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Watching it all is Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has long observed that America’s global dominance will be displaced by a Beijing-controlled world order.

This month, with a huge pageant of deadly weaponry. While the military parade was held to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Second World War, Xi preferred to talk about contemporary issues. His speech alluded to a future war, saying China will not be intimidated by bullies (read: Trump), and that “mankind is faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum.”

Standing subordinately alongside him on the rostrum were the authoritarian dictators of Russia and North Korea. (Later that day Trump addressed Xi with a typical passive-aggressive posting on his Truth Social: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”)

For Canada, this all matters.

Last month, Beijing’s propaganda mouthpiece, the Global Times, published a Chinese Communist Party statement about the August meeting of the China-Canada Joint Economic and Trade Commission (quietly held in Ottawa, while Parliament was on summer recess). Headlined ,” the report says China wants “Canada to take immediate steps to correct its erroneous practices,” and “maintain policy autonomy” (from the United States), and take “constructive approaches and pragmatic actions to manage differences.”

In other words, Canada should ease restrictions on Chinese access to sensitive technologies and natural resources (especially critical minerals) and not expel diplomats whose function is to intimidate Canadians of Hong Kong origin. Based on the Beijing regime’s well-worn track record, China would not agree to do anything different in response to Canada’s concerns.

Curiously, in another speech last week, Xi seemed to suggest China might be turning over a new leaf in international behaviour, promising to “fully, comprehensively, and completely adhere to the universally recognized basic norms governing international relations, including the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and ensure the equal and uniform application of international law and international rules.”

Recognizing the UN Charter and international rules? Is Xi suddenly becoming everything that Trump isn’t? It was a ploy. Both speeches concluded with Xi’s “common destiny of mankind” trope, where China takes its place at the helm of the world.

So, while Xi and Trump do their sabre dance, nervous Canadians are watching Prime Minister Mark Carney purposefully pursue new stable partnerships in an unstable world. The best bet to avoid being bound to Beijing or Washington is deeper integration with like-minded allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, including Japan and Taiwan.

We will all feel the cost of paying our share to protect Canada’s sovereignty and financial security through new collaborations and investments. The cash-strapped government will cut programs and raise taxes. But the fact is, Canada will never find security by banking on some vision of simply selling more exports to China.

We need shrewd, transparent leadership and the consensus of a nation caught in an economic war. Hopefully Carney will not blink in making hard decisions and facilitating the comprehensive co-ordinated and transformative program we need as a nation. We are just at the beginning of major historic disruption.