Following the release of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, Foreign Minister Marc Garneau said Canada will now keep its “eyes wide open” with China.
“It is a wide open eyes policy [du gouvernement chinois]Minister Garneau said Sunday in an interview with The West Block, Global News.
If relations between the two countries are no longer in good shape since the beginning of Michael’s arrest, Mr Garneau stressed that Canada and China will continue to “coexist”.
“We will compete with each other. We will cooperate in areas where we need to cooperate, such as climate change, and we will challenge China, whether on human rights or arbitrary detention, when appropriate,” the interview continued.
However, the foreign affairs minister did not indicate whether Ottawa intended to impose sanctions on the Asian country or whether Canada could consider banning 5G from Huawei, a telecom company for which Meng Wanzhou was its chief financial officer.
He suggested that “our first consideration is to ensure the security of our communications system”. And when we’re ready to make that decision, we’ll make it.”
The two spent more than 1,000 days in prison in China after their arrest in 2018, a detention seen as retaliation after Fanzhou’s arrest of Ms Wenzhou on the orders of US authorities.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday night that Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig had left China, hours after Meng Wanzhou was released. The plane, accompanied by the Canadian ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, landed in Calgary on Saturday morning.
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