With regard to the question of the diaspora organizations, in my view, one reason why it's difficult for Canada to be as effective in China as one would like is that we rely on our Canadian diplomats, most of whom do not have strong Chinese language skills and/or in-depth knowledge of the Chinese situation, because of the rotational nature of diplomatic service--three years in China, and then back to work in Pittsburgh and then.... In fact, I believe that Foreign Affairs could be making more use of the few Mandarin speakers they have. I know people who have fluent Mandarin who have had one posting in China and then they didn't go back for fifteen years.
On the other hand, Chinese is the third most spoken language in our country, and we have people within Canada who have a lot of knowledge and expertise about China. So the question is, can we make the most of this national resource of Chinese people who have moved to our country and have knowledge to better realize Canadian interests in China? My feeling is that these people--and I mention it in my report--would like to be more involved and to be supporting government in what Canada does in China. I hope that may come to pass.