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As a bit of a gadget geek, the moment one of my devices begins to act up, I get excited about the possibility of replacing it. My wife, in contrast, is more willing to let something fall apart from overuse before upgrading to something new. But this week, even she had to admit her smartphone was on its last legs. We headed into the local shop of our wireless provider to look at replacements, and right by the front door was a huge display of Huawei phones.

And I mean huge. It was impossible to miss, positioned right in front of the main entrance, with glossy posters showing happy people wiling the hours away on their Huawei phones and tablets. It’s all part of the Chinese telecom company’s strong push for sales in Canada. You had to walk around it to get into the store. Subtle, it was not.

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It set my teeth on edge. And that was before China tried to blow up our agricultural sector.

On Tuesday evening, the news broke that China was banning meat imports from Canada. China says it detected a banned substance in Canadian pork, and discovered paperwork irregularities when it investigated. It would be a lot easier to take that oh-so-reasonable-sounding explanation seriously if China were not applying strong political pressure on Canada over the matter of Meng Wanzhou. Meng is a well-connected Chinese national and Huawei executive who was detained by Canada after we received a lawful extradition request from the United States, which has charged Meng with fraud relating to alleged efforts to skirt sanctions imposed on Iran. She is out on bail, pending a resolution of the extradition request. China is … displeased.