Ottawa should not try to pressure Beijing into releasing two arrested Canadian citizens by undermining US-China trade negotiations, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang said on Friday
BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th December, 2019) Ottawa should not try to pressure Beijing into releasing two arrested Canadian citizens by undermining US-China trade negotiations, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang said on Friday.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Thursday that his country had asked Washington to refrain from signing a new trade deal with Beijing until two Canadian nationals detained in in China, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, were released.
"We have noticed these reports ... Attempts to pressure China by joining with others or trying to tie together [unrelated] issues are absolutely futile and ineffective," Geng said.
He also called on Ottawa to release Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who is in Canadian custody at Washington's behest, saying that the blame for current tensions in China-Canada relations lay squarely on the latter.
"As for the two detained Canadian citizens, they are suspected of undermining China's national security. China's investigative bodies have finished their preliminary investigation, [and] the case has been handed over to the prosecution," the spokesman added.
In mid-May, China confirmed that Spavor and Kovrig had been arrested on suspicion of espionage and theft of state secrets.
The move is largely perceived as retaliation for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou.
