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Well, good luck with that. Opinion polls show that the more Canadians learn about the Chinese regime, the less they like it. Familiarity seems to breed contempt. The more Chinese money sloshes around in Canada, the less Canadians want it. Polls undertaken by the Pew Research Centre show China’s favorability rating among Canadians, which was 58 per cent a decade ago, had dropped 20 points by last year. Only 14 per cent of Canadians like the idea of a Chinese state-owned enterprise gaining control of a major Canadian company. Canadians are anxious about China’s cyber attacks on Canadian institutions, about the increasingly wicked repression Beijing is inflicting on the Chinese people and about the implications for Canadian society of a more powerful, more outwardly aggressive regime headed by the megalomaniac Xi Jinping. So what should Ottawa do?

“The narrative for deeper engagement should be rewritten.” That recommendation comes from a submission co-authored by Wendy Dobson, former associate deputy finance minister, and Paul Evans, a China specialist and professor of international relations at the University of British Columbia. “The most difficult part is explaining the necessity of living with China rather than expecting or requiring major changes in its basic institutions, even as we try to advance concepts like the rule of law and good governance and protect Canadian values and institutions at home.”

But should the federal government devote resources to any elaborate exercise instructing us on how we should think about China, and telling us not be so fussy about the distinction between liberal governments and illiberal regimes? Should our own government be teaming up with foreign-tied lobbyists, partisan bureaucrats and vested business interests in public-relations campaigns designed to build popular support for the policies those business interests, lobbyists and bureaucrats want the government to adopt?

Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

National Post