US intervention comes as Canadian officials granted access in China to Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has said China should free two Canadian citizens who were detained this week following the arrest in Canada of a senior Huawei executive on a US extradition warrant.

Pompeo’s comments were the first by a senior US official on the Canadians’ arrests, which the country’s prime minister Justin Trudeau said could escalate a growing trade conflict between China and the United States.

“The unlawful detention of two Canadian citizens is unacceptable,” Pompeo told reporters after talks in Washington with Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland. “They ought to be returned ... We ask all nations of the world to treat other citizens properly.”

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China detained the two – businessman Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and an adviser with the International Crisis Group (ICG) – after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on 1 December.

Canada’s foreign ministry said its ambassador to Beijing, John McCallum, was granted consular access to Kovrig and is pressing for access to Spavor. Trudeau predicted that access would take place “shortly”.

“We are being absolutely clear on standing up for our citizens who have been detained, trying to figure out why, trying to work with China to demonstrate that this not acceptable,” he told City Tv in Toronto.

ICG President Robert Malley also called for Kovrig’s release.

“Michael’s arrest is unjust. He should be freed immediately,” Malley said in a statement.

“Far from being secretive, Michael’s work was open for all to see, Chinese officials first and foremost,” he said. Kovrig did not do anything to endanger China’s national security, either as a diplomat or at the ICG, Malley said.

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US prosecutors accuse Meng of misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating US sanctions. Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei’s founder, has said she is innocent.

The United States and Canada promised a fair judicial process for Meng.

Foreign ministers and defence chiefs from Canada and the US met in Washington as Ottawa increasingly looked like collateral damage in a simmering US-China trade war, with Beijing at the same time working to ease trade tensions with Washington.

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On Friday China announced it would temporarily suspend additional 25% tariffs on US-made vehicles and auto parts starting on 1 January.

In a statement on its website, the Chinese ministry of finance said it hoped the two countries could speed up negotiations to remove all additional tariffs on each other’s goods. It’s reduction of auto industry tariffs from 40% to 15% will last for three months.

China has rejected Trudeau’s insistence that Canada’s government cannot interfere with the judiciary. Meng was released on bail this week but has to remain in Canada.



“This is one of the situations you get in when the two largest economies in the world, China and the United States, start picking a fight with each other,” Trudeau told City TV.

“The escalating trade war between them is going to have all sorts of unintended consequences on Canada, potentially on the entire global economy. We’re very worried about that,” he said.