India, Jan. 27 -- Canadian Prime Minister (PM) Mark Carney's recent World Economic Forum speech has been widely praised as courageous - bringing much-needed candour about the "rules-based international order". He invoked the metaphor of Vaclav Havel's greengrocer - the ordinary figure who quietly endured an oppressive system until he and others found the collective courage to improve their lives. It is an evocative image. It is also entirely wrong.

Canada was never the greengrocer. Canada was one of the mall owners. It helped design the building, sat on the management committee, enforced the rules, collected rents, and benefited from the security, financial architecture. It was embedded in Nato's security umbrella, the dollar-anchored fi...