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War is no longer confined to battlefields. It is waged through supply chains, trade corridors, energy dependencies, and the quiet alignment of nations that claim values they are no longer prepared to defend. Like Achilles, the archetype of the great warrior whose strength defined the battlefield, yet whose vulnerability determined his fate; modern states project power while exposing their weakest points. Today, those vulnerabilities are not found in armour, but in dependence: on adversarial economies, compromised supply chains, and the erosion of moral clarity.
From Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific, the world is dividing along familiar lines. Democracies on one side, authoritarian regimes on the other. Yet in this moment of global fracture, Canada continues to speak in contradictions.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has chosen a curious line of defence when pressed on forced and child labour that such abuses exist “throughout the world.” It is a statement that sounds balanced, even reasonable until one understands what it is designed to do.
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It dilutes. It deflects. It equalizes the unequal and this is part of the Liberal governments communications strategy on selling China to Canadians. The state broadcaster has been granted access to China and now presents glowing accounts of the brilliance of Chinese engineering, automation and its green initiatives. (Still the biggest emitters of Green House Gases, 2025.).
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When everything is a problem, nothing is a priority.
This moral relativism has become the intellectual cover for an increasingly visible reality: Canada’s “all-in” strategy with the People’s Republic of China. A strategy that, notably, did not include any meaningful public confrontation on human rights during Carney’s recent visit with Xi Jinping according to a readout from the Privy Council Office but rebuked by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Not a word of consequence on Uyghur forced labour. Not a signal that trade would beconditioned on human or labour rights values. Silence, in diplomacy, is never neutral. And yet, at the same time, Canada continues to approach India a democratic partner with hesitation, some friction, and with strategic ambiguity.
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Prior to the PM taking the podium, I had a chance to talk with Minister Hodgson. “Tim, I am confused about the India vs China trade deals or opportunity,” I said plainly. “The India trade MOUs are more comprehensive and see a much wider swath—including nuclear energy, technology, AI and critical infrastructure.
“Well let me be frank, China engagement comes with red lines: technology transfer restrictions, limits on ownership, and tight controls on critical minerals.”
I said, “why call the China engagement a ‘Strategic Partnership’ if this is this case? If so you should signal this to Canadians, India and the United States because China is not a panacea and their record on forced labour, technology transfer and undermining democracies are clearly not in our interests and yet your government seem to be all in on China.”
Hodgson said, “Perhaps we can do better on this front.”
It is a simple observation, but one that cuts to the core of Canada’s current incoherence.
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During a recent parliamentary Industry committee hearing, Liberal MP Michael Ma aggressively challenged China expert Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, dismissing evidence of Uyghur forced labour as “hearsay.” The exchange was not merely clumsy; it was extremely revealing about the governments communications operation to somehow normalize forced labour.
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Abbas stated, “Mr Ma’s tactic of dismissal has been amplified by pro-CCP trolls questioning China’s ongoing Uyghur genocide. By that logic, every dictatorship could erase its crimes simply by hiding them well enough. Calling Uyghur genocide and forced labor anything else is ignorance at best and a defense of the CCP at worst. I am a firsthand witness to this genocide. My sister, Dr Gulshan Abbas, has been imprisoned for almost eight years in retaliation for my advocacy as an American citizen.?”
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War, trade, and values are no longer separable. They are intertwined realities shaping the next global order. And while we don’t know the outcome of the Iran war, American foreign policy aims to stabilize the Middle East by ridding the world of a terrorist regime striving to be a nuclear power and backed by the very regime we are strategically partnering with. We all hope this is the outcome given the economic disruption we are collectively facing.
Canada cannot condemn genocide in one breath, dismiss its evidence in another, fail to enforce its own laws, and deepen economic dependence on the very system it claims to oppose.
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