Our foreign ministry tends to rotate people--they have one posting in China, and then they don't go back there during their whole career--whereas in other foreign ministries, it's a detail; they circulate people in Chinese-speaking places. So they'd have a career that would be the capital, Beijing, as well as Shanghai, their office in Hong Kong, and maybe Taiwan and Singapore. But they could build their careers on this expertise. I think in our ministry it would be a disadvantage to career building if you just focused on the China area. They want to be consul general in Pittsburgh and deputy director of personnel, and maybe go back to China at some stage.
I think we need to be building more expertise to deal with a challenging and complicated place that requires expertise. Dealing in China in English or French is just not going to work anymore.