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What it all adds up to is an extraordinary juncture in the rise and fall of global powers, a major historical event that’s shaking the foundations of everything the world’s democracies have relied upon for peace and prosperity since the end of the Cold War. The formerly ascendant NATO powers are in disarray and retreat, convulsed by dysfunction, disunity, scandal and the weird reality-television circus act that continues to play out, non-stop, in the White House.

The formerly ascendant NATO powers are in disarray and retreat, convulsed by dysfunction, disunity, scandal and the weird reality-television circus act that continues in the White House.

Chinese President Xi Jinping may have the crude instincts of a third-rate thug, but at least he knows what he wants. And he’s taking every advantage. Gone are the days of Deng Xiaoping’s cunning “hide your strength, bide your time, never take the lead” strategy. After amassing to himself greater powers than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, Xi is setting China on a course to dominate the global economy. He has made it clear that he intends to do so in open defiance of the foundational rules that bind liberal democracies. And he will do so by coercion and intimidation, by deception or in plain sight. Xi will exploit our every weakness and overwhelm every unguarded flank.

“We must never follow the path of Western ‘constitutionalism,’ ‘separation of powers,’ and ‘judicial independence,’ ” Xi wrote last month in the Communist Party’s leading theoretical journal. At least he’s being straight up and forthright about it.

If Canada is ever to see an end to the hostage-taking standoff Xi set in motion when he chucked former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor into the Ministry of State Security’s dungeons, it will not come about by the ordinary pursuits of diplomacy. We might as well face it. They may not be seeing freedom for a long, long time. Canada cannot allow itself to be paralyzed by this.