China has warned Canada not to be “naive” in thinking that the US can help smooth over issues between the two countries. Ottawa has been engaged in trying to align support from the US, Europe and elsewhere It is a technique that may or may not work but either way, it seems to have touched a nerve in Beijing. Unelected politburo big-wigs, underlings of the equally unelected Xi Jinping, were sufficiently stung to resort to a lecture about Canadian methods. The little North American democracy, says the autocratic giant, is being naive to think that such maneuvers can be helpful. Maybe. But they say name-calling is the last resort of the insecure.
