agreeing, agreeing in principle or partially agreeing. Those are the three types of responses from the federal government to 14 of the 18 recommendations, but to four of the 18 recommendations, the federal government responded by “taking note” of them. These are recommendations 2, 4, 12 and 13.

From Taiwan's perspective, I would say we hoped that all 18 recommendations would be agreed upon or at least agreed upon in principle.

As for the federal government's concern, we think it could be addressed in the elaboration, by adding a condition or a proviso, but this is not the way the government response was written. I say this in the spirit of friendship. I don't intend to criticize anyone in the administration.

For example, we are talking about principles. Recommendation number two, for example, was actually about how the future of Taiwan must be decided by the people of Taiwan only. The response is, “We take note of this position.” I believe that when the special committee on the Canada-PRC relationship laid out this recommendation, it had deliberated enough internally. Given the concern from Taiwan as well as from the special committee, I think this is a matter of principle, a principle that reflects the fundamental values and the fundamental spirit of democracy. That is most important.

The worry from the administration that Taiwan may use this recommendation to change its policy and to change the status quo, I think, is a little far-fetched. It is not our current policy, and this is not going to happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Kelly, you have five minutes.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I'd allow you to continue if you'd like. That was a good question, and I think your testimony is quite important.

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

To the other recommendations that have been taken with some kind of reservation by the federal government, they can address the issues in a way that would leave more flexibility for us to work them out.

For example, recommendation 12 urges the government to strongly consider having the Minister of International Trade, Madam Mary Ng, visit Taiwan to sign the FIPA—the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement. The response from the government is that to be consistent with established practice, the FIPA is to be signed by the heads of the Canadian trade office in Taipei and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada, who would be me and my counterpart in Taipei, Mr. Jim Nickel.

I believe this is too semantic a way of answering this question. If you have a Minister of International Trade visiting Taiwan, she doesn't have to be there to sign this. She's welcome to visit at any time, because the purpose is to promote international trade between us. This kind of response from the federal government, to me, is a little too legalistic.

We can work it out. We can work out ways. I hope that further communications can be carried out between officials on our two sides so we can address the misunderstandings. I say all this in the spirit of friendship.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I will move back to cyber-threats and the countering of state-generated misinformation and disinformation, which we know the PRC engages in.

We know you've been dealing with this, perhaps with much more knowledge and more intensity than we have in Canada. Is there anything more you can tell us about how Taiwan is able to deal so quickly with instances of attacks from the PRC?

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

It's not fair to make comparisons between Taiwan and Canada, because you probably encountered that only for the 2019 and 2021 elections. For most of the time you would think it was peacetime.

For Taiwan, we are facing this on a daily basis. It only gets more serious when the national election comes. Naturally, we are more experienced and have developed a kind of resistance. We are more resilient in facing China's cyber-attacks or disinformation campaigns. We have our systems for how to respond to the cyber-attacks. We have code red, code yellow and—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

In the final moments of Ms. Gallant's questions—I just want to make sure I have this clear—she asked if there had been an offer to work with the Canadian government and whether that had been accepted. You said no, that there's been no response or that the offer was rejected. What has happened? What's the status of Taiwan's being able to work with Canada to help us with this growing problem?

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

Because this proposal comes from my foreign minister, the response will be from his counterpart, or from GAC at least. We are not talking about that kind of co-operation. I would say that co-operation is already going on in a different way. During their visit to Taiwan, parliamentary members talked to our people who were on hand and were doing this kind of protection against cyber-attacks or disinformation. We learn from each other.

We are strong. The members who have visited Taiwan know that very well. We are not talking only about protecting our society through government policies; there is actually a general mobilization by our civil society. NGOs play a very important role. They help our people to be better educated. There is a social awareness among our people: They know we need to learn how to discern disinformation from true news, the true story.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I will have to finish that off. You are not wrong about the very sophisticated way that Taiwan responds to cyber-attacks. It would be of benefit to this committee to have direct testimony on that, but that's not what we're talking about today.

With that, we're going to have Ms. Lalonde finish it off. You have five minutes, please.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

I first want to say thank you. Thank you for coming today. This is my first week in this committee. What I'm hearing about are hope, resilience and, I would say, desire to enhance the friendship between both of our countries.

I believe, based on all my notes, that at one point you mentioned misinformation. You reflected on how you've been more transparent. You've been educating the people of Taiwan about everything that is being shared that's misinforming your people. Can you elaborate for us on how this decision has helped your country?

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

I think that for democracies, transparency is sometimes regarded as our weakness, because authoritarian regimes simply use our transparency to penetrate our society. However, when transparency is used in the right way, together with effective public communication, transparency can be our strength. This is how we perceive it in Taiwan.

We talk about fighting disinformation. We pretty much adhere to the principles of democracy, which are very important, such as having freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Even if we know there is disinformation, we don't forbid people from speaking up.

Actually, what we are doing is always in response to fake news or disinformation, but that's okay: The more we do that, the more our people will know. We have several different kinds of apps telling our people how to discern. These are voluntary: The people who volunteer to do this want to be of service to the country, to our society.

Again, transparency is our strength.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

I would like to close by hearing, from your perspective, what your greatest concern is and how Canada, especially this committee, can help.

[Dr. Harry Ho-Jen Tseng]

Our greatest concern is about like-minded countries. The camp of democracies should work more closely with each other.

Right now we see that the trend is very healthy. We are really building up that kind of solidarity among like-minded partners, but I wouldn't take lightly what our enemies or potential enemies are doing in trying to dismantle the teamwork we have among like-minded communities. That's our concern, bu we think that democracy will prevail.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

I like to believe that too, sir.

Chair, I will end with that.