Icy Relationships

When someone punches you back, you usually don't punch back unless you want to be held at fault and seem like a kid who has to fight back. Obviously in terms of war that's a different story. But seeking retaliation "just to get back" is not only childish but also pathetic. Unfortunately, that is what we're seeing with Canada and China.

Canada recently jailed the CFA from the Chinese tech firm Huawei, Meng Wanzhou and is extraditing her to the U.S. over violations of US sanctions. So China is obviously ticked off, and they knew they had to strike back, warning of secure consequences if she isn't released. Days after she was detained in early December, China detained not one, but two Canadians on "suspicion of endangering state security", a former diplomat Michael Kovrig and a business consultant Michael Spavor. Nothing really happened since then until now.

Now, China has sentenced the Canadian Robert Schellenberg for smuggling 222 kg of drugs into China. Schellenberg was arrested in 2014 over smuggling charges (which does carry a strong punishment in China and much more severe than in the U.S. or Canada. He recently tried to appeal his 15-year sentence based on new evidence, but instead of a reduced sentence, his punishment was increased to the death penalty. So whether or not this man is innocent, he should still not be in the midst of this dispute. It's not fair and it's just ridiculous.

It's just been back and forth, where China has called out Canada for "arbitrarily"  detaining a Chinese national at the request of another country, which would be the U.S. After these recent moves by China, Canada called out China's "reckless diplomacy" for acting this way. And then China comes back to say that Trudeau is being irresponsible over these remarks and that everyone should understand the law and judicial system and whatnot.

This definitely puts China into a bad position as it is now being criticized for its actions. China had one job and has now soured relations with both the U.S. and Canada, and it'll take a long time for the icy relationships to thaw.