Canada Presses China on Arbitrary Detention of Citizens

By Catherine Porter and Chris Buckley

Michael Kovrig, left, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur with high-level contacts in North Korea, have been detained in China.

TORONTO — Canada tried to turn up pressure on China on Saturday over the detention of two Canadians caught up in a struggle between global superpowers, with its foreign minister calling their imprisonment “arbitrary” and “a precedent that is worrying not only for Canada but for the world.”
China seized the two Canadians, the former diplomat Michael Kovrig and the entrepreneur and writer Michael Spavor, shortly after Canada detained a Chinese telecommunications executive at the behest of the United States. 

The detentions of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor have rattled Canadians, many of whom do business and have family in China, and the government stressed that it was working feverishly for their release.
“We also believe this is not only a Canadian issue,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a conference call on Saturday. 

“It is an issue that concerns our allies.”
Canada is in a tricky spot, boxed in between its two largest trading partners and worried about having to choose sides. 

After feeling burned by negotiations to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, the country is trying to strengthen trade relations with China to lessen dependence on economic ties to the United States.
Ms. Freeland said that on Friday she met with the Chinese ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, for a second time and that Canadian ambassadors around the world are rallying their counterparts for support. 

The United States State Department, the European Union and British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt have all said they are concerned about the arrests.
Both were detained after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, a powerful Chinese telecommunications equipment company. 

She was arrested on Dec. 1 while she was transferring flights in Vancouver.

On Friday, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan held talks in Washington with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis, including a discussion on securing the release of the two Canadians.

Canadian authorities arrested Meng at the request of American prosecutors who want to extradite her on charges of fraudulently convincing banks to facilitate transactions that breached United States sanctions against Iran. 

Meng was granted bail after a three-day hearing, and if a Canadian court agrees to an extradition request, she can still appeal.
“Canada is a rule-of-law country and has been behaving according to the rule of law,” Ms. Freeland said. 

“Our allies understand what is at stake, and it was good to have them come out and say that publicly.”
Chinese authorities arrested Mr. Kovrig on a street in Beijing. 

Mr. Kovrig has worked since early 2017 for the International Crisis Group, an organization that tries to resolve international conflicts.
Soon after, the police in China arrested Mr. Spavor, a Canadian writer and businessman who runs an organization that promotes tours of North Korea. 

The Chinese government has accused both men of “endangering national security,” but it has not laid out more specific allegations.
A person familiar with Mr. Kovrig’s case, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive details about it, said he has been questioned morning, afternoon and evening by Chinese investigators, and is not allowed to turn the lights off in his cell when he wants to sleep at night.
The Canadian ambassador to Beijing, John McCallum, and two Canadian consular officers visited Mr. Kovrig for about a half-hour four days after he was arrested, and he will be allowed one consular a visit a month, the person said. 

But Mr. Kovrig has not been allowed to see a lawyer, or family and loved ones. 

Nor has he been allowed to sign a letter that would allow him to retain a lawyer, the person said.
Chinese officials have not said outright that they would release Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor in exchange for Meng’s return to China. 

But they have left little doubt that their arrests were in reprisal.
“Those who accuse China of detaining some person in retaliation for the arrest of Meng should first reflect on the actions of the Canadian side,” the Chinese ambassador to Ottawa, Mr. Lu, wrote last week in an op-ed article in The Globe and Mail.

China has cast Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, as the victim of human rights abuses.

Ms. Freeland said Chinese officials had not made that direct connection.
“It would, of course, be highly inappropriate for there to be any connection,” she said in the conference call. 

But she also painted a sharp contrast between Meng’s legal protections in Canada and the secretive arrests of the Canadians in China.
“Canada has been behaving scrupulously,” Ms. Freeland said. 

“Ms. Meng has been given absolute access to due process.”
Complicating the situation, Trump mused in an interview that he might intervene in Meng’s case, if it would result in trade concessions from China.
Ms. Freeland insisted politics were not involved.
"As we’ve made very clear in the case of Meng, the issue is Canada abiding by its extradition treaty commitments and following rule-of-law procedures,” she said. 

“We’ve also made clear a number of times that Canada does not believe it is appropriate to use extradition proceedings for any sort of politicized end.”
In the past week, a third Canadian was detained by the police in China, on accusations of working illegally in the country. 

Canadian officials have not considered the detention in the same light, and Ms. Freeland did not mention the case on Saturday.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters that the third Canadian, Sarah Donata McIver, a teacher from Alberta, was under administrative detention for working illegally in China.
That’s a kind of punishment that the police can impose in cases that fall short of criminal charges. Ms. Hua didn’t say how long that detention would last, but in the normal run of such cases it would be up to 15 days.