Second Canadian arrested in China as Huawei row rumbles on
The Chinese government confirmed it had detained another Canadian, citing a threat to national security.
The arrest of entrepreneur Michael Spavor and former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig follows Canada's arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer at Huawei, earlier this week.
The arrest of Kovrig was announced on Monday, also said to be under suspicions of national security.
Chinese authorities had been investigating Michael Spavor since 10 December, said foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang.
At the root of the issue is that Meng’s arrest came at the request of the US, with Washington accusing her of breaking its sanctions on trading with Iran through Huawei's business dealings.
Meng, who denies violating the Iran sanctions, was released on bail on Wednesday but is confined to Vancouver, awaiting a decision over her extradition to the US.
China has expressed outrage over Meng's detention and has threatened unspecified consequences if she is not released, increasing tensions in the US-China trade war.
President Donald Trump offered to get involved in the case since the US has long been accusing Huawei of doing business with Iran and violating US sanctions. "Whatever's good for this country, I would do," he said.
Meanwhile, Huawei has vowed to do what it could to soothe security concerns, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The telecoms company's head of western Europe business, Vincent Peng, said he wanted to assure western Europe of the company’s role in the supply chain of building 5G networks after the US warned Europe to drop the Chinese firm or risk endangering national security.
“Anything needed to do this transformation we are committed to do this. Restructure the organisation, rebuild the processes, rebuild the products,” Peng said. “Process, personal skills, engineering capability, anything,” he added.