National Defence committee  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.

National Defence committee  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.

National Defence committee  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.

National Defence committee  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.

National Defence committee  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.

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

National Defence committee  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.

National Defence committee  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.

National Defence committee  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.

National Defence committee  Thank you for giving me this opportunity to elaborate on what I said earlier. What I meant is that if you have a vote in the UN system, of course you are going to see China getting a lot of votes. That's not what I meant by “allies”. These are countries that are aspiring to get assistance from China, especially through investments in “one belt, one road”, the belt and road initiative.

National Defence committee  I am not a military officer, so I can offer you the knowledge only to the best of my ability. We are developing our own submarine forces. As was reported, the first one will be completed next year. For the first batch of submarines, we have a contract for eight. That's going to be a very important part of our self-defence.

National Defence committee  We'd certainly welcome more co-operation between our militaries. An enhanced military-to-military relationship is always very positive for us, especially as we are like-minded partners. We also take into account the fact that Canada is also trying to speed up in building up its own naval forces.

National Defence committee  Yes. As a matter of fact, we have real-time military activities to report the military activities in the Taiwan Strait. They only started in September 2020. Before that, we didn't see much activity from the Chinese military, including the air force, but after that, we decided we should make it public because China likes to have covert actions.

National Defence committee  I think you are referring to a military exercise right after the visit of then U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi. It happened in August of last year. Yes, that military exercise was the biggest to date. The Chinese military exercise at that time was also different from other exercises they have conducted.

National Defence committee  For Taiwan, when we look at this, we know how the Chinese leaders, Chinese academia or military generals discuss the prospect of unification. Let me elaborate. The Chinese vision of unification with Taiwan is a picture of a stronger China, a China that they call the rejuvenation of a great power.