Calgarian’s arrest in China heightens diplomatic tension
Michael Spavor built a career linking the West with Asia. Now he’s stuck in the middle of an escalating diplomatic feud.
A Calgarian who runs tours and exchanges in North Korea for clients including basketball icon Dennis Rodman, Spavor was seized Monday by authorities in the Chinese border city of Dandong, where he spent much of his time.
His case comes amid fallout from U.S. efforts to extradite a top Huawei Technologies Co. executive, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested at Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 1 on an American request.
Spavor’s capture came on a day he’d planned to travel to Seoul, and after he’d reached out to Canadian authorities about strange questioning from the Chinese. He was detained before Canadian officials could make contact.
As news spread of Spavor’s plight, concern mounted for his well-being.
Shaun Driver, a Vancouverbased lawyer who travelled to Asia with Spavor in 2011, said he was in “complete shock” to learn Spavor had been detained.
Driver is also from Calgary and said the two men formed a friendship while on an academic delegation to North Korea, calling Spavor “one of the greatest unknown Canadians” because of his work “connecting cultures.”
Spavor’s friend Todd Sample told Bloomberg that those close to the Canadian are “hoping for good news about Michael,” while a relative in Calgary contacted by Postmedia declined to comment.
The tour operator joins Michael Kovrig, a diplomat on leave from Canada’s foreign service who has written about the North Korean nuclear crisis, in being investigated by China for “potentially engaging in activities that harm China’s state security,” a foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday in Beijing.
While Meng is out on bail and has been visited by Chinese consular officials, the Canadians say they’re still seeking access to Spavor and Kovrig, who was taken into custody Monday. Analysts see the arrests of the two Canadians as apparent retaliation for the Huawei case, though neither China nor Canada have directly linked the two cases.
The cases have sent shockwaves through China’s community of foreign diplomats, business consultants, journalists and non-profit workers.
Driver called Spavor’s “arbitrary detainment” an act of “political gamesmanship,” adding there is “absolutely no way ” Spavor would be considered a national security threat to China.
Spavor has regularly escorted foreigners on trips to North Korea through Paektu Cultural Exchange, the non-governmental organization he founded in 2015.
One such tour was due to leave this month from Dandong, which Spavor describes as “the main gateway to North Korea for business, trade and travel.” He has also introduced some of his guests to Kim Jong Un, and once shared a photo of himself and the North Korean leader during a 2013 meeting aboard a yacht.
A native of Alberta, Spavor studied international relations at the University of Calgary and then in South Korea, according to a biography posted to the Paektu website. He spent more than 20 years working in the Korean Peninsula, and first visited North Korea in 2001, it said. He organized Rodman’s visits in 2013 and 2014. He’s fluent in Korean, English and French, and studied North Korean affairs at South Korea’s Kangwon National University, according to his Facebook page.
Spavor describes himself on Twitter as working to facilitate “business, sport, culture & tourism projects to support development programs encouraging peace on the Korean Peninsula.” In a Facebook post, he indicated he’d spend the week in the South Korean capital, but he never arrived there.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland confirmed that a Canadian had reached out to Canada before Monday’s arrest.
Freeland told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday evening that officials had been unable to make contact with the Canadian. The Globe and Mail newspaper revealed Spavor was that individual a short time later. China and Canada have since confirmed his arrest.
In a briefing Thursday, China declined to say if the Spavor and Kovrig cases were linked. “These two persons are all suspected of engaging in activities that harm China’s state security,” spokesman Lu Kang said. “Both of them are still under investigation.”
Lu declined to say if the arrests were prompted by Meng’s detention, if the men were being given access to a lawyer, when they would be formally charged or when they might be released. The spokesman also declined to say whether both men’s work on Korean issues was a factor.