Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with China's Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi in his office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 1, 2016. iPolitics/Matthew Usherwood

In 1968, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau came up with the most famous description of the Canada-U.S. relationship, and the power imbalance that defines it: a mouse sleeping with an elephant. Canada, as the junior partner, depended on the Americans for trade and security in an insecure Cold War world. For Canadian leaders and diplomats, the challenge was in finding ways to assert our interests whenever they ran counter to those of our southern neighbour.

In 2016, there’s a new elephant in the room. Through its vast domestic market, state-controlled enterprises and dictatorial government, China is buying, investing and trading its way into a power position with hundreds of countries around the globe. That kind of power is the envy of many a politician; Justin Trudeau made one of his ill-considered cracks before being elected prime minister when he expressed admiration for China “because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime …”

When dealing with China today, Trudeau the younger doesn’t need to offer up praise: He can rely on the goodwill created by his father, who was considered a great friend by the Chinese during his time in office. But that goodwill has its limits, as was demonstrated by the recent Ottawa visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Wang’s meeting with Trudeau had been ‘requested’ (read: ‘demanded’) by the Chinese government after the PM’s participation in the G7 meeting at which Trudeau and his fellow attendees expressed support for Japan in its long-running dispute with China over resources in the South China Sea.

The rest you know: After meeting with Trudeau and foreign Minister Stéphane Dion, Wang berated iPolitics reporter Amanda Connolly for asking a question about China’s human rights record and the case of Canadian Kevin Garratt, currently in custody in China facing highly suspicious espionage charges.

“I have to say that your question is full of prejudice against China and arrogance … and this is totally unacceptable,” said Wang. Dion stood by during Wang’s tirade, did not comment and moved on to the next question.

So what should Dion have done? It would have unreasonable to expect him to reenact the scene from the hit American drama House of Cards, where American ambassador Claire Underwood publicly castigates the Russian president over his country’s human rights record. Instead, Dion and Trudeau both did the ‘diplomatic’ thing — they expressed Canada’s displeasure in private.

China’s ambitions are not merely economic — they are geopolitical. The goal is to buy political goodwill and parlay it into support for China’s foreign policy. China’s ambitions are not merely economic — they are geopolitical. The goal is to buy political goodwill and parlay it into support for China’s foreign policy.

“I can confirm that both Dion and department officials from Global Affairs Canada have expressed our dissatisfaction to both the Chinese foreign minister and the ambassador of China to Canada — our dissatisfaction with the way our journalists were treated,” Trudeau told CBC News. “The fact of the matter is freedom of the press is extremely important to me.”

How effective that expression of disastisfaction will turn out to be remains to be seen. Early indications are that the attitude of official China towards Canada has not changed. Garratt is still locked up. Just days after the visit, the Globe and Mail published a piece by Luo Zhaohui, China’s ambassador to Canada, in which he extolled the virutes of cooperation between the two countries — while also demonstrating the vast gulf that still separates their conceptions of human rights, notably freedom of the press.

“It is with great expectations and sincere willingness for co-operation that minister Wang Yi has come to Canada and made a ten-point initiative for co-operation. I think this is what the media should focus on,” the ambassador wrote. “While reporters may enjoy freedom of press and ask China-related questions, the Chinese side on its part has freedom of opinion and expression.”

What matters now is what Trudeau and Dion do next. Will Canada pursue a bilateral free trade deal with China, or focus on the Trans Pacific Partnership and trade with its allies? Will Canada stand up for human rights, both for Canadian and Chinese citizens? Or will we downplay rights violations in the pursuit of economic opportunity — as we have with Saudi Arabia through that billion-dollar arms deal?

For decades, China has been investing in Africa in exchange for the cooperation of foreign governments, extracting minerals and other resources it needs to fuel growth back home. Now China is building a ‘new Silk Road’ into Europe, striking deals with the continent’s major ports and spending billions on rail lines and other infrastructure. As reported by Foreign Policy, China’s ambitions are not merely economic — they are geopolitical. The goal is to buy political goodwill and parlay it into support for China’s foreign policy.

“Most Chinese foreign direct investments are not normal foreign direct investments,” Philippe Le Corre of the Brookings Institution told FP. “With a few exceptions, they just happen to have the whole Chinese state behind them.” As a result, countries such as the Czech Republic have dropped their outspoken stance on Tibetan independence. Slovenia is one of several European nations that back China’s position on disputes with Japan in the South China Sea.

It’s this fusion of state and commercial interests that makes dealing with China so difficult. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ottawa put the brakes on future Chinese state investment in Canada’s oilsands. Oddly enough, in his Globe article Zhaohui hangs a flag on that point, claiming that “the Chinese side has never preconditioned the FTA negotiation on the opening of an energy pipeline and the lifting of restrictions on state-owned enterprises’ investment in Canada, as has been absurdly claimed in some media reports.”

Absurd or not, this is one of the lines in the sand Trudeau and Dion have to draw firmly in terms of economic relations with the Middle Kingdom. More than that, however, Canada has to stand up for the rights of its own citizens, like Garratt, and the rights of ordinary Chinese oppressed by their own government. Dion’s department issued a statement recently marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and “(calling) upon China to uphold all of its human rights obligations”.

But Ottawa’s going to have to take a much tougher line with the current crowd in Beijing if it doesn’t want the elephant to simply shrug — and roll over.

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.