Extremely few countries are “friends.” Maybe the past Canada/US relationship could have been considered legitimate friendship between two countries, but it was a very rare thing.

China is just a competitor, not some sort of boogeyman.

The US is a competitor with a lot of countries. Maybe they should ban our social media, but for whatever reason that is mostly not done. If we want to set that as the convention, it is certainly worth considering.

>but China is very much not our "friend"

Sorry, but which part of my comment implied that I think they are?