Politics

Xi publicly confronts Trudeu over media leaks

Beijing, Nov 17 (EFE).- Chinese president Xi Jinping confronted Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at the G20 Summit accusing him of leaking details of a private conversation between them to the media.

A video of the discussion went viral on Thursday. In the footage, Xi is seen skipping the usual protocol to accuse Trudeau of leaking the content of their meeting.

“Everything we discussed then leaked to the papers. That is not appropriate,” Xi told Trudeau in the presence of a translator.

“If there is sincerity, we can communicate well with mutual respect, otherwise the outcome will not be easy to tell,” he added.

Trudeau responded in haste to Xi: “In Canada, we believe in free, open, and frank dialogue, and I hope that’s what we will continue to have.

“We will continue to work constructively together, but there will be things we will disagree on,” he added.

As he said this, Trudeau got interrupted by Xi, who told him: “Let’s create the conditions first.”

He then shook Trudeau’s hand and left the conversation.

The interaction between the leaders was recorded by the Canadian press and it became viral after it was published on Twitter by CTV National News.

According to Canadian news outlets, in the conversation to which the leaders referred, on November 8, Trudeau raised concerns to Xi over alleged Chinese interference in the 2019 Canadian election.

This was the leaders’ first meeting in over three years after the ties between the two countries deteriorated following the arrest in Canada of Huawei executive Meng Wangzhou at the US’ request, back in 2018.

Soon after, Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were arrested in China and indicted for espionage. Beijing held them imprisoned until soon after Meng was released. EFE

jco/aef/jot

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