China's Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi responds to an iPolitics journalist's question during a press conference with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphane Dion (not shown) on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Beijing’s foreign minister Wang Yi is a perfect representative of the regime.

Arrogant. Prickly. Disdainful. Contemptuous. Dismissive. Belligerent. And darkly menacing, despite the impeccable tailoring.

If nothing else, Wang’s nasty outburst against iPolitics reporter Amanda Connolly over her question at Wednesday’s press conference in Ottawa about civil rights in China has clearly shown what sort of government foreigners must now deal with in Beijing.

You have to hope the nature of Wang’s performance seeped into the consciousness of Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion and the Liberal government. There are signs already that the Liberals are feeling a little queasy about their election campaign promise to boost economic ties with China through — among other things — a free trade pact.

Polls show that Canadians are a good deal more realistic than the Liberals about the implications of closer economic ties with Beijing; they’re apprehensive, in fact. Last year Canada sold just under $20 billion in goods to China — most of it food and natural resources — and bought nearly $66 billion in Chinese product, mostly manufactured goods. A free trade agreement would boost those numbers, but the overall effect would be to increase the trade deficit in China’s favour.

It may be because of the Liberals’ awareness of Canadians’ skepticism that Wang’s visit was not announced until a mere 24 hours before he arrived. He was in Ottawa for what we’re told was the “inaugural Canada-China Foreign Affairs Ministers’ Dialogue,” the first of planned future annual meetings between the two nations. Historically, these formal annual bilateral meetings are widely and joyously publicized as evidence of close diplomatic ties. But not in this case. There was no prior publicity for this new arrangement.

Wang’s performance underlined again the fact that the current Chinese regime often expects foreign governments it favours with its patronage to treat their citizens as it does its own. You want Beijing’s trade? Adopt Beijing’s values. Wang’s performance underlined again the fact that the current Chinese regime often expects foreign governments it favours with its patronage to treat their citizens as it does its own. You want Beijing’s trade? Adopt Beijing’s values.

The Liberals have good reasons for feeling anxious. This is not the Beijing of 1970, the country that was looking beyond the murderous, isolationist rule of Mao Zedong and welcoming diplomatic recognition through Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s Canada. Nor is it the Beijing of 1994, when Jean Chrétien — fronting for the Canada-China business community led by his son-in-law, Andre Desmarais — led the first of his Team Canada armadas to China. There still seemed the possibility then that trade and economic advancement in China would lead to political reform.

That’s no longer the case. Wang on Wednesday faithfully portrayed the attitudes of his boss, President and Communist Party boss Xi Jinping. Xi is overseeing a return to levels of repression in China not seen since the days of Mao.

Indeed, many old China hands contend that Xi has amassed more personal power than Mao ever had, partly because trade with countries like Canada has made the regime massively rich. It can afford the modern toys and tools of authoritarianism and rampant, expansionist nationalism that Mao never could.

Censorship in China is now more pervasive and efficient than it has been for more than three decades. Any organization that might challenge the authority of the Communist Party is slaughtered at birth. The prospects for the advent of the rule of law are also stillborn. In recent months, lawyers who have had the temerity to defend people the Communist Party wants to lock up have found themselves the targets of fabricated charges and imprisonment.

And the suppression of dissent — or even contrary views — doesn’t stop at China’s borders. Wang’s outburst in Ottawa on Wednesday is representative of Beijing’s attitude towards the international media these days. His ranting claim that the question asked about human rights — specifically about the detention since August 2014 of Canadian Kevin Garratt on unspecified espionage charges — was “full of prejudice against China” is typical of the myth Beijing tries to peddle these days. This story the regime constantly feeds its citizens — that the world is against China and wants to hold it back — is meant to foster intense nationalism and patriotism, and to divert attention from the regime’s many failings.

Fortunately, China’s growing middle class isn’t buying into this nonsense. Exiled Chinese scholar Minxin Pei wrote last week that he believes China’s middle class will start demanding political reform in about a decade’s time.

Wang’s performance on Wednesday also underlined again the fact that the current Beijing regime often expects foreign governments it favours with its patronage to treat their citizens as it does its own. Last year, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and — amazingly — that prophet of spiritualism, Prince Charles, refused to meet the exiled Tibetan religious leader, the Dalai Lama, when he visited Britain. The shunning was at the insistence of Beijing — the price of a revived economic relationship.

In Canada, Beijing has made it clear that a free trade deal depends on Ottawa pushing through an oil pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast. And if that means Ottawa must override existing planning and environmental assessments, and thumb its nose at what Canadians themselves think about such a project, so be it. You want Beijing’s trade? Adopt Beijing’s values.

In that respect, Wang’s outburst was a good thing. The Liberal government can no longer be under any illusions that the regime it faces in Beijing now has the same attitudes as those it courted in the mid-1990s, or even in the 1970s.

This regime is to be avoided when possible — and approached with extreme caution when necessary.

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.