26 June 2020 - Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau refuses to release Huawei executive
Meng Wanzhou: Trudeau rejects calls to release top Huawei executive
(BBC News, 25/06/2020)
Canada's prime minister is rejecting calls to step in to end the extradition trial of a Chinese Huawei executive.
Justin Trudeau said doing so would "imperil" Canadians abroad by opening them to potential random detention.
Two Canadians were detained shortly after Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, was arrested in Vancouver on request from the US.
Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, have been held in China since December 2018.
Canada risks being outplayed in feud over citizens jailed in China
Leyland Cecco (The Guardian, 23/06/2020)
For more than 560 days, comforted only by a small collection of books and meals of boiled rice in Chinese jail cells, two Canadians have become the centre of a prolonged feud that has pitted the two countries – exercising starkly different concepts of justice – against each other. With the crisis deepening, former diplomats, activists and family members have questioned Canada’s tactics in trying to free the two men, which they say have produced little success – and come at a high cost.
Trudeau faces contradictory calls to punish China, give in to ‘hostage diplomacy’
Joan Bryden (The Star, 24/06/2020)
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is facing contradictory calls to either stand up to China or give in to so-called “hostage diplomacy” — with particular pressure coming from stalwarts of former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien’s administration.
Allan Rock is the latest former Chrétien-era minister to advocate that the government end extradition proceedings against Meng Wanzhou, in hopes that China will release two Canadians imprisoned arbitrarily in apparent retaliation for the Huawei executive’s arrest in Vancouver in December 2018.
Rock said Wednesday that Chrétien himself supports his initiative.
China’s envoy to Canada says U.S. is ‘trouble maker’ in China-Canada relationship
Steve Scherer (Global News, 11/06/2020)
The United States is using the case of a senior Chinese telecoms executive who was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. warrant 18 months ago to create friction between China and Canada, China’s envoy to Canada said on Thursday.
“The U.S. has been taking advantage of Canada, and the U.S. is the trouble maker of China-Canada relations,” the Chinese envoy to Ottawa, Cong Peiwu, told Reuters in a telephone interview.