Canadians might be excused for not knowing who their friends are these days. Our best friend, our buddy, the United States, has in hardly a moment become our greatest threat. The U.S., formerly the world’s leading democracy and champion of a rules-based world order, has gone rogue. A benighted American public elected a mentally ill criminal as their president and got the government they deserve. We didn’t deserve it, but we got it, too—the price of sleeping next to an elephant.

It behooves us, therefore, to seek out new partners with some haste. And we have recently gained a very important one, a strategic one no less. At least that was the description offered by Prime Minister Carney who negotiated this new relationship with China in Beijing earlier this month.

Carney’s visit was the first to China by a Canadian Prime Minister since 2017. In Beijing, he met with a host of big shots including the President, Xi Jinping. After their meeting, Carney and Xi released a joint statement outlining our new strategic partnership.

Central to this new relationship is “an agreement to collaborate in energy, clean technology, and climate competitiveness,” including reducing emissions and increasing investments in batteries, solar, wind, and energy storage. The agricultural sector saw agreements to significantly reduce tariffs on a range of products including canola seed, lobsters, crabs and peas. This was balanced by giving Chinese firms access to electric vehicle sales in this country, initially 49,000 a year at a tariff of only 6.1 percent.

The financial agreements met with mixed reaction from the provinces. The deal on canola delighted Premier Moe of Saskatchewan, who accompanied the PM on the trip, while Premier Ford of Ontario was furious at the competition from Chinese cars, predicting “This is going to be a big, big problem.” Stephanie Bowman, Ontario Liberal critic for finance and trade, was more optimistic, saying, “If Chinese electric vehicles are going to enter the Canadian market, then we must also work with Chinese EV companies to create good, strong, safe jobs for Ontario workers, which this deal opens the door to.”

In any case, the partnership is about much more than trade. Unlike our former best friend’s new approach to the world, but very much like ours, China is a strong advocate of multilateralism. According to a statement from the PM’s office, “As a key pillar of this partnership, we will deepen our engagement on improved global governance.” This is good to hear in an increasingly fractious world.

The two partners are also committed to pursuing “pragmatic and constructive engagement in public safety and security,” promising to improve efforts against drug trafficking, cybercrime and money laundering. Promoting more cultural co-operation is also mentioned.

Considering how sour our relations have been with China since the two Michaels affair, this was quite an impressive return to normality, a signal success in our prime minister’s campaign to “hedge against uncertainty.” Now comes the job of turning the words into actions.

In his acclaimed Davos speech the PM cautioned, “not every partner will share all of our values,” and that could hardly be truer of any partner than China, a rigid dictatorship that sees democracy as its biggest enemy. But he also said, “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” and a rupture is not a time to be overly particular about your partners. Better, as the prime minister advised, to pursue what he refers to as “variable geometry”—different coalitions for different issues—keeping in mind the old Russian proverb Doveryai, no proveryai—Trust, but verify.