I'd like to start with the last part first, with the religious freedoms. There are problems with the religious freedom side. In terms of immense improvement, that has to do with the time when I was in China in the mid-1970s, when all places of worship were closed. Today, people openly worship in China in both recognized religious forms and also some unofficial ones, and the unofficial ones are the ones that are the most problematic these days.
There are temples open. People worship at them openly. I saw this on my most recent visit. But there is still a problem in terms of state control and state supervision. The difference is that there is a recognized space for religious activity in China that was not present before.
Another example has to do with the media openness I saw, not only with respect to this story, again, about child labour, which was reported by the domestic press, but also with respect to the reporting from the earthquake zone, the use of the Internet and blogs, people actually talking about problems connected with...their active concern about problems that might have been corruption in the past and current concerns about possible corruption in relief. All of these things are relatively new.
Although there are problems—as I said, the editor gets dismissed—what you get in China today is that concerns are bubbling up from society. And those channels are opened up. What happens is there might be one person who's targeted, as perhaps the instigator, but then again the bar gets moved and people expect a higher level of involvement.
Of course, Professor Potter is much better equipped than I to talk about changes in the legal norms, but there have been immense changes in the role of lawyers. Most recently, there was the threat of sanction against lawyers who defended some of the demonstrators in Tibet, but the fact is that the lawyers came forward to provide a pro bono defence. Again, these are changes.
I can't go much further without taking up all our time. I'll let other witnesses speak.