China’s ambassador to Canada has penned a fiery editorial accusing Canadians of adopting a racist double standard in their reaction to China’s detention of two Canadian citizens on national security grounds.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that the pair of Canadian nationals, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were “arbitrarily detained” and has demanded their release. Most have seen their arrests as a transparent bit of retaliation on the part of Beijing for Canada’s arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of US authorities on December 1st. Kovrig and Spavor were detained on suspicion of “engaging in activities harming China’s national security” about a week later.

In a piece published on Wednesday by the Ottawa-based Hill Times, ambassador Lu Shaye gave his own take on the situation, writing in the sub-head: “It seems that, to some people, only Canadian citizens should be treated in a humanitarian manner and their freedom deemed valuable, while Chinese people do not deserve that.”

He then goes on to build on this idea, accusing Canada of adopting “double standards” based in “white supremacy”:

Recently, China’s competent authorities took compulsory measures in accordance with the law against two Canadian nationals who are suspected of engaging in activities that endanger China’s national security. Some Canadians and some in the Canadian news media, in disregard of China’s judicial sovereignty, accused China of arbitrary detention and demanded their immediate release. However, on the prior groundless detention of Chinese citizen Meng Wanzhou by Canada at the behest of the United States, these same people made utterly different comments. They insisted that Canada’s detention of a Chinese citizen who was transferring planes at the airport was “acting in accordance with law,” though Meng has not been charged with any violation of Canadian law. […] The reason why some people are used to arrogantly adopting double standards is due to Western egotism and white supremacy. In such a context, the rule of law is nothing but a tool for their political ends and a fig leaf for their practising hegemony in the international arena. What they have been doing is not showing respect for the rule of law, but mocking and trampling the rule of law.

Meanwhile, there’s also this interesting paragraph where Lu appears to admit that China’s detentions of Kovrig and Spavor came in retaliation (or self-defense, as he terms it):

I have recently heard a word repeatedly pronounced by some Canadians: bullying. They said that by arresting two Canadian citizens as retaliation for Canada’s detention of Meng, China was bullying Canada. To those people, China’s self-defense is an offense to Canada. If someone slaps you on your left cheek, give him your right cheek, they told us. But I have never seen them doing as they said.

Kovrig and Spavor remain detained in Chinese custody with only Canadian consular officials allowed to see them. It’s unlikely that they will be released or charged anytime soon. Meanwhile, Meng was released on bail about a month ago and now lives in one of her multi-million dollar homes in Vancouver. She has been ordered to remain in British Columbia and wear an ankle bracelet while the US pursues her extradition.