Canada vs. thuggish China

Trudeau accuses China of using arbitrary detentions for political ends: ‘This is not acceptable in the international community’

The Guardian

Canada’s relations with China soured after its arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant last December. 

Justin Trudeau has accused Beijing of using arbitrary detentions as a tool in pursuit of political goals in the latest broadside in a diplomatic and trade row with China.

“Using arbitrary detention as a tool to achieve political goals, international or domestic, is something that is of concern not just to Canada but to all our allies,” Trudeau told the Toronto Star editorial board.
He said nations including Britain, France, Germany and the United States “have been highlighting that this is not acceptable behaviour in the international community because they are all worried about China engaging in the same kinds of pressure tactics with them”.
Canada’s relations with China soured after its arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant last December.
Nine days later, Beijing detained two Canadians – former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor – and accused them of espionage as retaliation.
Trudeau added that “we need to figure out how to engage with them, but we also have to be clear-eyed about it, that China plays by a very different set of rules and principles than we do in the west”.
His comments may further inflame tensions between the two countries, which had appeared to be trying to move on from the row. 

This week both Beijing and Ottawa nominated new ambassadors.

The previous Canadian ambassador John McCallum was fired in January after he said it would be “great” if the US dropped its extradition request for the Huawei executive. 

She is wanted by the US on fraud charges and is currently out on bail in Vancouver and living in her multi-million dollar home awaiting extradition proceedings.

Canada’s Ambassador to China Pushed Out Over Stupid Huawei Comments

By Dan Bilefsky

The Canadian ambassador to China, John McCallum, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, earlier this month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the ambassador’s resignation on Saturday.

MONTREAL — Canada’s ambassador to China has resigned following a series of diplomatic missteps that further complicated strained relations between the two countries.
The resignation came days after the ambassador, John McCallum, stunned seasoned diplomatic observers by saying that Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom firm Huawei who was arrested in December by Canadian authorities in Vancouver at the United States request, stood a good chance of avoiding extradition to the United States.
His public assessment of the sensitive and high profile case came under sharp criticism, including from the leader of the opposition conservative party Andrew Scheer, who said McCallum’s comments threatened to politicize the case and called for him to be fired.
“Last night, I asked for and accepted John McCallum’s resignation as Canada’s ambassador to China,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday.
McCallum backpedaled on Thursday, saying that he misspoke. 

But a day later, following a news report quoting him saying that it would be “great for Canada” if the United States dropped its request to extradite the Huawei executive, he was once again under fire.
Canada is in the middle of a struggle between China and the United States, two countries engaged in a protracted trade war.
Canada has vowed not to intervene politically in the Huawei case, which is currently pending in Canadian courts, making McCallum’s comments all the more awkward. 

China has characterized Meng’s arrest as an abuse of power by Canadian authorities.
The United States is expected to formally request the extradition of Meng from Canada in the coming days. 

It has until Jan. 30 to make the request. 

Once made, Canadian courts will decide whether she can be sent to the United States, with a final determination made by Canada’s minister of justice.
Canada has also been trying to help three of its own citizens held in China, including Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was working for a research organization, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, who have been detained on suspicion of “endangering national security.” 

The third Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, was sentenced to death this month in China for drug smuggling.
McCallum is known to speak his mind. 

A former academic, he has held a series of senior positions in Liberal governments including as minister of defense and as Trudeau’s minister of immigration. 

He played a leading role in Canada’s decision to welcome thousands of Syrian refugees to the country.

Chinese State Hooliganism

Feud with Canada is damaging China’s reputation in the world

By Josh Wingrove and Greg Quinn

Canada's ambassador to China John McCallum told reporters Wednesday that China's prosecutions of Canadian nationals risked undermining their own interests among the world's business community.
Canada’s ambassador to China warned that the spiralling diplomatic feud between the nations was damaging Beijing’s reputation, as the U.S. joined countries criticizing a Canadian citizen’s death sentence as “politically motivated.”
Ambassador John McCallum told reporters Wednesday that China’s prosecutions of Canadian nationals risked undermining their own interests among the world’s business community. 

McCallum, a former lawmaker, said he believed that argument would prove more compelling to Chinese officials than seeking support from business and foreign governments to pressure Beijing.
“We have to engage the senior Chinese leaders and persuade them that what they are doing is not good for China’s place in the world,” McCallum said, attending a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet in Sherbrooke, Quebec. 

“It’s not good for the image of corporate China in the world.”
Canada is navigating what Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland described Wednesday as a “difficult moment” with China, six weeks after the Vancouver arrest of Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. 

China has since detained two Canadians over alleged national security threats, moved to execute another for drug-smuggling and mocked Trudeau in daily news briefings.
Trudeau’s government has warned Canadians to exercise caution in the country “due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws” and sought support from leaders of nations including Argentina, Germany and New Zealand. 

Following a phone call between Freeland and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, the State Department issued a statement criticizing the “politically motivated sentencing of Canadian nationals.”
Freeland said Canada was arguing that China represents a “way of behaving which is a threat to all countries.” 

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has come under increasing criticism in the West over a human rights record that includes crackdowns on human rights lawyers and the mass detention of Uighur Muslims.

The feud between Beijing and Ottawa stems from the Dec. 1 arrest of Meng as part of a U.S.-led effort to extradite her over sanctions violations. 

The U.S. and its allies have taken a series of steps in recent weeks to bar the Chinese telecommunications giant from sensitive networks over spying fears, including a probe into suspected trade-secrets theft by federal prosecutors in Seattle.
China has denounced the effort as unjustified and demanded Meng’s immediate release. 

Days after her arrest, China’s spy agency detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor on suspicion of “activities endangering national security,” although authorities have provided no evidence and deflected questions about whether the actions were taken in retaliation for Meng.

STILL HELD
Meng is free on bail pending her next court hearing. 

But Kovrig, who was on leave from his foreign service posting in Hong Kong, and Spavor, an entrepreneur who ran tours into North Korea, remain in custody. 

A third Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, had his earlier 15-year sentence for drug smuggling increased to execution during a retrial Monday in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian.
“My first priority by far is to do everything in my capacity to secure the release of the two Michaels as quickly as possible, and to help to save the life of Mr. Schellenberg,” McCallum said earlier Wednesday.
McCallum said Kovrig and Spavor are each being questioned up to four hours per day and that he has visited both, along with Schellenberg. 

He cautioned that efforts to build international pressure for their release were unlikely to be effective unless Beijing believed it would benefit from doing so.
“There are many fronts we are working on, but one of the main ones is to persuade China, not necessarily through Canadians, but through corporate and government leaders around their world, that this behavior is not in their interest,” McCallum said. 

“We have a lot of work yet to do.”