The excuse I've always heard, both in Ottawa and in Geneva, is that Canada is a small country and cannot afford to offend China--unlike the U.S., which can carry clout that is perhaps ten times bigger than ours.
However, I go back to my story about Denmark. Little Denmark stood up to the so-called giants at that time and suffered no consequences. I think that's a message we want to get out to our politicians as well as our people: Canada can say no to China without an adverse effect on our relationship.
I think too often our officials perhaps have been a little bit too intimidated in dealing with China. Perhaps, as I mentioned before, they put this pretext of oriental culture around it. They almost treat China as a country differently from the way we normally treat other countries. I think that's perhaps the mindset we need to reverse and get clear about.