China charges two Canadians with espionage following U.S.-Huawei spat
China charged two Canadians with espionage on Friday in a
case widely seen as retaliation for the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of a senior
executive of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael
Spavor were arrested in late 2018, soon after Canadian authorities detained
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer and daughter of the company's
founder, on a U.S. extradition warrant.
The charges Friday represent the next step in judicial
proceedings against the pair and mean a formal trial can begin. Canada has
called the arrests “arbitrary.”
While China maintains that the case against the detained
Canadians are not linked to Meng, former diplomats and experts have said the
pair are being used to pressure Canada to release her.
Meng’s arrest in December 2018 unnerved many across China,
who viewed the incident as an unjust detention of a prominent Chinese
businesswoman and a dramatic escalation in the China-U.S. trade war. Some
Chinese businessmen reportedly even delayed or completely put off business
travel and plans as a result of her detention, which also ignited a wave of
nationalism.
China has warned Canada that it could face consequences for
aiding the United States in Meng’s case. The U.S. accuses Huawei — the largest
telecom equipment maker in the world — of violating sanctions on Iran and has
long fought a public battle with the company, accusing it of being involved in
state espionage.
The U.S. has urged its allies to limit Shenzhen-based
Huawei's involvement in communication infrastructure, even threatening to cut
off intelligence sharing if they don't. However, despite the threats, the U.K.
gave the state-owned company a role in building the nation's 5G network earlier
this year.
Last month, Meng lost a legal bid to avoid extradition to
the United States to face bank fraud charges, dashing hopes for an end to her
house arrest in Vancouver.
She recently raised a new argument in a Canadian court in a
bid to fight extradition.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had ended an
investigation into the two detained Canadians in December, and the case had
been turned over to prosecutors. Kovrig’s case is being handled by prosecutors
in Beijing, and Spavor’s in the northeastern province of Liaoning.
Spavor was charged with spying on national secrets and
illegally providing state secrets to entities outside of China, while Kovrig
was charged with spying on national secrets and intelligence for entities
outside of China, according to two notices posted online by prosecutors on
Friday.
China’s envoy to Canada, Cong Peiwu, said this month that
Kovrig and Spavor were “in good health,” but that consular visits had been
suspended due to coronavirus restrictions.
The Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs
Commission said last year that Kovrig is accused of “stealing and spying on
sensitive Chinese information and intelligence.” It said Spavor provided Kovrig
with intelligence, without giving details.
Kovrig works for the International Crisis Group, a
nongovernmental organization that focuses on conflict resolution.
Representatives of the group could not immediately be reached for comment on
Friday. It has said that the accusations against Kovrig are “vague and
unsubstantiated.”
Spavor, 44, is a businessman with deep ties to North Korea.
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