The last-minute meeting came after Canadian leaders sat down with Chinese President Xi Jinping for a private dinner in Beijing.
Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau’s Office confirmed that Mr Champagne had stayed behind to try to nail down a framework to launch trade talks, stating that the Canadian side did not want to squander the momentum they had built over two days of discussions in the capital.
Mr Trudeau had earlier expressed optimism that free trade talks between the two countries would get under way.
Canada’s ambassador to China, John McCallum, told reporters that despite an apparent setback when an expected announcement failed to emerge on Monday, the formal beginning of trade talks during Mr Trudeau’s visit was still “conceivable.”
The PM’s office released a brief summary of Mr Trudeau’s meeting with Mr Xi as the prime minister prepared to deliver a keynote address on attracting investment to Canada to the Fortune Global Forum, a massive business conference in Guangzhou that is expected to include wealthy executives like Apple CEO Tim Cook.
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During their meeting, Mr Trudeau and Mr Xi discussed the “ongoing exploratory discussions on potential trade negotiations,” as well as climate change, North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests and the plight of Rohingya people in Burma.
The release made no mention of human rights or Canadians imprisoned in China, which Mr Trudeau had said he would raise with Mr Xi as he had done with Premier Li Keqiang earlier in the week.
Before their dinner the two leaders shook hands and briefly exchanged words in front of reporters.
Mr Trudeau told his Chinese host: “I know that as we look to building a better future for the entire world, the friendship between Canada and China will play an important role in setting the tone and the approach that will characterise the 21st century.”
The PM’s second official visit to Beijing has been framed in expectations that Canada would become the first G7 nation to launch free trade talks with China, the world’s second-largest economy.
But prospects were dampened when he announced only that the long-standing “exploratory” discussions on free trade would continue between the two sides.
Canada and China have held four rounds of exploratory discussions on free trade since Trudeau’s last visit to China in September 2016.
But in a sign that China’s Communist Party rulers are eager for closer ties with Canada, the state-run China Daily newspaper ran a report quoting Mr Xi touting the benefits of warm Canada-China relations and calling for more two-way investment between the countries.