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Neither Canada nor the U.S. would provide a full list of countries that are invited.

“Canada recognizes the essential role that China has to play in any diplomatic efforts in support of security and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” department spokeswoman Amy Mills said in an emailed statement Wednesday evening. “Canada has repeatedly engaged with and updated China on the Vancouver Ministerial Meeting.”

A government official reached Thursday afternoon, who would not speak on the record, was not aware of a formal invitation being extended to China for the summit meeting itself, which features about 20 participants. But there was a desire on the Canadian side to invite the Chinese to Vancouver for side meetings. The official said Canada never got to the “juncture” of inviting China to the actual summit because there was an awareness that Chinese views on the way to move forward are different than those in North America.

A different official, asking not to have the information attributed to them, said that “we did not expect China to attend this meeting.” Still, the Canadian Press had reported at the end of November that “Freeland said her Chinese counterpart would be among the invitees.”

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa would not comment on what kind of invitation China received, only offering a statement from foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang.

“China will not attend such a meeting. Any meeting organized in the name of the so called “UN Command” reflects Cold War thinking, which will only create divisions in the international community and undermine the joint efforts that are being made to resolve properly the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue,” the statement says.“From the very beginning, China considers the meeting meaningless and firmly opposes it.”