Chinese Ambassador to Canada Lu Shaye (盧沙野) on Wednesday accused Canada of “white supremacy” in calling for the release of two Canadians detained in China last month, while describing the detentions as an “act of self-defense.”
The arrests were in apparent retaliation for the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co (華為) chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟).
However, Lu in a charged opinion piece in the Ottawa-based Hill Times said that Western countries are employing a “double standard” in demanding the immediate release of the Canadians.
“The reason why some people are used to arrogantly adopting double standards is due to Western egotism and white supremacy,” Lu wrote. “What they have been doing is not showing respect for the rule of law, but mocking and trampling the rule of law.”
China on Dec. 10 detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor on allegations of “engaging in activities that endanger the national security” of China.
Lu seemed to admit that detaining the Canadians was in retaliation for the arrest of Meng, something China had previously denied.
“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,” Lu wrote.
“Elites” in Canada are dismissing Chinese law by demanding the release of the Canadians, he added.
“It seems that, to those people, the laws of Canada or other Western countries are laws and must be observed, while China’s laws are not and shouldn’t be respected,” Lu said.
Meng was arrested without breaching any Canadian law, suggesting that Canada should never detain someone for extradition, he added.
“It seems that, to some people, only Canadian citizens shall be treated in a humanitarian manner and their freedom deemed valuable, while Chinese people do not deserve that,” he wrote.
Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, called Lu’s claims “hogwash.”
“I don’t know what the ambassador was trying to accomplish, but his article won’t help China’s cause. The reference to white supremacy was bizarre and unfortunate,” Paris said. “There is false equivalency in this article. Canada is a rule-of-law country. China is a rule-by-law country and the distinction is important.”
Canada is following the letter of the extradition law it has with the US, while the Canadians were grabbed in China under suspicious circumstances and China has held them without charge, Paris added.
Julian Ku, senior associate dean for academic affairs at Hofstra University’s School of Law, called Lu’s claims ridiculous and said he is playing the race card in an effort to win sympathy from Canadians and Americans of Chinese descent.
“He’s making it seem like the two legal proceedings are morally equivalent and they are not,” he said.
China has still not revealed any information about what Kovrig and Spavor are charged with, and have not given them a hearing, and thus Canada is not wrong with calling the arrests arbitrary, Ku added.
“I am struck by how brazen they are being by making this appeal,” Ku said. “He [Lu] says: ‘You are being racist by not respecting our law.’ That’s an easy card to play.”
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