Fresh From Bowing to Xi Jinping, Carney Takes Shots at America in Davos

Watching Mark Carney’s Performance From Afar

There’s something almost impressive about the sheer audacity of it all. Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney jets to Beijing, bends the knee to Xi Jinping’s communist regime, tosses aside any pretense of caring about human rights or national security, and then flies to Davos to lecture everyone about the collapse of the rules-based international order. The man’s got nerve, I’ll give him that.

Let’s walk through what actually happened here because the timeline matters. Carney, whose business entanglements with China somehow didn’t disqualify him in Canadian voters’ minds, made his pilgrimage to Beijing last week. This is the same China he previously called the greatest threat to Canadian national security. But that was then, right? Now he’s Prime Minister, and suddenly those concerns about Chinese election meddling, hostage-taking, and forced labor camps seem less pressing than cutting deals with the world’s second-largest economy.

The art of the sellout is pretty straightforward when you watch it unfold. Carney dropped Canada’s protections against Chinese electric vehicle dumping. He agreed to zip his lips about human rights abuses. All this in service of proving that Canada doesn’t need to rely on American trade. It’s the geopolitical equivalent of burning down your house to spite your neighbor.

Then comes the Davos speech, and honestly, you couldn’t write better satire if you tried.

Reading From Someone Else’s Script

Carney stood before the World Economic Forum and complained that “great powers have begun using economic integration as a weapon” and “tariffs as leverage.” You know what’s funny about that? Those are Beijing’s talking points, word for word. China has been whining about American economic policy since President Trump returned to office, conveniently forgetting that China’s entire playbook consists of exactly those tactics.

The Chinese Communist Party has perfected the art of economic coercion. They control critical mineral supplies, dominate manufacturing supply chains, and weaponize market access against anyone who steps out of line. Ask Australia how that works after they had the audacity to request an investigation into COVID-19’s origins. Beijing slapped tariffs on Australian goods faster than you can say “rules-based order.”

Canadians are going to learn this lesson the hard way. Wait until some future prime minister takes a position Xi doesn’t like. China will cut off Canada’s supply of rare earth minerals or whatever leverage point they’ve carefully cultivated through these new trade deals. Ottawa will come crawling back into line, because that’s how this game actually works.

The Thucydides Problem Nobody Wants to Address

Carney got dramatic in his speech, pulling out the old Thucydides quote about the strong doing what they can and the weak suffering what they must. It’s become such a cliche in foreign policy circles that I almost groaned when I read it. He positioned himself as the enlightened middle power leader who would prove the ancient Greek historian wrong by building a new international order based on “respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”

This from the man who just agreed to stop criticizing forced labor camps.

Here’s the thing Carney either doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to admit. The entire postwar international order existed because America made it exist. The rules-based system worked when it served the interests of great powers, and it failed when it didn’t. That’s not cynicism; that’s observable reality across seven decades of history.

Carney even acknowledged this in his speech, calling past notions of the international order “partially false” and a “useful fiction” supported by American hegemony. So he knows the truth. He just thinks he can have it both ways: benefit from Chinese money and power while preaching about values and sovereignty.

What This Really Tells Us

The mask-off moment here is worth examining closely. Carney wouldn’t be courting Xi’s empire of surveillance and slavery if China were poor and weak. He’s making these deals precisely because China has enough economic power to make them attractive, which proves the very point he claims to be arguing against.

Middle powers like Canada aren’t powerless, sure. But their power depends entirely on playing great powers against each other or aligning with the strongest horse in the race. Right now, Carney’s betting that he can extract concessions from both Washington and Beijing by threatening to pick the other side. It’s a dangerous game, and history suggests it rarely ends well for the middle power.

The brutal reality Carney referenced in his speech isn’t something new. It’s the same reality that’s governed international relations since the first city-states started trading and warring with each other. Power matters. Military strength matters. Economic leverage matters. All the high-minded rhetoric about rules and norms and international law matters exactly as much as the powerful nations decide it matters at any given moment.

American voters should watch this carefully. We’re seeing in real time what happens when a leader prioritizes globalist approval and economic expedience over principles and national security. Carney’s performance in Beijing and Davos is a masterclass in saying one thing while doing another. He talks about human rights while shaking hands with a regime that operates concentration camps. He warns about economic coercion while signing deals with history’s greatest practitioner of it.

That’s not leadership. That’s opportunism dressed up in fancy words at a Swiss resort town.

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