Thank you so much.
I've had the opportunity to serve in Canadian embassies in three communist countries on three different continents. It's not an easy question to answer, but the watchword for me—and the reason I'm careful—is that I served in eastern Europe. My job was actually tracking opposition parties in Warsaw. I could see the cracks in the wall. I felt the Soviet Union would collapse. I thought it would take 50 years, but 18 months after I left, it was gone. These are very tough questions.
To me communist regimes have the strength of iron, not of steel. They can be very brittle. When you have disunity at the top, which to me is the most likely cause of change in China—that is, regime collapse—there will be a struggle at the top.
China has spent so much money and effort to manage and control dissidents at the street level, but my money would be on problems at the top. When those will emerge to such a point as to threaten the regime is a tough question. It could be soon or it could take a long time.