China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing.
Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence.
Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟).
Photo: Intermediate People’s Court of Dalian via Reuters
That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory.
In January 2019, a court in northeast China retried Schellenberg, sentencing him to death after saying his 15-year prison term for drug trafficking had been too lenient.
He had been a central player in a scheme to ship narcotics to Australia, the court said.
Schellenberg has denied wrongdoing.
He is to be retried by the Liaoning High People’s Court, his lawyer Zhang said, the timing for which has not yet been set.
Zhang said he met with Schellenberg on Friday, and the Canadian appeared relatively relaxed.
Carney, who took office last year, visited China in January as part of his global effort to broaden Canada’s export markets to reduce trade reliance on the US.
“Global Affairs Canada [GAC] is aware of a decision issued by the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China in Mr. Robert Schellenberg’s case,” GAC spokesperson Thida Ith said, adding that they would “continue to provide consular services to Mr. Schellenberg and to his family.”
“Canada has advocated for clemency in this case, as it does for all Canadians who are sentenced to the death penalty,” Ith said.
Key sectors of the Canadian economy have been hammered by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and Carney has said Ottawa could no longer count on Washington as a reliable trading partner.
Despite ongoing tensions, including allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections, Ottawa needs a functioning relationship with Beijing to safeguard its economic future, he said.
Carney last month met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and heralded an improved era in relations — saying the two countries had struck a “new strategic partnership” and a preliminary trade deal.
GAC did not comment on whether diplomacy during Carney’s visit impacted the Chinese court decision.
Zhang said Carney’s visit raised his hopes that the Chinese court would announce a relatively positive outcome for his client.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS