Video footage from the G20 leaders’ summit in Indonesia shows Chinese Communist Party leader Xi lecturing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about media leaks following a conversation between the two.
The two leaders met informally for ten minutes on Tuesday, and Trudeau’s office said afterward he raised concerns about Chinese interference in Canada.
The next day, the two leaders were caught on camera having a brief exchange, and Xi wasn’t happy with the reports.
“Everything we discussed as a leak to the paper that’s not appropriate,” said Xi in Mandarin, as a translator conveyed.
“And that’s not the way the conversation was conducted.”
Mainstream media reports frame the two leaders’ initial exchange, their first in three years, said Trudeau confronted Xi about election interference, Ukraine, North Korea and “the importance” of climate change.
Xi continued to lecture Trudeau, but Trudeau interrupted.
“In Canada, we believe in free and open and frank dialogue. We’ll be looking to continue to have. We will continue to look the work constructively together, but there will be things we disagree on..”
Xi interrupted, saying, “Let’s create the conditions first,” to which Trudeau nodded.
Xi shook Trudeau’s hand and walked off, as did Trudeau.
The spat follows a report from Sam Cooper of Global News uncovering a report the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada’s spy agency, gave to Trudeau in January 2022.
The report said China’s Toronto Consulate secretly funded at least 11 Chinese Communist Party-affiliated candidates in Canada’s 2019 federal election.
In Parliament on Monday, Conservative MP Michael Chong asked the Liberals who these 11 candidates were, but the Liberals refused to answer.
