It's been more than a week since two permanent members on the United Nations Security Council vetoed an attempt by Arab and Western countries to force Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down and end the relentless violence against Syrian opposition forces and civilians.

Anti-Syrian regime protesters burn a Russian flag and a portrait of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday in Homs, central Syria. The Arabic placard on the left reads: Russia is a partner in shedding the blood of Syria. (Associated Press)

Following the vetoes by China and Russia, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said he was "disappointed in the extreme," adding the UN's failure to act gave "yet another free pass for the illegitimate Assad regime and those backing it."

China and Russia had also blocked earlier UN efforts at economic sanctions to isolate the Syrian regime.

The situation in Syria, and attempts to do something about it, grow ever more dysfunctional. Over the weekend, the head of the ineffective Arab League observer mission resigned, and the league, representing 22 countries, officially cut more diplomatic ties with Syria. Arab and Western countries involved in a new "Friends of Syria" group are scrambling to figure out what kind of action, at the United Nations or on the ground in Syria, could possibly stop the killing and definitively isolate or end the "illegitimate" Assad regime.

But while Canada remains supportive of strong action on Syria, the public face of Canada's relations with the two countries blocking it with their vetoes offers a study in contrasts.

Demarche for Russia

Last Wednesday, Foreign Affairs officials appearing before a House of Commons committee revealed that Canada delivered a "demarche" — an official diplomatic notice of our country's disapproval — to Moscow for not only its refusal to support Assad's ouster, but the role Russia has played in equipping the combatants.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, shakes hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Damascus Feb. 7. Canada has lodged a protest with Russia over its arms shipments to Syria, an official says. (Reuters)

Russia sells weapons to Syria, and its foreign minister was photographed shaking Assad's hand in Damascus just last Tuesday. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the international community on Wednesday to let Syria settle its own internal conflicts independently.

Despite the protests on his own streets, Putin seems poised to regain his corruption-tinged clutch on the Russian presidency in an election scheduled for March 4.

Countries don't always make it public when a demarche is given or received. When Canadian officials made a point of going public with their protest to the Russians, it was only the latest chill factor in Canada-Russian relations.

Both sides appear to have agreed to a frosty exercise in restraint on the communications front when it comes to recent charges laid against a Canadian naval intelligence officer for passing secret military information to a foreign entity.

With the revelation of this latest protest, Canada appears to have concluded that any negative consequences from publicly criticizing Russia are less important than speaking out on Syria.

Private words in China

A panda reaches for Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a photo call at the Chongqing Zoo in China on Saturday. China is loaning two giant pandas to Canada for a 10-year stay, starting in 2013. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Contrast this with what Prime Minister Stephen Harper was willing to reveal on the very same day his officials were before that Commons committee, when a reporter specifically asked about Syria as his (literally) panda-stroking, trade mission to China began.

"It's never my habit to discuss what other people say in a private meeting. But obviously I raised in very clear and strong terms Canada's position," Harper told reporters late last week.

Perhaps an equivalent demarche was quietly delivered by the Canadian delegation in Beijing. A government source would say only that the situation in Syria has been raised "on numerous occasions at various levels" with both China and Russia.

But regardless, Harper wasn't going to mix condemnation into his message marking trade "milestones," on a trip meant to cement a relationship headed for "the next level."

Harper's trip to China yielded an investment protection deal, billions of dollars worth of trade deals and agreements, and the potential of future free trade talks with a fast-growing economy poised to become the world's largest market.

In Harper's interview with CBC Radio's Susan Lunn on Friday, he revealed little more about any criticism delivered to China for its obstruction on Syria.

"While I'm on the ground here, I don't get into details of our discussions," Harper maintained. "But obviously we have a pretty profound difference of opinion with the Chinese government on the Syrian question."

"I think people are watching and seeing what has happened since the Security Council's failure to act," Harper continued. "My hope is that will cause Chinese and other governments to think twice about the course they're on... it's only a matter of time before things change in that country, so I think the Chinese and everybody would be well-advised to recognize those realities and try and positively shape the future there."

Arms trade track record

As the diplomatic tut-tutting continues, there are practical questions about not just the Chinese position on Syria, but its role in the international arms trade.

Earlier last year, when both Russia and China abstained, but did not veto, the UN's resolution on Libya (which passed, after strong Western pressure for the Chinese not to block the resolution if they could not bring themselves to support it), all member countries were supposed to refrain from selling arms to the Gadhafi regime.

To China's discredit, a Canadian newspaper put documents online suggesting Gadhafi's officials met with Chinese arms dealers as late as July. While officials in Beijing denied those talks resulted in arms sales, Libyan rebels insisted to Western media that Chinese weapons were evident on the ground.

Baird's office will say now only what it said when the possible sales were exposed in September: that Canada expected all states to adhere to the UN resolution prohibiting arms sales to Libya. It declined to comment on the possibility of China selling weapons to Syria too.

But even beyond arms dealing, the fact that China hasn't made the same public displays of support for Assad as the Russians have doesn't change the practical implications of China's decision to use its veto at the UN and block action against Syria.

Two Syrian rebels evacuate an injured fellow rebel in Idlib, Syria, on Feb. 8. Activists report dozens killed in the regime's siege of the restive city of Homs. (Associated Press)

"I believe very strongly that in this world you have to have values and you have to stand up for your interests and if you don't do those things you're not going to get anywhere," Harper told the CBC's Lunn on Friday, when asked to describe how his approach to China has changed.

For now, China's calculation of its own values and interests doesn't include standing up publicly against Syria's president, or cutting off its trade ties with a regime other partners consider a tyrant.