Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ summit and was met with the cold shoulder from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trudeau had meetings lined up with several world leaders, from Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and Mexico, but notably he did not have any scheduled meetings with Xi or US President Joe Biden. There was, however, a group photo moment where Trudeau was placed beside Xi due to the alphabetical arrangement of leaders depending on the country. Trudeau lines up on stage, takes his place and looks back at Xi, who gives Trudeau a courtesy nod before shifting his glance forward. A few beats later Trudeau tried again to get Xi’s attention, but China's president did not meet his eye. .Despite the cool interaction with Xi onstage and the fact the prime minister has never had an APEC meeting scheduled with him, Trudeau told media at a press conference Friday he and Xi had briefly talked about Canada-China relations. The CBC reported Trudeau shared a “cordial hello” with Xi and it was allegedly a long enough “hello” to discuss what Canada “needs to have around the world” and emphasize China is a country “we disagree with.” “I talked about how we need to keep our officials and teams working together to try and create constructive dialogue around issues that matter to us individually, but also matter to the world," Trudeau said. "This is part of the ongoing engagement that Canada needs to have around the world, including with countries we disagree with."“When asked what Xi said in response, Trudeau said the Chinese president simply ‘acknowledged’ what he said,” the CBC wrote. Xi and Biden, on the other hand, retreated to a private room for a four-hour meeting. “[We had] some of the most constructive and productive conversations we've had,” Xi said of the talk Wednesday, as per CBC. But, Biden’s inroads were quickly lost when he called Xi a dictator of a communist country. “He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said.
