As Stephen Harper discovered, trying to run a “values-based” foreign policy is a short ride to isolation, disappointment and international impotence.

Attempt it, and you quickly learn that much of the world beyond your borders is run by nasty people you won’t talk to — like the vulpine Vladimir Putin in Moscow and the scheming ayatollahs in Tehran — and other leaders who won’t return your calls because they consider you an insufferable, sanctimonious, self-righteous prig.

Yet it is always darkest just before the dawn. The dawn has come, Foreign Minister Stephane Dion said Tuesday, and it is called “responsible conviction.” The phrase sounds cheerful and upbeat in contrast to the Jehovistic judgements of the Harper years.

It seems to mean the Trudeau government will pursue a ‘principled foreign policy’ when it believes it’s in Canada’s interests to do so — but if Canada’s interests are better served by supping with the devil, well then … pass the gravy and let’s tuck in.

That’s the way foreign policy and diplomacy usually works — within reason. Unfortunately for Dion and Justin Trudeau, the $15 billion deal to sell LAV-3 armoured personnel carriers to Saudi Arabia for use by its army of internal repression, the National Guard, is fast becoming the indelible template for “responsible conviction”.

Over 2,000 Canadian jobs are on the line with this contract. So, in the view of Dion and Trudeau, engaging with Saudi Arabia is the name of the game. That’s despite the Riyadh monarchs having one of the world’s worst human rights records, their habit of decapitating people in public and their blatant use of their weapons purchases to silence Western critics.

Cancelling the contract, says Trudeau, would damage Canada’s reputation as a sound business partner. That didn’t trouble Jean Chrétien when he entered 24 Sussex Drive in 1993. One of the first things he did was to pay $500 million to cancel the previous Conservative government’s $4.4 billion order for EH 101 helicopters to replace the Canadian Navy’s then 30-year-old Sea King ship-borne choppers. (The Sea Kings are now over 50 years old and require 30 hours of maintenance for every hour they spend in the air.)

The difference, of course, is that the EH 101s are made by a British-Italian consortium and the LAV-3s are being built by Canadians. But hypocrisy is the breakfast food of champion diplomats. The trick of administering foreign policy is to be utterly hypocritical without anyone noticing or caring.

There are no points for refusing to play the game — and as Harper learned, it’s lonely on the sidelines. But middle powers like Canada need to box clever and land punches where they can be most effective. There are no points for refusing to play the game — and as Harper learned, it’s lonely on the sidelines. But middle powers like Canada need to box clever and land punches where they can be most effective.

In the end, pursuing Canada’s national interests trumps all other considerations. But at this moment in the evolution of global human society, determining the shape and size of Canada’s national interest isn’t always easy. The American imperium is wheezing and short of breath. Europe is flying around in circles so fast it risks disappearing up its own fundament.

The rededication promised by the Trudeau government to engagement and involvement in international institutions is undoubtedly a good thing. There are no points for refusing to play the game — and as Harper learned, it’s lonely on the sidelines.

But middle powers like Canada need to box clever and land punches where they can be most effective. Early this week, Trudeau and Dion received advice about where they should be aiming their blows from sage Liberal elder statesmen — former prime minister Paul Martin and former foreign minister John Manley, who now heads the Business Council of Canada.

Martin sees Africa as the new frontier and a beckoning savannah for Canadian investment and companionship. He’s right. Africa is undoubtedly going to be the Next Big Thing in the rolling tide of globalization. In the last decade or so, Africa has made gigantic strides in constructing political, administrative and economic dispensations that work.

Huge problems remain, of course. There’s war and insecurity in the Congo, the Horn of Africa, Nigeria and other parts of the Sahel. Corrupt and oppressive ‘Big Man’ leaders survive in places like Zimbabwe, South Africa and Angola. Elsewhere, however, the soil is fertile and ready for seeding in places like Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Botswana and Mozambique.

But even more than Asia, Africa is a graveyard for hustlers. Just look at what is happening to the Chinese companies that have attempted, with Beijing’s blessing and encouragement, a financially well-greased charm offensive to gain substantial control of business and agriculture in resource-rich Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s nonagenarian president, Robert Mugabe, is not so easily seduced. Over his 36 years in power Mugabe has developed a keen sense of when the well is dry and when there are still a few more drops to be wrung from the sand. This week his government announced that all foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe have until the end of March — Thursday — to submit what are called “indigenization plans”. This means they have to hand over 51 per cent of the shares in their operations to locals or to government-owned entities. Failure to submit such plans means that from April 1 they will be required to pay what is called an “empowerment levy” — a charming euphemism.

Manley also wants to put the squeeze on China. In a speech in Beijing, Manley said he thinks Canada can get a good free trade deal out of China — better than the one recently concluded by Australia — but Ottawa should proceed with care and caution. The Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, which include countries representing 40 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product, should be Canada’s priority, Manley said. Next should be re-invigorating free trade negotiations with Japan, he said — and only then should attention turn to China.

He’s right. Enhanced trade with China over the last 22 years or so has done little for Canada. Our exports to China have stayed relatively stable at around $20 billion a year, made up of stuff like woodpulp, various grains and lumber. Chinese exports to Canada, in contrast, have rocketed to about $65 billion a year, and comprise many of the household goods and machinery we used to make ourselves.

Manley imagined — somewhat wistfully, it seemed — that a free trade agreement with Beijing could open up the Chinese market to Canadian advanced manufactured products, high-tech innovations and service industries. His wistfulness is well placed. Beijing’s Communist Party princelings, their aristocrat families and associates are eager to import luxury goods to enjoy and to convey status. But with China’s economy in an increasingly dangerous slide, it is more than their survival is worth to allow the import of goods challenging local jobs.

Jonathan Manthorpe is the author of “Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan,” published by Palgrave-Macmillan. He has been a foreign correspondent and international affairs columnist for nearly 40 years. He was European bureau chief for the Toronto Star and then Southam News in the late 1970s and the 1980s. In 1989 he was appointed Africa correspondent by Southam News and in 1993 was posted to Hong Kong to cover Asia. For the last few years he has been based in Vancouver, writing international affairs columns for what is now the Postmedia Group. He left the group last year and now writes for a range of newspapers and websites. [email protected]

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.