Cold War effect could slow the economy and weaken dialogue on crucial issues 

Canadian domestic politics have helped magnify the most recent dispute between Beijing and Ottawa into a full blown tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats.

While some experts who track relations between China and Canada play the spat down — one called it "pretty trivial" — it's one more crack contributing to a far more dangerous long-term rupture.

Labelled "global fragmentation," the issue was raised at a recent International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington, D.C. The current Canadian dispute may represent a further fracturing of the world into competing trade blocs that will not only make us all poorer, but impede crucial talks on shared global threats, including climate change and artificial intelligence.

Diplomacy's economic impact

Critics of the Canadian government's handling of threats against Conservative MP Michael Chong's family in Hong Kong would not see the issue as trivial.

After being pressed by Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly cited China's "interference in our internal affairs" in declaring Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei persona non grata. As expected, in reply China expelled a Canadian diplomat, Jennifer Lynn Lalonde.

• Trudeau says expulsion of Chinese diplomat shows Canada 'will not be intimidated'

While far less significant than previous disputes with Beijing that in the past led to the long-term imprisonment of innocent Canadians and may have contributed to persistent trade sanctions, the latest Canada-China spat is only one sign of hostility between the world's free-market democracies and what appears to be an emerging alternative bloc.