Sure. Let me start by saying that since I retired in 2009, China has changed remarkably. They have become more assertive. We've seen evidence of this in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. John McCallum has referred to the situation in Hong Kong and, of course, in Xinjiang province. Those are very worrying trends. China is much more willing now, it would seem, to use coercive diplomacy or even hostage diplomacy than they were at the time that I was there.
When I was there, I found the Chinese tough, difficult to deal with, but always open to input from Canadians. We had relatively easy access to whomever we wanted to talk to at that point in time. I'm not sure that situation is still the case today. I'm just not close enough to it to be able to say.
I do think we can pursue a relationship of closer economic co-operation and at the same time not be naive about the actions that China is taking here in Canada and around the world. We have the capacity to do that. We know that China is active in different areas that we're not comfortable with here in Canada. We know that they don't always play by the rules.
However, we can work with colleagues from other countries. We can develop multilateral approaches to deal with those difficulties and still engage economically and in other areas with the Chinese.
I don't see it as being one or the other.