BALI, Indonesia — Rishi Sunak’s highly anticipated bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping has been canceled at the 11th hour.
The U.K. prime minister’s spokesman said that plans to hold face-to-face talks in the margins of the G20 summit were dropped at the last minute due to scheduling conflicts.
Xi and Sunak were unable to agree a time to hold the meeting after a number of world leaders were pulled into emergency talks to respond to the missile strike in Poland Tuesday night.
The surprise bilat had only been confirmed Tuesday afternoon and would have made Sunak the first U.K. prime minister to meet Xi in nearly five years.
Sunak was woken at 5 a.m. to be informed of the strike in Poland and attended an emergency meeting of G7 leaders convened by U.S. President Joe Biden in Bali Wednesday morning.
The U.K. prime minister also held calls with his defense and foreign secretaries and with the Ukrainian foreign minister.
