Canada-China Relations committee  Thank you very much. I'll just repeat that we do better when we know better. If we are going to de-risk and decouple, which are necessary for implementing our Indo-Pacific strategy, we need to focus at home as well as abroad. At home, a national capacity-building effort to operate in an intangibles market is absolutely fundamental.

Canada-China Relations committee  I think there's the scope for a secondary document that focuses on execution and prioritizes, perhaps with a temporal element included, what's going to happen in the short to medium term and what's going to then set things up for the medium- to longer-term aspirations. I think there's tremendous potential in science diplomacy, and the issue of the research framework was raised for Canada.

Canada-China Relations committee  If I remember correctly, it was about priorities in the Arctic. My sense is based on the military industrial bases in the Far East and what we're seeing in icebreaking equipment. What I anticipate will come to countries like China through difficult negotiations with Europe over the extension of the middle corridor....

Canada-China Relations committee  As a professor of defence and security and national security, I'm waiting to see the defence policy rollout and for engagement to happen in a significant manner on that front. I would like to see good organizations, like the Asia Pacific Foundation, be given the mandate and the means to be facilitators for interactions between the two regions, to launch their good wares and to facilitate interactions between the Canadian leading academic institutions and our counterparts in the region.

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes, absolutely.

Canada-China Relations committee  I agree with you entirely, but I would also go as far as to say the ports have to be interoperable as well. If they're not technologized and data-driven, they're not interoperable, and this affects our relationship with our biggest ally.

Canada-China Relations committee  I'll let my colleagues lead, as I've led the last couple of answers.

Canada-China Relations committee  It's a great question. I think good strategies have clear strategic objectives that are achievable, as opposed to a laundry list of aspirational things. The Indo-Pacific strategy goes some way in comparison to others to narrow and drill down a bit more. I think there's a lot of uncertainty about the instruments that become enablers for the execution of the strategy.

Canada-China Relations committee  I'll add one further point, if I may. It's probably the middle ground between the two previous speakers. I've made my views clear on what I think is the impotent nature of the rules-based multilateralism model. Having said that, what ASEAN brings that's dissimilar to most regional and multilateral organizations is a very heavy weight placed on science, innovation and higher education.

Canada-China Relations committee  I'll have the first go. I think we can encourage publication of the defence review, which I understand is supposed to be happening at the moment, to see some priorities. I think we need to be more predictable to our allies. We can't be spread thin across the conventional capability that has limited utility these days.

Canada-China Relations committee  It's a great question. Lest I be a bit provocative here, I understand fully well why higher education is led at the provincial level in a federal system. However, I feel that it's a very powerful tool, a national instrument of power, and needs some grand strategic direction. For instance, it's amazing, I find, that every university is trying to grapple with AI standards and rules at the moment.

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes, I believe the cart is before the horse in many cases. As to policy strategy, different things are relevant to different countries and different strategic cultures. In order to prioritize and not have aspirational—as opposed to achievable—frameworks, strategies and concept papers, we need to lay down what is at the root of all these strategies.

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes. I'm using it for interactions. It's not complete divorce and decoupling, but social, economic, political and military interactions. That is why I suggested that a dual-track strategy needs to be taken forward. That is characterized by de-risking and decoupling, but in order to manage that approach, knowledge of the risks that we need to de-risk is necessary.

Canada-China Relations committee  I believe the risks involve looking at core enablers of emerging transformative technology to see how they are applied to existing technology to enhance them further. There's a dual-usage nature of the resulting technologies. The rosy side of that transformation needs to be embraced, and the dark side needs to be guarded against.

Canada-China Relations committee  Some examples are the ways in which data devices, sensors, AI and large language models come together in different ways and in different combinations to produce new inventions and innovations. The knowledge to write policy and legislation guiding those developments is critical. That is why I'm focusing on national capacity building that promotes intellectual bilingualism.