I should say that one of my favourite success stories in China was the success story of Clearwater Fine Foods of Nova Scotia, which moved from selling lobster as a commodity to selling lobster as a delicacy, with a Canadian flag on the claw.
I'm very proud of the fact that the message I took to Ottawa when I was ambassador and within the embassy, where I had people from a dozen Canadian departments and agencies and provinces and our security establishment, was that we needed to see China as all of a piece. It's an important market for us, but even then, and we were talking frankly about this, it was an increasing challenge to Canada and posing an increasing threat to many Canadians and Canadian values and interests.
I'm proud that we went out to.... I was told a number of times and harangued by Chinese officials not to say and do things, not to go and see the families of detained Canadians. We sent our diplomats out to see someone who was under house arrest, where they got roughed up. A number of times I was followed in western Xinjiang for going to see human rights champions. I'm proud that on the front of religious freedom, we opened the embassy to mass when the international Catholic community had no place to go. We had about 200 people from around the world coming into the embassy, and very gratefully.
My message—I spoke to deputy ministers on a regular basis—is that the security people need to be talking to the economic people. This is a challenge like no challenge we've seen before. Sometimes we can't say yes to every economic opportunity if it is threatening. Not every idea is a good idea. At the same time, with the security people, saying no to everything doesn't always make sense either.
It's a new kind of diplomacy, a much more challenging kind of diplomacy, but I think we're capable of achieving it. I think we did for a time, when I was there. That was very important to me.