Canadian Michael Spavor detained in China as Huawei row continues
A second Canadian has been detained in China on accusations of harming national security, as tension continues between the two countries. It was confirmed on Thursday that Michael Spavor, a businessman, had been detained in addition to former diplomat Michael Kovrig.
Canada drew Chinese protests after it arrested an executive at telecoms giant Huawei at the request of the US. Meng Wanzhou has been bailed but may face extradition for fraud.
[...] Michael Spavor is a businessman based in Dandong, near the Chinese border with North Korea. He has ties to the North Korean government and has met its leader Kim Jong-un many times.
Ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig currently works for a think tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), which has said it is concerned for his health and safety. He is being held officially "on suspicion of engaging in activities that harm China's state security".
However, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Lu Kang, suggested another reason, saying the ICG had not been registered as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in China and therefore it was unlawful for its staff to work there. Checks by Reuters news agency did not turn up a registration for ICG on government databases for NGOs or social enterprises.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has said Mr Kovrig's case was raised directly with Chinese officials.
The article has a photo of Spavor standing with Dennis Rodman.
Previously: Canada Arrests Huawei's Global Chief Financial Officer in Vancouver
Arrest of Huawei Executive Causing Discontent Among Chinese Elites
China Arrests Former Canadian Diplomat; Chinese Companies Ban iPhones, Require Huawei Phones
Related Stories
Canada Arrests Huawei's Global Chief Financial Officer in Vancouver, Canada
Canada has arrested the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies who is facing extradition to the United States on suspicion she violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.
Wanzhou Meng, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei’s board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver at the request of U.S. authorities.
“Wanzhou Meng was arrested in Vancouver on December 1. She is sought for extradition by the United States, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday,” Justice department spokesperson Ian McLeod said in a statement to The Globe and Mail. “As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time. The ban was sought by Ms. Meng.
A Canadian source with knowledge of the arrest said U.S. law enforcement authorities are alleging that Ms. Meng tried to evade the U.S. trade embargo against Iran but provided no further details.
Also at The Register and c|net.
Huawei Arrest Tests China's Leaders as Fear and Anger Grip Elite
The arrest of one of China's leading tech executives by the Canadian police for extradition to the United States has unleashed a combustible torrent of outrage and alarm among affluent and influential Chinese, posing a delicate political test for President Xi Jinping and his grip on the loyalty of the nation's elite.
The outpouring of conflicting sentiments — some Chinese have demanded a boycott of American products while others have expressed anxiety about their investments in the United States — underscores the unusual, politically charged nature of the Trump administration's latest move to counter China's drive for technological superiority.
In a hearing on Friday in Vancouver, Canadian prosecutors said the executive, Meng Wanzhou of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, faced accusations of participating in a scheme to trick financial institutions into making transactions that violated United States sanctions against Iran.
Unlike a new round of tariffs or more tough rhetoric from American officials, the detention of Ms. Meng, the company's chief financial officer, appears to have driven home the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China in a visceral way for the Chinese establishment — and may force Mr. Xi to adopt a tougher stance against Washington, analysts said. In part, that is because Ms. Meng, 46, is so embedded in that establishment herself.
Previously: Canada Arrests Huawei's Global Chief Financial Officer in Vancouver
Related: New Law Bans U.S. Government from Buying Equipment from Chinese Telecom Giants ZTE and Huawei
Australia Bans China's Huawei (and maybe ZTE) from 5G Mobile Network Project
Washington Asks Allies to Drop Huawei
Michael Kovrig, former Canadian diplomat, reportedly arrested in China
A former Canadian diplomat has reportedly been arrested in China. The International Crisis Group said Tuesday it's aware of reports that its North East Asia senior adviser Michael Kovrig has been detained.
The Brussels-based non-governmental organization said in a statement it's doing everything possible to obtain additional information about Kovrig's whereabouts and that it will work to ensure his prompt release.
The Globe and Mail in Toronto and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported the arrest, citing unnamed sources.
Reports of Kovrig's detention come after China warned Canada of consequences for its recent arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at Vancouver's airport. It's unclear if there's any link between the cases.
Some Chinese companies ban iPhones, require Huawei after CFO's arrest: report
Some Chinese companies are banning iPhones and requiring that their employees use Huawei products following the arrest of Huawei's chief financial officer, according to a new Yahoo News report. Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, was arrested by Canadian authorities last Saturday at the request of the U.S. after allegedly violating trade sanctions against Iran. Chinese officials have strongly protested Meng's detention.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @05:16AM (15 children)
Canada is a loser, a country of losers.
Also, Air Canada is garbage.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @05:30AM (13 children)
(Score: 5, Informative) by jimtheowl on Friday December 14 2018, @05:40AM (4 children)
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @05:51AM (3 children)
The US definitely isn't - if you're well connected, you'll have your contacts sort things out on an airport runway or whatever, like Hillary did, and get off scott free.
We all know that the law in China is whatever the Communist Party wants.
If Canada wants to play "following the rule of law", they'll get slapped down like a kid would if he meddled in an argument between adults.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jimtheowl on Friday December 14 2018, @06:03AM (2 children)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @07:07AM
Truth hurts
(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Friday December 14 2018, @01:32PM
"It’s curious why Hillary Clinton’s name isn’t in the mix -- either conversationally or in formal polling -- as a 2020 candidate. She’s younger than Donald Trump by a year. She's younger than Joe Biden by four years. Is it that she’s run before? This would be Bernie Sanders's second time, and Biden’s third time. Is it lack of support? She had 65 million people vote for her." Crooked's Senior Advisor Philippe Reines.
I was recently asked if Crooked Hillary Clinton is going to run in 2020? My answer was, "I hope so!"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @06:11AM (7 children)
Why is it to your satisfaction to let a rich person get away with fraud?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @09:36AM (6 children)
Are allegations already established facts in your mind?
Fraud by whose laws?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @01:13PM (3 children)
Irrelevant. The arguments to release Meng have not been made on the basis of whether or not she was guilty of the crime. Thus, they are implying that she should be released even if she has committed fraud of the sort described in the extradition request.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @04:00PM (2 children)
“Five Eyes” intelligence agencies behind drive against Chinese telecom giant Huawei [wsws.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @04:29PM (1 child)
What was the crime that JP Morgan Chase committed?
In other words, egregious negligence versus the worse, deliberate fraud. Why again should the proposed punishment for the crime be as slight as it was for JP Morgan?
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @04:30PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 14 2018, @06:14PM
Fraud by whose laws?
The laws of Canada AND the US, as is required per our extradition treaty with them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 14 2018, @06:17PM
Are allegations already established facts in your mind?
He didn't say they were. After the allegation comes the trial which establishes the facts. The person needs to actually show up to court, though, which is the phase we're currently at.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @04:18PM
+1 on the Air Canada comment.
I found out at the gate that fly on an Air Canada plane on a trip that started in Seattle, had a brief stop in Vancouver to pick up more passengers, and then flew to Asia, you have to buy a Canadian visa through some clunky online system. Don't need a Visa to cross at a road border, but to sit in the airport for a couple hours, you do.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @05:19AM (15 children)
It's interesting how so many people will renege on supposed important legal principles such as equal justice for rich and poor alike, merely because of fear or some ideological ax.
(Score: 4, Informative) by legont on Friday December 14 2018, @06:16AM (9 children)
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/12/13/canada-caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-in-the-case-of-huaweis-meng-wanzhou.html [thestar.com]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @06:55AM (8 children)
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday December 14 2018, @05:26PM (1 child)
The point is, as far as China is concerned, that Canada can do it. China is right that the law in this case is specifically bend to fit politics and it is done for these kind of cases. Basically, China is asking Canada if Canada is her friend. If not, we should expect "grave consequences" sooner or later.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:11AM
That's not the behavior of a friend.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:18AM (5 children)
Trump has already made statements that make it look political or at least turning political. Besides, America under Trump has shown that America is not Canada's friend, redoing NAFTA so the deep state can get its IP shit pushed (not much else changed, as shown by GM's actions as soon as the ink was dry), tariffs for national security reasons, picking absolute monarchs who practice religion in an evil way over Canada are just some examples.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:14AM (4 children)
And yet, Friend China has imprisoned two Canadians for no reason other than to thwart a lawful court proceeding. What kind of friend does that?
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:21PM (3 children)
Never said China is a friend, though we do know where we stand with them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:33AM (2 children)
You merely implied that China was more of a friend than the US was.
And "we" know where Canada stands with the US too.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:26AM (1 child)
I implied that China was predictable, that includes a very limited friendship, they're reacting to this situation as pretty expected and it would not be surprising if they crash the economy here, it's expected and we're doing it for a friend, namely the USA.
As for where we stand, we're risking our fucking economy for you, all China has to do is withdraw from the real estate market along with a couple of other industries and we're likely fucked.
Over the years, we've taken your political refugees, whether wrong party, actually enslaved or just drafted. When you were attacked, we took thousands of you into our homes, even showed up with whole fire departments. Bush thanked everyone but Canada. We gave a lot of help in building the bomb, and didn't complain when you told us to fuck off after, we're not sharing.
It's your country that has responded with national security concerns about us, various BS tariffs a reworked NAFTA that brought all the TPP shit back and still left things so GM started closing plants as soon as the ink was dry. When we mentioned how Saudi Arabia treated its woman and the Saudi's freaked out, the feeling was it was encouraged by your government. There's also the BS about us taking advantage of you under NAFTA when all our fucking good manufacturing jobs went to America after the first free trade agreement and even now you run a small surplus in trade and services and fuck us with your agriculture subsidies.
Then there is pushing your weight around where we have border disputes and someone is likely to get killed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 17 2018, @02:40AM
No, sorry that's not where you stand. That's where Canada stands. You've instead established that you'll roll over for the bigger bully.
Less fucked than China would be. Meanwhile it'll be a windfall for those Canadians buying all that cheap real estate and entering those markets. There is this bizarre insistence that China can do incredibly stupid things that give wealth to Canada, and somehow it'll be bad.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @10:37AM (3 children)
Looks similar to the charge brought against Maria Butina, for which she's had several months of solitary confinement while awaiting trial.
Just another case of China stealing ideas from the US.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @01:26PM (2 children)
Are you looking? Or are you whataboutisming? Why exactly does illegal activity by Butina, shown in court and to which she plead guilty [wikipedia.org], justify capricious, extortive arrests by the Chinese government?
Only if you ignore the past 80 years of Chinese Communist history, could you possibly believe this is a thing that was acquired from the US.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @03:55PM (1 child)
Just wait. Few months in solitary, and these Canadian criminals are going to be happy to plead guilty, sit a few more months in jail, and then go home.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 14 2018, @04:34PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aclarke on Friday December 14 2018, @03:34PM
I agree with you on this one. I hope our government doesn't give in to kidnapping and ransom which is essentially what the Chinese have done. It makes them look in my mind like a child bully and is an entirely inappropriate response to this situation.
I would like our government to stay the course, follow the rule of law, and let other parties make the decisions they're going to make without taking responsibility in any way for others' actions. I'm sad for those caught in the crossfire, but giving into coercion attempts doesn't seem like the right long-term strategy.
China plays a long-term game, and Canada needs to learn to do the same when dealing with China.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @06:25AM (5 children)
Chinese own the majority of Toronto and Vancouver. Canada can't do much without losing about 1/3 of its population.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @06:50AM
I live in Vancouver. Parent post is true.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @09:14AM (3 children)
And London.
Why wage war with a country when you can just buy it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @10:29AM (2 children)
Investments in foreign countries have a habit of being repatriated when relations get nasty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @11:24PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday December 15 2018, @12:01AM
Hence domestic manufacturing being a national security issue, and one of the major reasons why people who actually love the USA as a country absolutely despise Obama for the traitor he is. It doesn't matter if a person staying at your house is handsome, polite, speaks smoothly, and is "woke", if they purposefully left the door unlocked every night for their friends to come in and sabotage your house, then they pulled wool over your eyes and told you that everything was fine, and that your house was more unified, peaceful, and prosperous than ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @04:03PM
With a misspelling que -> cue
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=28927&page=1&cid=770782#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday December 14 2018, @11:56PM (4 children)
This makes even more clear to everyone who lives in reality that China is a threat, not because we always want to be able to chant "USA #1!!!", because we will do that anyway, and in the face of all prevailing evidence, but because China is a threat to civilization, period. It's not that they have power, it should be explicitly clear now that it's how they use that power that is the problem. Not just against Canadians, but against their own people.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:24AM (3 children)
Well, in a way America did start this, it isn't like any of the other companies that have dealt with Iran, or even destroyed the worlds economy, were actually arrested and threatened with long jail sentences. Usually it is a fine on the company and depending on the standing of the company, that fine might even be more then the profits realized from trading with Iran.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday December 15 2018, @03:31AM (2 children)
America may have been the country to bring the conflict out in the open, but it is doing so as early as possible. Did we learn nothing from North Korea?
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)
Was it the N. Korean banks that ruined the worlds economy or crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center?
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:47PM
They were the ones who shot a missle over Japan, which, if it had malfunctioned and struck Japan would have resulted in WWIII, and had to be put in their place. No single country is responsible for ruining the worlds economy, it's actually a small group of "bankers" who are to blame, the same people who created Nazi Germany. Funnily enough, it's that same group of people that is the reason we're so involved in the middle east in the first place!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:21AM
Fatality.