That's funny! 1) Canada always had political cleavages. Always. We muddled through despite them. There was no generally held vision. Riel had them I guess, in and out of the mental asylum. Some of our former prime ministers had alcohol induced visions I'm sure. You have elections to sus out a direction, and the sane and sober poiticians are just winging it hoping something, anthing resonates. 2) It may be more difficult to imagine how disinterested the Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks are in our politics. They have our southern neighbour to contend with and the Asian Pacific countries with some very, uhh, quirky leaders. Our political races are insignificant to China's government; they likely don't believe they change anything anyway. Nor that social cohesion alter foreign policy.