Sunak-Xi meeting at G20 canceled

Scheduling issues foil Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s one-on-one with Xi Jinping

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) — A planned meeting between Britain’s new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit on Wednesday has been canceled, Downing Street said.

“The meeting has been canceled because of scheduling issues,” a spokesperson for the prime minister told AFP.

The meeting, announced Tuesday evening, was to be the first such summit in nearly five years.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said: “I have no information to share with you.”

“I would like to emphasize that China is committed to promoting the healthy and stable development of China-UK (United Kingdom) relations,” she added.

“We hope the UK works together with China.”

Downing Street had said Sunak planned to call for a “frank and constructive relationship” between London and Beijing.

“The challenges posed by China are systemic and they are long-term,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement, citing Beijing’s “authoritarian leadership intent on reshaping the international order.”

But the key issues being discussed at the G20, including the global economy and food and energy security, cannot be resolved “without coordinated action by all the world’s major economies. That includes China.”

Sunak met United States President Joe Biden on Wednesday and both condemned the war in Ukraine as “barbaric” after two people died when a missile hit Poland.