China charges two Canadians with spying, deepening a political standoff

Two Canadian men detained in China since December have been formally arrested on espionage charges, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday, in a move likely to ratchet up tensions between China and Canada that broke out with the arrest of a Chinese executive in Vancouver.

Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was detained while visiting Beijing, was charged with “gathering state secrets and intelligence for abroad,” while Michael Spavor, a business consultant who was detained in northeast China, was accused of “stealing and providing state secrets for abroad,” Lu Kang, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said at a regularly scheduled news briefing.

The vague reference to unspecified overseas entities left open the question of whether the men were suspected of working for a government or for some other organisation.

The charges are likely to anger the government of Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who condemned the initial detentions of Kovrig and Spavor as “arbitrary” and politically motivated. Supporters of the two men and foreign legal experts have said that their detentions appeared to be retaliation for the arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, China’s biggest telecommunications company, at the behest of the United States.

The United States has pressured allies not to use Huawei’s technology, arguing that China could use it to spy on other countries. Those efforts intensified Wednesday, when President Donald Trump moved to ban US telecommunications firms from installing foreign-made equipment that could pose risks to national security. The measure seemed aimed at blocking sales by Huawei, though it did not explicitly single out any nation or company.

Kovrig and Spavor were seized by the police in December, days after Meng was arrested while changing planes in Vancouver. The Chinese government was incensed by Meng’s arrest, and the charging of Kovrig and Spavor makes it more likely that they will face trial and conviction, deepening the standoff with Trudeau’s administration.

Lu did not provide further details and said only that the arrests were made recently.

“Everything in China is done in accordance with law,” Lu said. Responding to a reporter’s question about Canadian officials’ criticism of how China handled the cases, he said: “We hope Canada will not interfere with or comment casually on China’s legal system and lawful practices.”

© 2019 New York Times News Service