{"id":194125,"date":"2018-12-16T01:22:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T06:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=194125"},"modified":"2018-12-16T01:22:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T06:22:20","slug":"canada-will-shortly-see-spavor-second-detained-canadian-in-china-trudeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/16\/canada-will-shortly-see-spavor-second-detained-canadian-in-china-trudeau\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada will ‘shortly’ see Spavor, second detained Canadian in China: Trudeau"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Trudeau addressed\u00a0the\u00a0fate of\u00a0the\u00a0entrepreneur Michael Spavor, one of two Canadians arrested in China earlier this week, during a wide-ranging interview with\u00a0The\u00a0Canadian\u00a0Press. (File Photo<\/a>: Justin Trudeau\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2014\u00a0Canadian\u00a0diplomats will be granted access \u201cshortly\u201d to\u00a0the\u00a0second\u00a0Canadian\u00a0detained in China, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday, as he predicted consequences for Canada’s economy from\u00a0the\u00a0U.S.-China trade war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a country that is deeply supported and engaged in global trade,\u201d Trudeau said. \u201cAnd when\u00a0the\u00a0two largest economies in\u00a0the\u00a0world are trying to disrupt global trade, there’s going to be consequences for Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trudeau addressed\u00a0the\u00a0fate of\u00a0the\u00a0entrepreneur Michael Spavor, one of two Canadians arrested in China earlier this week, during a wide-ranging interview with\u00a0The\u00a0Canadian\u00a0Press.<\/p>\n

Spavor and former\u00a0Canadian\u00a0diplomat Michael Kovrig were taken into custody this week in Beijing, days after\u00a0the\u00a0RCMP arrested a top Chinese business leader transiting through Vancouver at\u00a0thebehest of\u00a0the\u00a0United States.\u00a0The\u00a0U.S. wants Meng Wanzhou,\u00a0the\u00a0chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, to be extradited to\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. to face fraud charges.<\/p>\n

Earlier Friday, John McCallum, Canada’s ambassador to China, met for\u00a0the\u00a0first time with Kovrig, who is on a leave of absence from Global Affairs Canada. He served as a diplomat in China until 2016 and has been working for\u00a0the\u00a0International Crisis Group, a non-governmental agency. China says he’s been harming its national security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe seek consular access, which we’ve gotten already in one of\u00a0the\u00a0cases, and are going to have in\u00a0the\u00a0second case shortly,\u201d Trudeau said Friday. \u201cWe’re hopeful that it’ll happen soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged China on Friday to end\u00a0the\u00a0\u201dunlawful detention\u201d of\u00a0the\u00a0two Canadians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask all nations of\u00a0the\u00a0world to treat other citizens properly and\u00a0the\u00a0detention of these two\u00a0Canadian\u00a0citizens in China ought to end,\u201d Pompeo said in Washington, alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.<\/p>\n

Pompeo moved to temper an earlier statement by U.S. Donald Trump this week, who mused he might intervene in\u00a0the\u00a0Meng case if it helped him get a trade deal with China. Pompeo said\u00a0theextradition request for Meng isn’t being used as political leverage in\u00a0the\u00a0trade talks with China.<\/p>\n

During\u00a0the\u00a0interview, Trudeau made it clear that\u00a0the\u00a0U.S.-China trade war would have ramifications not only for Canada’s economy, but\u00a0the\u00a0world’s.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0the\u00a0only way for Canada to see its way through\u00a0the\u00a0turbulence is to adhere strictly to\u00a0the\u00a0rule of law, and\u00a0the\u00a0international institutions that are under threat, Trudeau said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not about being nice guys, or good guys. It’s about understanding that\u00a0the\u00a0rules that we have established as a global community have kept us in an unparalleled era of peace, stability, prosperity, lifting millions upon millions of people around\u00a0the\u00a0world out of poverty,\u201d said Trudeau.<\/p>\n

But sometimes, he said,\u00a0the\u00a0rules can be improved. That explains Canada’s leadership in trying to reform\u00a0the\u00a0World Trade Organization \u2014 one of\u00a0the\u00a0many global institutions that has been heavily maligned by\u00a0the\u00a0Trump administration.<\/p>\n

He pointed to a recent meeting Canada hosted of about a dozen like-minded countries to reform\u00a0the\u00a0WTO \u2014 a meeting to which it did not invite\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. or China \u2014 as a way to find solutions in \u201ca thoughtful way and not an overly political or nationalistic\u201d one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith\u00a0the\u00a0WTO, both China and\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. were informed and were engaged secondarily in that discussion,\u201d Trudeau explained. \u201cWe know we’re going to get to decision points where they have very different views of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, he said he’s following\u00a0the\u00a0rules of international diplomacy when it comes to freeing\u00a0the\u00a0Canadians held in China by staying out of it personally. Trudeau said it isn’t in\u00a0the\u00a0detainees’ interest for him to personally raise\u00a0the\u00a0matter with China’s leaders because if he gets nowhere, all options are lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s always easier to keep it from escalating too much by focusing on official-to-official, ambassador-to-ambassador, minister-to-minister, and then once you’ve worked your way through this, you get to a place where it’s leader-to-leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Washington,\u00a0the\u00a0arrests dominated questions Pompeo and Freeland took after a meeting that also included Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0two foreign ministers tried to distance politics from\u00a0the\u00a0extradition process that is now in\u00a0the\u00a0Canadian\u00a0courts. Freeland said Friday’s discussions focused on upholding\u00a0the\u00a0rule of law, and ensuring Meng’s right to due process is respected and that\u00a0the\u00a0ongoing legal process remains free of politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada, in detaining Ms. Meng, was not making a political judgment. In Canada there has been, to this point, no political interference in this issue at all. For Canada, this is a question of living up to our international treaty obligations and following\u00a0the\u00a0rule of law,\u201d Freeland said. \u201cThe\u00a0extradition process is a criminal-justice process. This is not a tool that should be used for politicized ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday evening,\u00a0the\u00a0non-governmental agency Kovrig was working for at\u00a0the\u00a0time of his detention added its voice to those calling for his release.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael’s arrest is unjust. He should be freed immediately,\u201d International Crisis Group CEO Robert Malley said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to fight for Michael and will not rest until he is released, free, and reunited with his loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014\u00a0Canadian\u00a0diplomats will be granted access \u201cshortly\u201d to\u00a0the\u00a0second\u00a0Canadian\u00a0detained in China, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday, as he predicted consequences …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":192550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-mike-blanchfield","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}