In terms of mandate, the guiding mandate that we have presently for the CIDA programming in China is a country development programming framework that was defined in 2004 and revised in 2005. That has given us our two main priority areas, which are, number one, in human rights, democratic development, and good governance; and number two, in the area of supporting China's environmental sustainability. This is the mandate that we have for the program.
Very extensive work goes in each time these policies are determined. Very extensive work goes into that, and our colleagues at the Department of Foreign Affairs, particularly working together in the embassy in Beijing but also here in Ottawa, were intimately involved on the Canadian side in our arriving at those two main priority areas for the program, which are in line with Canadian policy priorities for engagement with China. It's not the sum total of Canadian policy priorities for China, because there are policy interests in areas such as trade. That's not an area in which the CIDA program works these days.
But in terms of our main areas of programming, these were derived together on the Canadian side. When we come to the table with the Chinese to agree on what the priorities are, our priorities have been determined together as Government of Canada priorities and we end up with a set of objectives governing our current program that has been agreed with the Chinese government. But there could be other things that the Chinese government would have wanted us to do that didn't correspond with Canadian foreign policy priorities, and that's how we've ended up with the ones that we have. But they are worked out jointly between Foreign Affairs and CIDA before we come to the table with the Chinese.