China denies 'coercive' diplomacy with Canada, urges release of Huawei executive
China on Thursday denied it had taken two Canadian men hostage, and repeated a call for the release of a Huawei Technologies Co Ltd executive held in Canada who faces extradition to the United States amid a long-running diplomatic dispute.
Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese
citizen, was arrested in Vancouver in late 2018 on a bank fraud warrant issued
by U.S. authorities.
Meng has said she is innocent and is fighting extradition in
a Canadian court. Shortly after Meng's arrest, Beijing detained two Canadians
on national security charges and halted imports of canola seed.
Tensions flared again this week when Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau said he would work with allies to fight China's "coercive
diplomacy." He warned that arbitrary arrests, repression in Hong Kong and
putting Muslim minorities in detention camps added up to "not a
particularly productive path."
That earned him an official rebuke from the Chinese
government on Wednesday.
"There's no coercive diplomacy on the Chinese
side," Cong Peiwu, China's envoy to Ottawa, said in a video news
conference on Twitter. "Those two Canadian citizens have been prosecuted
because they were suspected of engaging in activities which endanger our
national security."
Cong went on to say Meng and the arrests of Canadians
Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were "not related" and that it was
Canada that used "coercive measures" by arresting Meng when "she
was breaking no Canadian law at all."
Cong again called for the immediate release of Meng "to
create conditions to bring Canada-China relations back on the right
track."
Responding to a question about a media report that a Hong
Kong pro-democracy protester had been granted asylum in Canada, Cong said China
strongly urged that "violent criminals" from Hong Kong not be granted
asylum.
"It is interference in China's domestic affairs and
certainly will embolden those violent criminals," he said. If Canada wants
to keep the 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong safe, it should not
want to protect them from such "violent criminals," he added.
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