Canada warns China that ‘coercive diplomacy’ won’t secure release of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou
Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said on Thursday that China’s “coercive diplomacy” to try to gain the release of a Huawei executive fighting extradition to the US will not work.
Champagne said in a conference call after meeting with his
Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Rome this week, “I was very clear [with him]
that coercive diplomacy is not going to lead to the desired outcome.”
“I told him that arbitrary detention was not conducive to
relations between states ever, but certainly [not] now,” he said.
Ties between Ottawa and Beijing began to fray in December
2018 over the arrest of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei’s chief financial officer
Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant during a stopover in Vancouver. She is wanted for
alleged bank fraud and violations of US sanctions against Iran, and has been
fighting extradition ever since.
Nine days later, China detained two Canadians, former
diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, on suspicions of
espionage.
Canada and its allies have decried their arrests as
“arbitrary”. And since January, Ottawa has been pressing for consular access
after it was suddenly yanked.
Wang, said Champagne, “is well aware that the international
community is seized with that issue”.
“This is not just two Canadians being detained arbitrarily,”
he said. “Those are two citizens of a liberal democracy, and every liberal
democracy in the world should be concerned about [China’s] use of coercive
diplomacy.”
China has called Meng’s arrest a political manoeuvre on
behalf of the United States, and accused Washington of attempting to curb
Huawei’s rise.
On Wednesday, Wang called on Ottawa, which has left Meng’s
fate up to the courts, to set the bilateral relationship right by freeing her.
“China and Canada have no historical disputes or actual
conflict of interest, but because of the unprovoked detention of a Chinese citizen,
the relationship between the two countries has encountered serious
difficulties,” Wang said, without naming Meng specifically.
Wang met Champagne on Tuesday night on Wang’s first stop of
a European tour, during which he is expected to shore up economic and
diplomatic relations with the European Union.
“During this hour and a half [meeting], we had the chance to
cover a lot of ground, and I’m cautiously optimistic that our voice has been
heard and I’m looking forward to improvement on the consular side,” Champagne
said.
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