Thank you, Dr. Nagy. I appreciate your testimony.
It really is unfortunate that right now the Canada-China committee is not able to meet. We have a situation here where the government has worked to prevent the Canada-China committee from meeting. I think your testimony would be of great interest to that committee as well, especially during these times. I hope we'll be able to find an opportunity for you to come and share your perspective in more detail before the Canada-China relations committee.
To start off, you talked about how the COVID-19 response from the Chinese government demonstrated some significant structural problems. I note that the government's ambassador, Dominic Barton, told the Canada-China relations committee when he testified a few months ago, “I commend what China is doing in trying to contain this and the effort that's under way on that front.”
Are you surprised that Canada's ambassador to China was praising the Chinese government's response to COVID-19? What do you think that suggests perhaps about the naïveté, or what does that suggest about the government's approach to China at the current time?