‘Berated’ and ‘agitated’: What’s being said about Trudeau’s G20 exchange with Chinese President Xi

Canadians woke up on Wednesday to rarely-captured footage of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Indonesia. In the interaction, Xi expressed his displeasure with Trudeau over details of what the pair discussed in a brief meeting this week being “leaked” to reporters, while Trudeau sought to defend the importance of “open” dialogue.
But it’s not just what was said, but how it was said, that caught the eye of some, with Canada’s former ambassador to China saying that it was “very unusual for a Chinese leader to act this way,” and a sign that China feels that Canada is “a minor country.”
From what the two world leaders’ body language conveyed, to the politics of the interaction, here’s what’s being said in Ottawa and by Canada-China experts on Wednesday about the exchange.
ON THE BODY LANGUAGE
Former Canadian ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques:
“I would say first that it’s very unusual for a Chinese leader to act in this way, because you have to understand that in Chinese culture you are not supposed to make your interlocutor lose face, and you expect your interlocutor not to make you lose face. But we see that Xi Jinping is deliberate, he is red in the face… He is agitated because he moves his arms, something that he does not do usually when he meets with someone. And clearly he wanted to pass a message. What is unfortunate is that we didn’t hear everything that he said because Prime Minister Trudeau interrupted the translator to push back on Xi Jinping. Good for the prime minister,” said Saint-Jacques in an interview with CTV News. Source: ctvnews.ca