China’s leader and the Canadian prime minister met on Tuesday for the first time in three years, when Trudeau reportedly expressed “serious concerns” about Chinese “interference activities” in Canada, including possible election tampering. Within hours, details of the ten-minute conversation, which also included discussions of North Korea and the war in Ukraine, were credited to “a government source” and appeared in Agence France-Presse, an international news agency. On Wednesday morning, Xi confronted Trudeau at the end of the summit in Bali, Indonesia, and told him through a translator: “Everything we discussed has been leaked to the newspaper. This is not appropriate. “And that’s not how the conversation went,” he added, in a rare public outburst. The translator started a new sentence, saying: “if there was honesty on your part,” but was interrupted by Mr. Trudeau, who said: “We believe in free, open and honest dialogue and that’s what we’re going to continue to have. We will continue to try to work constructively together, but there will be things we disagree on.” Still agitated, Mr. Xi told his Canadian counterpart: “If you are honest, then we can have a good communication with mutual respect. Otherwise, the result would be hard to tell. Let’s create the conditions first.” There was a frosty handshake, before Mr. Trudeau – with no aides at his side for the conversation – stormed out of the room.
