Trudeau misses his chance with China

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came across as being stubborn and having no understanding of the times we live in when he met President Xi Jinping during the G20 summit in Bali,

Indonesia. In response to Xi chiding him for leaking the content of their meeting to the media, Trudeau said, “In Canada, we believe in free and open and frank dialogue. … We will continue to look to work constructively together, but there will be things we will disagree on.”

This sounded inane and pointless on the occasion. Perhaps Trudeau was brooding over the case of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who was detained in Canada after an extradition request by the United States, but ultimately released.

The Canadian prime minister squandered a good chance to improve his country’s tense relations with China.

On the other hand, Australia’s attitude to China has changed a lot, as evident in Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Xi at the same event. It is clear Australia is looking more broadly to ease diplomatic rifts with China.

Relations between Australia and China spiralled downwards under Scott Morrison’s unfriendly policy towards Beijing when he was prime minister. In response, China imposed trade barriers on Australian wine, coal and other goods. Albanese has proved himself to be more pragmatic.

New Zealand, India, Japan, South Korea and even the US seem keen to improve relations with China.

However, the United Kingdom and Canada’s attitude continues to be confrontational.

Maybe the young leaders of these two nations have not realised they are just pawns in Washington’s fight against China.

In the Meng Wanzhou affair, the United States used Canada, which in the end lost face. This happened again at the G20 summit.