China accused of hostage diplomacy with Michaels
After more than 1,000 days in Chinese detention, Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig returned home on Saturday morning. In what was widely viewed as a case of “hostage diplomacy,” both men were arrested in 2018 on espionage charges only days after Canada's arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who was wanted for fraud in the United States. Similarly, their sudden release coincided with Meng reaching a plea deal with U.S. authorities.
For nearly three years, Chinese officials have strenuously claimed there is no link whatsoever between Canada's arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the sudden detainment of Kovrig and Spavor. Last month, China's ambassador to Canada Cong Peiwu was publishing articles accusing Canada of “gross interference” in the Chinese justice system for even suggesting the cases were related. When the Michaels passed their 1,000th day in prison, the Chinese Embassy issued an official statement asserting “the Meng Wanzhou incident is entirely different from the cases of the two Canadians in nature.” These claims no longer seem tremendously convincing given that, within hours of Meng walking free from a Vancouver courtroom, China suddenly lost all interest in the battery of espionage charges faced by the two Michaels and put them on a jet for Calgary.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation noted that while Chinese media widely celebrated the return of Meng, it carried no mention of the release of the two Canadians. “China played dirty to get Huawei's ‘princess' back — too dirty even to tell its own people,” wrote the broadcaster's China correspondent.
The New York Times similarly concluded that China had sought Meng's return by “using detained foreign citizens as bargaining chips.” What's more, the near-immediate release of the Michaels and Meng regained her freedom may signal China's “comfort with the tactic.”
Columnist Terry Glavin cheers the return of the two Michaels, but writes that this whole affair should leave Canadians feeling “disgusted, embarrassed, ashamed and angry.” Glavin isn't convinced that Canadian diplomatic efforts had any effect on the final outcome — despite fervent protestations to the contrary by the Trudeau government. By contrast, Glavin lists a number of senior Liberals who had publicly called for Canada to cave to China and release Meng unconditionally.
Yuen Pau Woo is the B.C. senator who in June said Canada had no right to “lecture” China about its genocidal treatment of Uyghurs in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. On Saturday, he responded to the release of the two Michaels by retweeting a column by a pro-Beijing academic which repeated the People's Republic of China's official line that “the United States, assisted by Canada, took Meng hostage in the first place as part of its trade-andtechnology war with China.”