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Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

On day two of the Prime Minister’s excellent adventure, he spoke to a roundtable of Canadian business leaders. Too bad he didn’t talk to them before sitting down with Li on Monday.

They might have told him there are three golden rules to doing business in this country: you never try to impose your own values; you never interpret acknowledgment during a meeting as agreement; and you don’t assume the people in that meeting have the authority to strike a deal.

Ottawa seems to have broken all three rules.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Trudeau arrived in Beijing thinking the Chinese had agreed to his “progressive trade agenda.” The Prime Minister had been assured the Chinese were onside with the inclusion of labour protections as part of the framework for formal free-trade talks between the countries.

It was only when he sat down with Li that it became apparent the Premier was not ready to commit his country to anything that suggested more onerous health and safety obligations, minimum wages or collective bargaining.

The disconnect appears to be a result of the Chinese trade ministry giving the Canadians the impression that labour standards would be written into the framework.

The Canadian side insists their interpretation is that the inclusion of labour protections is simply a starting point for negotiation. But on Monday, the Chinese side made the point that a country with 150 million rural-to-urban migrants a year cannot make concessions that could end up granting workers four months of maternity leave — a provision in the Canadian Labour Code.