Canada enlists allies in fight with China
Travel advisories upgraded amid war of words
Canada shot back at China on Tuesday, branding the death sentence imposed on a British Columbia man as inhumane and flaunting the support of its allies in trying to win the release of two other imprisoned Canadians.
The two countries toughened their respective travel advisories, making a mockery of last year’s bilateral feel-good initiative to boost tourism between them.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada has asked China to spare the life of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was originally sentenced in 2016 to a 15-year term for drug smuggling. On Monday, after a one-day new trial, he was sentenced to die.
“We believe it is inhumane and inappropriate, and wherever the death penalty is considered with regard to a Canadian we speak out against it,” Freeland said in Saint-hyacinthe, Que.
Freeland also trumpeted a long list of allies that Canada has courted in its efforts to free Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two other Canadians imprisoned last month after Canada arrested a Chinese executive at the request of the United States.
“So much of the world is speaking with one voice on this matter and I think that is certainly a good start. But the people (Kovrig and Spavor) are not yet free, and there is still more work to be done,” Canada’s ambassador to China, John Mccallum, said in an interview in Montreal.
“I think that’s very important, and I think the prime minister and foreign affairs minister have done a great job in getting all those major countries to come out publicly in support of Canada.”
Freeland said she wanted to “emphasize” how glad Canada is that “a large and growing group of our allies has stood with Canada.”
She rhymed off a list of countries — Germany, France, the Netherlands, the European Union, the United States, Britain, Australia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia — for “publicly coming out and speaking against these arbitrary detentions.”
The international outreach has angered China. Beijing’s envoy in Ottawa said it smacks of “Western egotism and white supremacy.”
Freeland and Mccallum spoke after China’s foreign ministry blasted Trudeau earlier on Tuesday, expressing “strong dissatisfaction” with his criticism of the death sentence for Schellenberg.
Trudeau said Monday he was concerned to see China “acting arbitrarily.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying upbraided Trudeau on Tuesday, saying he should “respect the rule of law, respect China’s judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks.”
Hua told reporters in Beijing that China expresses “our strong dissatisfaction with this” and is cautioning its citizens about travelling to Canada. It urged Chinese citizens to consider their personal circumstances and “fully assess the risks of going to Canada for tourism.”
The Chinese foreign ministry’s consular-affairs office also published a notice Tuesday saying that Canada has recently “arbitrarily detained” a Chinese national — a reference to Canada’s arrest of Chinese telecommunications executive Meng Wanzhou, who is wanted in the U.S. for allegedly breaching Iran sanctions. The notice mirrored Canada’s revision of its own travel advisory Monday that warned of the “risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws” in China.