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In all its dealings with China, Canada’s posture is uniquely supine among the G7 countries, but Xi’s wildly ambitious belligerence worldwide has made a hardheaded re-evaluation of Canada’s approach unavoidable. This would have been necessary without even figuring Taiwan into it, but there is an urgency that informs Canada’s predicament now.

Photo by AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland can’t be taken seriously as she rallies liberal democracies to unite against the dire threats of rising authoritarian unilateralism while at the same time doing nothing about Beijing’s accelerated military and economic encirclement of Taiwan. When Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen addressed a seminar at the European Parliament on Monday, it could have been Freeland talking: “A liberal democratic order can only survive if like-minded countries, including our European partners, work together for the greater good,” Tsai said.

“I’m calling on all like-minded countries to display the same spirit that led to the founding of a union across Europe in 1951: the clear-eyed sense that only by coming together can we protect our values and our future.”

But to get out from underneath the absurd restraints that have dictated our relationship with Taiwan ever since Canada opened diplomatic relations with the Chinese Communist Party regime in 1970, we’re all going to have to confront some of the prettiest lies we have been telling ourselves about Canada’s place on “the world stage” and about how we got there. This is where Eric Lerhe, the former director of NATO policy at the National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, enters the conversation.