US to help get Canadian detainees released amid Huawei extradition row, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says
The United States will help achieve the release of two Canadian nationals being detained in China as tensions among the three countries rise amid the arrest, at the US' request, of Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday.
Calling the Canadians' arrests "unlawful", Pompeo said: "We ask all nations of the world to treat other citizens properly, and the detention of these two Canadian citizens in China ought to end."
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Following Meng's December 1 arrest, which the US ordered over allegations the executive committed financial fraud with the aim of skirting US sanctions on sales to Iran, Chinese authorities seized the two Canadians this week for allegedly "endangering national security".
One, former diplomat Michael Kovrig, was held on Monday night by Beijing's state security bureau. In the days since his arrest, the Foreign Ministry has said Kovrig, now a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group, may have also broken China's NGO law if he was carrying out work for the group while in the country.
On Thursday, authorities confirmed that a second Canadian national, businessman Michael Spavor, had been detained by Liaoning's provincial state security bureau. A North Korea specialist, Spavor once met leader Kim Jong-un and runs an NGO that arranges cultural exchanges with the hermit kingdom.
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Pompeo said the detention of nationals abroad was something that "weighs on those of us who serve to try to make sure that our citizens do have the opportunity to return home to their families."
Pompeo spoke at a press conference in Washington with his Canadian counterpart Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Minister of Defence Harjit Sajjan and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis.
Before the two Canadians' detention, China's Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng had warned Ottawa that it would face "grave consequences" if it did not release Meng, fuelling suspicion that the recent arrests were punitive in nature.
Yet a Friday editorial in China Daily, the Communist Party's foreign-facing mouthpiece newspaper, rejected claims that the recent arrests were in any way retaliatory.
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Freeland said Chinese officials, including China's ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, had not connected the different issues in conversations with the Canadian government.
"From Canada's perspective, these kinds of issues ought never to be confused with one another," she said.
US President Donald Trump blurred the line between political and judicial matters on Tuesday when he told Reuters he would consider intervening in Meng's case if the move would benefit ongoing trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing.
That suggestion sent shock waves through Washington, with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday calling the Republican president's remarks "deeply disturbing".
Freeland said on Friday that it was "very important for Canada that extradition agreements are not used for political purposes. Canada does not do it that way".
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"And I believe it is obvious that democratic countries, such as our partner, the US, do the same," she said.
It was reported widely on Friday that Canadian consular staff in China had been granted access to Kovrig in detention. Freeland said that details of the visit by Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum, had been shared with Kovrig's family, but she declined to disclose more information, citing the need to respect Kovrig's privacy.
In the cases of both men, Freeland said, the Canadian government's "immediate concern has been to gain consular access to them and to understand what the charges are being put on them by the Chinese authorities."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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