Rishi Sunak’s talks with Xi Jinping were cancelled on Wednesday after the Chinese president was left infuriated at Justin Trudeau for “leaking” details of a closed-door meeting.
Mr Sunak would have been the first UK prime minister to hold face-to-face walks with Mr Xi in almost five years, in a move that drew criticism from some Tory China hardliners.
Downing Street said that the cancellation was a result of changing diaries in the wake of a missile strike in Poland that prompted emergency consultations between Nato leaders.
They refused to say which side took the initiative to cancel the meeting, which was arranged at short notice and not on either leaders’ initial schedule for the summit.
It came after Mr Xi was angered when details of his meeting with Mr Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, appeared in the media.
The two leaders met briefly on Tuesday for the first time in three years, and Mr Trudeau reportedly raised “serious concerns” over Chinese “interference activities” in Canada, including possible election tampering.
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Within hours, details of the ten-minute conversation were credited to “a government source” and appeared on Agence France-Presse, an international news agency.
Confronting Mr Trudeau at a reception on Wednesday morning, Mr Xi said: “Everything we discussed has been leaked to the paper. That’s not appropriate.
“And that’s not the way the conversation was conducted. If there is a problem, if there is sincerity on your part.”
Mr Trudeau replied that “in Canada we believe in a free and open and frank dialogue, and I hope that is what we will continue to have”.
He added: “We will continue to work constructively together, but there will be things that we disagree on.”
Mr Xi responded: “Let’s create the conditions first.” He subsequently shook Mr Trudeau’s hand and left.
There was no suggestion that the cancellation of the meeting with the British delegation was linked to Mr Xi’s irritation with the Canadian leak.
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Mr Sunak had been due to meet Mr Xi at around 3.30pm on Wednesday, around the same time the Prime Minister held a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, which was scheduled at the last minute.
Mr Sunak also had his bilateral meeting with Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, cancelled after an emergency gathering of the G7 world leaders plus those of Nato countries to discuss the Polish strike.
A Downing Street official said there was nothing “unusual” about the cancellation given the circumstances, saying it was “understandable”. Mr Sunak had been pushing for the meeting for days, which was announced on Tuesday.
Mr Xi went ahead with a meeting with Georgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, on Wednesday evening.
Ms Meloni’s office said the two discussed Ukraine and “agreed that every diplomatic initiative should be promoted to put an end to the conflict and avoid an escalation”.
The news of a Russian bombardment of missiles on Ukraine complicated Mr Xi’s position, who spent the summit trying to put distance between Beijing and the Kremlin over the war without explicitly rejecting his “no limits” partnership with Mr Putin.
