Questions related to the incident dominated the Chinese Foreign Ministry\u2019s Wednesday press briefing.<\/b>
\nThe row between China and Canada over the case of Meng Wanzhou \u2014 chief financial officer and deputy chair of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei as well as a daughter of Huawei\u2019s founder, Ren Zhengfei \u2014 is getting increasingly complicated and severe.
On December 11, Reuters broke the news that China has detained Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat who currently works for the International Crisis Group (ICG) as Senior Adviser for Northeast Asia.
The incident happened\u00a0soon\u00a0after Meng was arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 1 at the request of U. S. law enforcement authorities.
On December 12, ICG released a formal statement on its website, calling for Kovrig\u2019s \u201cimmediate release\u201d and revealing more important details on the case.
ICG said in its statement that Kovrig was \u201cdetained on Monday [December 10] night in Beijing by the Beijing Bureau of Chinese State Security\u201d and the organization has received no information since then.
\u201cWe are making every effort to learn more and to secure consular access to Michael from the Chinese authorities,\u201d the statement added, implying that Kovrig has not been granted consular access yet.
According to Kovrig\u2019s resume, since joining ICG in February last year, he has been focusing on foreign affairs and global security issues in Northeast Asia, particularly on China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula. With a master\u2019s degree in international affairs from Columbia University, Kovrig previously worked as a Canadian diplomat in Beijing, Hong Kong, and at the United Nations in New York.
ICG\u2019s latest statement emphasized that Kovrig \u201cno longer works for the Canadian government and is employed solely\u201d by the organization now. ICG pointed out that Kovrig has \u201cdistinguished himself for his rigorous and impartial reporting, regularly interviewing Chinese officials to accurately reflect their views in our work.\u201d
Additionally, ICG stressed that it is \u201can independent organization that conducts field research and offers policy recommendations to help end deadly conflicts worldwide.\u201d
ICG further said that among its prominent trustees coming from the highest levels of government, business and philanthropic institutions worldwide, two trustees are Chinese: Hu Shuli, founder and publisher of Caixin Media, and Wang Jisi, president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University \u2014 an apparent attempt to demonstrate ICG\u2019s credibility and impartiality.
Joanna Chiu, an assistant managing editor of StarMetro Vancouver, revealed in her article that Guy Saint-Jacques \u2014 \u00a0former Canadian ambassador to China as well as Kovrig\u2019s supervisor when Kovrig worked in Canada\u2019s Beijing embassy from 2014 to 2016 \u2014 \u00a0feared that Kovrig \u201ccould be charged with espionage.\u201d
The wording and tone ICG adopted in its statement hinted that the organization feared the same.
Before Kovrig\u2019s detention, on December 8, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng \u201c urgently summoned \u201d Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum, threatening that if Canada does not \u201cimmediately release\u201d Meng, Ottawa will \u201cface grave consequences that the Canadian side should be held accountable for.\u201d
The timing of Kovrig\u2019s detention made many people believe that the incident is exactly one of the \u201cgrave consequences\u201d Le referred to.
As Chiu pointed out in her article, in 2014, Canadian Christian aid workers Julia and Kevin Garratt were arrested by Chinese officials and accused of spying. \u201cMany believed it was retaliation for the arrest in Canada that same year of Chinese citizen Su Bin, who was accused of hacking U. S. military databases, \u201d Chiu wrote.
Unsurprisingly, questions related to the incident dominated the Chinese Foreign Ministry\u2019s regular press briefing on December 12.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang refused to confirm Kovrig\u2019s detention. Instead, he repeatedly stressed that ICG was not registered in China, and thus its activities in the country were illegal. \u201cOnce its staff are engaged in activities in China, it has already violated the law,\u201d Lu said, referring to the Chinese foreign NGO law issued in 2016.
Regarding Kovrig\u2019s detention, Lu told the press: \u201cI do not have information to provide you here. If there is such a thing, please do not worry, it is assured that China\u2019s relevant departments will definitely handle it according to law.\u201d
When being asked whether the detention of Kovrig is China\u2019s countermeasure toward Canada\u2019s arrest of Meng, Lu\u00a0replied that he \u201ccan\u2019t understand the logic here.\u201d<\/p>\n