Canada paying price for its choice

In saying that "the United States must not sign a final and complete (trade) deal with China that does not solve the problem of Meng Wanzhou and the two Canadians" in an interview with the media on Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau highlighted the arbitrary nature of Meng's detention at the request of the US.

But while he was right to urge Washington to solve the problem of Meng, chief financial officer of Huawei, he was wrong to equate Meng's detention with that of the two Canadians, who have both been detained for suspected espionage.

China's detaining of the two Canadians is unrelated to both Ottawa's political kidnapping of Meng and the Sino-US trade talks. The two are being held for separate crimes endangering national security and their cases are being handled in accordance with the State Security Law.

Providing an update on their situation, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said on Friday that the investigations into the activities of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have now ended and their cases are proceeding to trial.

After claiming to have spent practically every day trying to make China understand they must free the two Canadians, Trudeau should have awakened to the fact that it will be the courts who will decide whether, or to what extent, the evidence collected by the investigators is enough to substantiate the charges, and the handling of the case is immune to any external pressure and interference, including from Ottawa and Washington.

The reason that the Canadian prime minister is suffering an irrepressible urge to link their detentions with that of Meng is no doubt out of a sense of guilt that he has given the nod to Meng being used as a political hostage as part of the US administration's bid to exert "maximum pressure" on China.

Asserting that the Canadian judicial system is "independent" while linking Meng's case to those of Kovrig and Spavor and calling on the US not to sign a trade deal until the two Canadians are released merely serves to highlight the goodneighborly shenanigans behind Meng's detention.

With both Beijing and Washington expressing their optimism that a deal is in the works, Trudeau now feels that the US has left him high and dry and taking the rap for the kidnapping of Meng.

In fact, China has exercised considerable restraint, if not understanding of the young Canadian leader's situation. It has not taken any countermeasures, because it still believes the issue can be settled if Ottawa shakes itself free of Washington's manipulations.

If Trudeau could show as much political wisdom and strength of will as his father, he would not be stuck on the horns of his dilemma.