Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the message of the secretary of state on China and Tiananmen square.
Certainly all of us have the memories imprinted on our minds of the horror and the terror and disbelief of what happened some six years ago. We need to think about what we have in Canada, freedom of speech, freedom of association and all of the good things that are part of our democracy and what it really means when we think back to those days.
Those people did not die in vain and China is moving forward as slow as it may be. China has a very major future in the world. It is a time to think of China and look at what that country means in the big picture of the world. I remember my visits in the late 1970s and in the early 1980s. I think about a country that was very agrarian, backward to our western way of looking at things.
I think of all the people in their blue and green clothes, the thousands and thousands of bicycles. I think of going to the movie theatre where I spent six cents to get in and where in the middle, because there was a Canadian there, they played "Red River Valley". Somehow they thought that was the national anthem of the country.
I remember the curious way people dealt with us as westerners but how friendly they were and how important their family and social structure was to them. I think back to being in the schools where education is such an important part of their society, where they go for six days a week, where they start at eight in the morning and finish at six at night and how they do not have text books so they have to read it on the blackboards outside the school. The people are very industrious, hard working. Commerce is important and there is a hidden power, a so-called sleeping giant in China.
China has changed a lot in the last 10 or 15 years. It now has double digit growth rates, unemployment, a massive movement from rural to urban, a dismantling of the state owned business, an aging leader who sort of keeps it together, but it will change dramatically.
For those of us who have been watching closely I do not think we can believe the speed at which this change will occur. There is a new era for China coming. It is hoped there will be a peaceful change to democracy from the chaos that might otherwise occupy that country.
The government still operates in the old way but I believe the new government will look toward the true power of China and so will come democracy in the 21st century. There is a great opportunity for China and for us in dealing with China.
The Chinese government must control corruption. It must solidify economic reform and it must carry out democratization not just from the communes but on through the villages, the towns, the cities and ultimately in the national government.
With all of this I believe firmly that human rights will come and that human rights reform will be part of that movement. I do not believe there is any way the Government of China will be able to stop that.
What is our role? Our role is to speak out against violations. This gives the people both in and out of China an opportunity to feel strength from our opposition. We need to provide assistance in developing governments and so on. Above all, the isolation of China will not accomplish the goals we all hold for China in the future.