China arrests two Canadians after U.S. bans Huawei
In-custody arrests part of escalating international feud
BEIJING • China on Thursday arrested two detained Canadians on espionage charges, raising the prospect of harsh punishment for the men caught in a spiralling three-way feud over the Trump administration’s treatment of the Chinese technology giant Huawei.
After holding Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in an undisclosed locations since December, China’s confirmation of the arrests came just as the U.S. government all but banned American companies from doing business with Huawei, a move that could cripple a firm considered by China to be a national symbol of industrial prowess.
China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that prosecutors arrested Kovrig, a former diplomat, with “gathering state secrets and intelligence for overseas forces” and Spavor, a businessman, with “stealing and providing state secrets to overseas forces.”
“The actions we have taken are entirely lawbased. We hope the Canadian side does not make irresponsible remarks on it,” ministry spokesman Lu Kang said.
He would not say where they are now being held or whether they have seen lawyers.
Both Kovrig and Spavor were detained in China on Dec. 10 after Huawei senior executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. authorities.
The Huawei chief financial officer has been undergoing extradition proceedings in a B.C. court, which is deciding whether to send her to the United States to face bank fraud charges.
A judge this month allowed Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, to move from a $4.2-million Vancouver mansion into a bigger $10 million mansion for security reasons.
Weeks after Meng’s arrest, China also revisited a 15-year prison sentence for the Canadian Robert L. Schellenberg and raised his sentence to death for trafficking drugs. Last week, a Chinese court scheduled Schellenberg’s appeal hearing to begin hours after Meng’s court appearance in Vancouver. After the court pushed back a decision in Meng’s case, the Chinese court also announced it would delay announcing whether Schellenberg would be put to death.
“China is moving the Canadians through its system like pawns on a chessboard, pretending that some kind of due process is being observed. What we’re seeing is China’s rather crude effort at mirroring the process that Ms. Meng is experiencing in Canada, absent all the protections that a rule-of-law system like Canada’s affords to the accused,” said David Mulroney, Canada’s envoy to China from 2009 to 2012.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the government is “deeply concerned” about the arrests of Spavor and Kovrig.
Goodale called it an “arbitrary action.” He said no evidence has been produced to indicate any validity to the allegations made against them.
In Paris, where he’s been attending an international summit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke gravely but in vague terms about how Canada might respond.
“We continue to take the safety of the Canadians arbitrarily detained in China with the utmost priority,” he said.
Since December Kovrig and Spavor have been kept in cells with lights on roundthe-clock and without access to lawyers or family, people familiar with the matter say. The two have been allowed short consular visits once a month, during which they are not allowed to discuss the cases against them.
The men have told Canadian officials that they have not been physically mistreated aside from the extended sleep deprivation.
In the last six months, the timing of Chinese action against Canadian citizens has reinforced suspicions that Beijing is targeting Canada in retaliation for what China says is an American effort to hobble Huawei — which it says Canada is helping.
Citing Huawei’s threat to U.S. national security, the U.S. Commerce Department had announced hours earlier on Wednesday that it named Huawei to the so-called “Entity List.” The blacklist is known to some as a “death penalty” because global companies often struggle to survive once they are starved of doing business with American companies or sourcing American parts.
Chinese officials also stopped some shipments of canola, a critical Canadian export, and Chinese purchases of Canadian soybeans have “slowed to a trickle.”