Thank you, sir.
Yes, I'm a former diplomat, so I put the first emphasis on diplomacy, but as I was saying to Mr. Chong, you need hard power to back up the soft power approach that is traditionally our approach. That means engagement. I strongly believe that we should engage on issues that we can work on with the People's Republic of China. On climate, health concerns, nuclear proliferation and a number of areas, we can and should be working together. We have significant trade, which benefits Canadians.
I think the more engagement we have, the better, while at the same time passing the message that we aren't going to upset the current status quo with regard to the status of Taiwan, because of course the great fear of Xi Jinping is that we're going to recognize Taiwanese independence. I don't see that happening. I don't see the Americans doing that, even though there are some American members of Congress who would like to see that. I think the Taiwanese people, as you correctly point out, sir, are certainly not inclined to do that. They would like to keep the current status quo.
We would do so at the same time, in collaboration with our other allies. I think through working with Australia, working with like-minded Korea and Japan, and with partners in the CPTPP, again, it's engagement. There has to be, from my experience, another side within China. Yes, it's a one-party state, but certainly from my long experience with China, there are factions within China. Right now there is one faction that's in the ascendancy, as we saw at the National People's Congress, but you can be sure that behind the scenes, sir, there are others who would not necessarily agree with the current fairly aggressive approach.