Thank you very much for the question. I'll answer in English, as I'm more used to talking about these kinds of matters in English.
It's a very important question.
First of all, one key parameter is that Canada's foreign policy regarding human rights needs to focus on understanding that it's not simply an opportunity for political virtue signalling. It's not a nice-to-have.
The way the party state treats political prisoners—for example, Canadian citizens who are detained in China, ethnic minorities, citizens of Hong Kong and the Taiwanese—and the way it engages in exceedingly repressive tactics and, in many cases, human rights-violating policies against them is a preview of how that regime will treat any other country or population over which it acquires influence. We've seen that through its efforts to coerce, by fear and intimidation, Canadian citizens on our soil and, for example, people who have emigrated from Hong Kong.
We're not simply looking to speak out. The purpose of speaking out is to prevent the abuses and call attention to them. Ultimately, what our policies often need to focus on is specific cases and specific outcomes that we are looking to change. The volume is less important than how exactly it is achieved, and a crucial element is coordination with other like-minded governments, ideally as many governments as possible.
Continue to hold the line on norms in international fora on multilateral documents through the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Human Rights Council, for example, when China is continuing to try to erode those liberal norms. Also, focus on specific cases of detainees or particularly egregious cases in which it's actually possible to measure success. Otherwise, these often end up being just hortatory statements.
The Prime Minister and the current government are correct that quite often, the most can be accomplished not through public statements but through diplomatic channels. I would not underrate the role of quiet diplomacy, but the problem comes when the government trades silence for concessions and benefits from China, because the Chinese Communist Party will continually try to buy our silence. It will offer economic benefits in return for silence on what China does on Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and, ultimately, a whole range of other issues, and that creates a slippery slope.
That is dangerous, but it's not so much the volume as it is the coordination and strategic use of statements to call out unacceptable behaviour and urge changes in that behaviour.