Brazil’s Bolsonaro calls off meeting with Chinese president over delay

Bloomberg

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called off a meeting in Japan with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping after his delegation was left waiting.
While delays in meetings at multilateral summits are not unusual — timetables often slip, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is famous for running behind, for example — it is less usual for a leader to call off a chat entirely.
The meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit in Osaka was set to start at 2:30 pm local time. At 2:55 pm, a press officer told reporters the meeting had been cancelled.
Bolsonaro’s spokesman Otavio Rego Barros said the Brazilian delegation had to pack its luggage at the hotel and make sure it was on time for the presidential plane departure. “The president decided to call off this bilateral meeting,” he said. “The meeting was much delayed already, we were waiting in the bilateral meeting room.”
China is Brazil’s top trading partner and invests heavily in the country. Bolsonaro is due to visit in October. While he spoke on the campaign trail of lessening Brazil’s economic dependence on China, some in his administration have since sought to mend fences.
“The Chinese can buy in Brazil, but they can’t buy Brazil,” the president said at a breakfast with journalists in April. Vice-President General Hamilton Mourao said in
May that pragmatism was needed for the health of Brazil’s economy.