Reality bites in new US-China trade talks

In a virtual replay of events that took place seven months ago, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of a G20 summit on Saturday and agreed to resume negotiations on the trade dispute between their two countries. Again, the United States promised to hold off on imposing new tariffs but, this time, no deadline on the talks was imposed.

The China-US bilateral meeting was but one of a host of bilateral meetings held by the 20 participating countries in Osaka, Japan. While its official mission is to bring together industrialising and developing economies to discuss key global economic issues, each meeting also provides a valuable platform for discussing bilateral or multilateral issues on the side.

Canada wanted a bilateral with China to discuss two Canadians incarcerated in China, apparently in reprisal for Canada's arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, who is being held as a result of an extradition request by the United States.