The board of Huawei detained in Canada offers to pay their monitoring on bail
is China a threat to Canada with serious retaliation for the arrest of the heir of Huawei
The difficult game combining espionage with economy and business
The chinese Foreign ministry has confirmed on Thursday the detention of two canadian citizens, former diplomat Michael Kovrig, and promoter of travel to North Korea, Michael Spavor, who has noted with serious allegations, which coincide with the diplomatic crisis sparked between Beijing and Ottawa, after the arrest of the chief financial of Huawei, Sabrina Meng Wanzhou.
According to the spokesman of the cited department, Lu Kang, the two defendants took part in “activities that threaten national security”, a subterfuge dialectical typically used by the chinese authorities when they want to accuse someone of espionage.
“Your rights and legal interests are being safeguarded”, added the representative of the government of Beijing. The statements of the officer occurred just hours after Ottawa’s warning about the “disappearance” of Spavor, of 43 years, responsible for the firm Paektu Cultural Exchange, a character particularly well-known among the restricted community of outsiders who visit on a frequent North Korea.
Spavor was residing in the nation north korea in 2005 and became a face in the media after attending the opaque country in 2013 in the company of the basketball player Dennis Rodman to meet with Kim Jong-un. During all these years has organised many trips for tourists and entrepreneurs to the nation.
“We are both on the canadian who got in contact with us because the chinese authorities were interrogating. We have not been able to reestablish contact after that communication,” admitted the minister of Foreign Affairs, canada, Chrystia Freeland, without referring expressly to Spavor.
Beijing had taken on the Wednesday the detention of a former diplomat Michael Kovrig and said that the firm for which he works, the think-tank International Crisis Group, is “not registered” in China, which could indicate that it had violated the local law.
Although neither of the two administrations wants to establish publicly a link between the arrest of Kovrig and Sabrina Meng Wanzhou -the head of group finance Huawei – in Canada, Ottawa has had to face situations very similar in the more recent past such as when Kevin and Julia Garrat, two christian missionaries working in the chinese city of Dangdong, were locked up in 2014, coinciding with the arrest in Vancouver of a chinese businessman, Bin, whose extradition is also claimed by the united states. Kevin Garratt spent two years in jail before being released.
The chinese newspaper ‘Global Times’, claimed in its latest edition that social networks local have multiplied the calls to boycott tourism to Canada, a popular destination for the population of the asian nation, which until now represented the largest contingent of foreign visitors to the us state.
“Some (chinese internauts) are questioned, even if it is safe to visit that country after the arrest of the high executive of Huawei. The tourism industry of Canada could suffer repercussions,” wrote the morning specialized in collecting the views of most conservatives in the Chinese Communist Party.
The same newspaper reminded -perhaps by way of warning – the severe destruction of almost 7,000 millions of dollars suffered by the tourism sector in south korea in 2017, when China sponsored the other campaign of obstruction against travel to that country.
The actions of the canadian firm of luxury clothing Goose Honding, Inc., for example, have lost almost 20 percent of its valuation since the beginning of the case shall Huawei.
barring unforeseen circumstances, the case of Sabrina seems like a long legal battle whose next event is scheduled for the 6th of February. Until then, the maximum responsible of finance of Huawei will have to remain under strict surveillance at his residence in Vancouver, where you will not be able to leave between 11 pm and 6 am.
The crisis is generating a whole psychosis among the community of travelers from the three countries I frequent any of those territories, creating a situation completely unusual for professionals such as entrepreneurs or researchers.
The newspaper ‘South China Morning Post’ has explained that an indeterminate number of chinese experts to employees in sectors that are “sensitive” have received the notice of postpone travel to USA which are not indispensable, and if they had to do it, to clear in advance all of the key information that could save in their mobile phones and computers, in the best spirit of the dashes of espionage of the Cold War.
Beijing has understood that the arrest of Meng is a little less than a “kidnapping politics” -an expression used very frequently in social networks, local-, a perception that has been reinforced after the statements of Donald Trump to Reuters, in which he considered that the future of the legal executive could form part of an eventual global agreement with China.
“Washington is wrong if you think that you can take to Meng as a hostage and offer your rescue to obtain concessions in the upcoming trade negotiations,” said the morning paper ‘China Daily’ in its editorial.
The crisis is generating a significant psychosis among the community of travelers from the three countries I frequent any of those territories, creating a situation completely unusual for professionals such as entrepreneurs or researchers.
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