China Sentences Canadian Michael Spavor to 11 Years in Prison

A court in China sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison after he found him guilty of espionage on Wednesday, deepening divisions with Canada, which condemned the case as a political hostage-taking.

Mr Spavor has the right to appeal the verdict, but Chinese courts rarely overturn criminal judgments, and his fate could be based on an agreement between Beijing, Ottawa and Washington at a time when Beijing’s relations with the Western powers are particularly strained .

In a brief online statement, the court in Dandong, a northeastern Chinese city adjacent to North Korea where Mr. Spavor had often done business, also said he would be deported but did not provide details on the timing. The court said it found Mr. Spavor guilty of obtaining state secrets and disclosing them to a foreign recipient, but did not provide details.

The ruling suggests that a court in Beijing is likely to soon announce a similar guilty verdict in a parallel espionage trial against another Canadian, Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was arrested at about the same time as Mr Spavor in late 2018 than two weeks after the Police in Vancouver arrested a Chinese telecom manager, Meng Wanzhou, at the request of the US Prosecutor’s Office.

Ms. Meng remains on bail in Vancouver and is fighting extradition to the United States, where she faces fraud allegations in connection with her role as CFO of Chinese technology giant Huawei. Mr. Spavor’s conviction came amid the final arguments in the British Columbia Supreme Court over whether Ms. Meng could be extradited.

The detention of both Michaels and Ms. Meng has opened a vicious rift between Beijing and Ottawa, and heightened tensions between China and Canada’s democratic allies.

The ruling will fuel anger in Canada, where public attitudes towards the Chinese government over the prosecution of the two Canadians has hardened. In particular, many critics have compared the harsh conditions Canadians were exposed to to Ms. Meng’s luxurious lifestyle.

Canadians have been in secret prisons for more than two years, cut off from their families and with limited legal and consular access. The two were tried in brief and opaque trials in March. Ms. Meng, meanwhile, was on bail for $ 10 million in a seven-bedroom villa in an upscale neighborhood of Vancouver, where she had private painting lessons and massages. She wears a GPS tracker on her left ankle and has been able to move around Vancouver.

Chinese officials have accused Canada of capturing Ms. Meng and denied that Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig are being held hostage in order to pressurize Ottawa to return Ms. Meng to China.

“This is nothing less than a political incident in which Canada played a very shameful role as an accomplice,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in March of Ms. Meng’s case. “We urge the Canadian side to release Ms. Meng Wanzhou immediately.”

But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig have been arrested on “trumped-up charges” as an “attempt to pressure us to release the executive,” and he has Ms. Meng’s detention as a simple rule of law and imprisonment of Canada’s extradition treaty obligations with the United States.

The two Canadians were tried in March and diplomats from Canada and other supporting governments were banned from attending the hearings.

Another tense Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for trafficking in methamphetamine. But in 2019 he was sentenced to death on a one-day retrial, one month after Canadian authorities arrested Ms. Meng. A Chinese court upheld the death sentence on Tuesday.

In 2018, Hu Xijin, editor of the Communist Party-run Global Times, warned that if Ms. Meng is extradited to the United States, “China’s revenge will be far worse than arresting a Canadian.”

Relations between Canada and China have deteriorated since the 2018 arrests, reflecting Canadian anger over China’s early mistreatment of the coronavirus outbreak and its extensive crackdown on pro-democratic forces in Hong Kong, a former British colony that has been the source of many migrants who went there Canada.

The anger of the Chinese government against Canada grew after Mr. Trudeau’s government imposed sanctions on Xinjiang, the northwestern region of China where mostly Muslim minorities are sentenced to permanent imprisonment.

The two Canadians were expatriates who used their know-how in Asia when they were bundled away by Chinese state security agents. Since 2017, Mr. Kovrig has served as Senior Advisor for the International Crisis Group, a non-profit organization that analyzes and advises conflicts around the world, including China and North Korea.

Mr. Spavor, who is fluent in Korean, including the distinctive dialect of the North, promoted cultural trips and business contacts with North Korea. He gained temporary notoriety for helping organize visits to North Korea in 2013 and 2014 from Dennis Rodman, the flamboyant former basketball star.

Mr Kovrig was so isolated in a detention center that he was unaware of the details of the coronavirus pandemic until October when Canadian diplomats briefed him during a virtual visit, his wife Vina Nadjibulla said.

Details of the allegations against Mr. Kovrig or Mr. Spavor were not given in the verdict. A report released in 2019 by an intelligence agency for the Chinese Communist Party’s Law and Order Committee said Mr. Spavor was a source for Mr. Kovrig, who is a prominent expert on North Korea, the South China Sea and other regional areas Trouble spots affecting China. The two men’s families have vigorously claimed they are innocent.

All hopes for the early release of Mr Kovrig and Mr Spavor can be based on negotiations between Beijing and Washington. Western governments – including Australia, the UK, France and Germany – have voiced their anger over China’s treatment of the two Canadians. Most important, however, is President Biden, who has announced that he will obtain her release.

“People don’t trade chips,” said Mr Biden in February after talking to Mr Trudeau. “We’ll work together until we get her back safely.”

But China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, seems unlikely to make concessions to Canadians without compromise and ultimately Ms. Meng’s release. The fraud allegations against them relate to Huawei’s dealings with Iran, which officials in Washington have tried to circumvent US sanctions.