In the early 1990s, Mr. Balloch was a diplomat who helped invent the "Team Canada" concept, bringing hordes of Canadian politicians on trade missions to China to court the rising dragon. Canada's friendship with China became so chummy that they announced a "strategic partnership" last year.

All this, he says, has been jeopardized by a new government in Ottawa that seems intent on shunning China. After a year of snubs and cold shoulders, Canada is suffering a deteriorating relationship with one of its biggest trading partners.

"Shunning is not a very successful policy," says Mr. Balloch, a former Canadian ambassador to China who has been dealing with the Middle Kingdom since the 1970s when he first worked on the Asia desk at the Foreign Affairs Department.

"China is simply too important to ignore," he says. "This is not a country that you can isolate. You end up isolating yourself."

Last year he helped broker a major Chinese investment in the Alberta oil sands -- a 40-per-cent stake in the Northern Lights project by China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. Those kinds of investments are now at risk, he says.

Mr. Balloch was astonished when Prime Minister Stephen Harper failed to dispatch his Foreign Minister, Peter MacKay, to visit China this year -- or even to meet the Chinese ambassador in Ottawa until late in the year.

He was even more surprised when Mr. Harper refused to accept China's unofficial invitation to visit Beijing last month on his way to Hanoi for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit. Such invitations are usually coveted by Western leaders who are vying for the attention of an economic superpower.

When Mr. Harper snubbed the invitation and continued to offend China, he was relegated to a brief 15-minute meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the APEC summit -- much shorter than a normal bilateral meeting.

With his diplomatic background, Mr. Balloch has dissected the 15-minute meeting. After subtracting time for interpreters, he calculates that Mr. Harper had less than four minutes

to speak to the Chinese leader. And after subtracting the pleasantries and handshakes, it may have been less than three minutes -- not enough time to say anything of consequence.

The Harper government, he says, is making the elementary mistake of overestimating Canada's influence and assuming it can snub China without any backlash. "No country bends to our will," he says. "This is a very competitive world. We can't slack off and then come back. We don't count enough."

Mr. Harper has argued that he cannot sacrifice human rights to the "almighty dollar" of trade and investment. He has vowed to push hard for human rights cases, including the rights of Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil, who languishes in an unknown Chinese prison while Beijing refuses to allow Canadian diplomats to visit him.

But if human rights are the priority, is it best to promote this cause by engaging China in substantial meetings and dialogue? Or to snub China in protest?

Mr. Balloch, who is vice-chairman of the Canada China Business Council, is convinced that the Harper government can be more effective on human rights by engaging China. He recalls witnessing private meetings in Beijing where Canadian cabinet ministers, from the previous Liberal government, took a tough line on human rights, even as tempers flared and voices were raised.

As head of an investment advisory firm, he often meets Chinese officials and business leaders, and these days they usually ask about Canada's deteriorating relationship with Beijing. In a country where business leaders take their cue from the government, Chinese investors could soon decide to turn away from Canada.

"Initially they were puzzled," he says. "But at this stage, they are probably turning their attention elsewhere. This could affect investments in both directions."

He is equally concerned by the Harper government's floating of possible restrictions on investments by "large state-owned enterprises" -- a clear reference to Chinese companies in sectors such as oil. The fear of a Chinese takeover in the oil sands, he says, is ludicrous and smacks of racism.

In his view, it's another attempt to shun China and it could endanger a relationship that took decades to cultivate. "If you plant a tree and then never water it, it will gradually die."