Two minutes, or two hours...?
On your first question, about engagement, I'd recommend the committee read, if it hasn't already, Paul Evans's excellent book entitled Engaging China. It is a history of Canadian relations with China since the Trudeau period and throughout this whole engagement paradigm. Second, read Ambassador David Mulroney, whom I hope you will hear from at the committee. His book Middle Power, Middle Kingdom is an excellent study. He also goes through these issues.
Engagement, in my view, is not an end in itself. It is a means to advancing a national and common international interest. I was also interested in this annex that Global Affairs Canada provided to the committee. There's a very nice organization chart of the probably two dozen or more bilateral dialogues that Canada has with China. When I looked at that chart, it made me think, “Well, they just see engagement as an end in itself.” Simply having those boxes on that chart is what those diplomats in Global Affairs Canada set out to do, and to have the dialogue is sufficient.
I would submit that it is not sufficient. You have to achieve things with dialogues. The United States, by the way, had 94, I think. Bonnie has written about this. We had 94 ongoing dialogues with China when the Trump administration took over. They're now down to fewer than 10. The Trump administration has just cancelled a number of them. Are we any worse off for it? I don't think so. It's a terrible waste of money, resources, time, airplane fuel, etc., unless you're getting real results.
Engagement, if it's institutional engagement, bilaterally, is a means toward an end in whichever issue or area you're talking about. That's just my brief answer to that.