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But when your government has become better known for commemorating things on social media than for actually getting things done to commemorate on social media, it’s probably better to err on the side of modesty. It’s better to get the next thing done.

With governments now having the ability to broadcast a first version of history, it’s easy to forget that public life is actually about substance, not style. Governing is about getting the small decisions right alongside the bigger calls. Nor do people expect perfection in their representatives; witness the praise Trudeau received for taking Canada backwards a few steps on North American free trade in the face of Trump’s economic illiteracy.

All the more reason, then, to start racking up the action. And that should start with China. Donald Trump makes a fun pantomime villain but in Xi Jinping the world has the real thing.

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Whether it’s building a surveillance state and using it to virtually imprison its Muslim population, building hundreds of coal-fired power plants, or militarizing the South China Sea, the current Chinese regime is busy imposing its will. And for five months it has held Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in custody in apparent retaliation for the U.S. extradition request of Huawei CFO Meng Wangzhou. It’s time to bring them home.

Now that Trudeau is back to being buddy-buddy with Trump, he should involve American diplomacy in efforts to free the two men. Whatever China has at stake with Canada pales in comparison to its relationship with the United States. Instead of sucking up to China, Trudeau should be tucking in under Trump’s wing on questions such as unfair trade practices and Huawei’s designs on 5G networks.

Pace the Trudeau of a few years ago, there simply isn’t that much to admire in China’s dictatorship. Its views and values are antithetical to ours. Let’s stop pretending otherwise.

Trudeau’s naïveté on China is a weak point with voters. Getting a result there would go a long way to showing voters that Trudeau’s Canada is a principled nation of deeds.

Andrew MacDougall isa London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

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