Thank you.
And thank you to Mr. Burton for coming on fairly short notice. I appreciate your being here today.
Where to start? I want to start with the idea of democracy and its evolution. I know that at the local level they have this kind of process for open recommendation and selection. There actually have been cases where non-Communist Party representatives have been recommended and selected. When you read the literature, they'll say that there is development and democracy here. Yet when you actually look at the evidence, to say that it's a groundswell and there's a trend to move to multi-party and to other levels of governance, it doesn't seem to be the case.
So on the one hand you could say—and I know the Chinese will say this— fine, how long have we been around, and how long did it take to formulate and have democracy evolve in the United States, or for that matter in Canada? Take the example of women having the vote here in Canada, or of aboriginal people--there are many arguments they can throw.
What I'd like to know from you is where the possibilities are in terms of supporting, in any constructive way, democratic development in China. Maybe it's not possible. I find it interesting that on the one hand--and I think we all do it--people will point the finger at China and say they're not doing this, this, and this. Yet we're all entirely complicit if you look at trade. Presently, if you look at most of the debt that the United States has, there wouldn't have to be a war between China and the United States: they would just have to call their debt. It's interesting to observe that on the one hand, when it's convenient, we can say that they're not observing human rights and not supporting democratic development. On the other hand, we're happy to truck and trade with them because it benefits us in some way.
Within that interesting dichotomy, how do we, or can we, support democratic development? At the grassroots level I've suggested there's non-Communist Party selection. Anyone could say that's a good thing. Are there ways we can actually support democratic development in China today?