Yet another Canadian has been detained in China on drug charges as relations between the two countries continue to slide downhill.

The arrest occurred in a drug bust involving foreign students in the Shandong city of Yantai, China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Monday.

This is a different bust than the one that was reported about last week involving 16 foreigners, including seven teachers and nine students, in the Zhejiang city of Xuzhou.

A year of death sentences

Already this year, two Canadians have been sentenced to death in China on drug charges, sentencings that raised eyebrows considerably because of their timing, coming after Canada detained Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States in December.

Prior to Meng’s arrest, Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg had been sentenced to only 15 years in prison for drug smuggling. However, in a retrial two months later, he was given the death penalty.

Canadian Fan Wei was also sentenced to death this year by a court in Guangdong province for being one of the leaders of a drug gang that produced and sold crystal meth.

The gang was detained in 2012 and put on trial a year later, but Fan was only sentenced in April.

Meanwhile in Canada

This latest arrest comes only shortly after Chinese researcher Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her students from China were removed from Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg amid an investigation into a possible “policy breach.”

In its story on the arrest, China’s Global Times tabloid brings up the situation involving Dr. Qiu and mentions a Weibo comment which reads: “China arrested a drug abuser, we have legitimate reasons. While Canada just take a renowned scientists out of the blue… way to go Canada.”

The state media outlet also illustrated its story with an image of Schellenberg being sentenced to death.

Viewing #China as an opponent was wrong and would only make #Canada meet more setbacks in bilateral relations: expert https://t.co/pJSLKFCwmN pic.twitter.com/kd4Mhax9j7 — Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 16, 2019