The Canadians detained in china: an ex-diplomat and a daring 'fixer'

Both the entrepreneur, Michael Spavor, and the former diplomat, Michael Kovrig, have been detained in China after spending decades living and working in authoritarian states. Now, they have found themselves in the center of a perilous geopolitical battle, Canadian pawns in a larger contest between two of the world’s biggest superpowers, China and the United States.

On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said their detainment was unacceptable, and warned that Canada was getting ensnared in a dust-up between the United States and China.

The two countries are in the midst of a trade war, and the tensions have been increased by the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a top executive of Chinese technology company Huawei, in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Dec. 1, on suspicions of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.

She is awaiting an extradition hearing.

“This is one of the situations you get in when the two largest economies in the world, China and the United States, start picking a fight with each other,” Trudeau told the news channel Citytv in Toronto. “The escalating trade war between them is going to have all sorts of unintended consequences on Canada, and potentially on the entire global economy. So we’re very worried about that.”

Senior Canadian officials said Canada’s ambassador to China, John McCallum, had been granted access to Kovrig on Friday.

They said the aim of the “consular visit” was to assess the well-being of a Canadian citizen, clarify the nature of the detention and provide a communication link with his family. They declined to comment on Kovrig’s condition or whereabouts.

Canada’s Foreign Ministry said it was pressing Chinese authorities for access to Spavor.

On Friday, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan held talks in Washington with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis, including a discussion on securing the release of the two Canadians.

Kovrig, a Toronto native who was living in Hong Kong at the time of his detainment, was working as a senior adviser for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization.

A former Canadian diplomat, he had taken a leave from the ministry two years ago, and no longer enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

Friends called him an affable “nerd" and said he loved swing and ballroom dancing. A former journalist, he spoke Mandarin and Hungarian, noting on his LinkedIn page that he had “worked in 20 countries and traveled through more than 50.”

But his line of work also made him vulnerable, experts on China said.

Guy Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China who was Kovrig’s boss when he was first secretary at the embassy in Beijing, said Kovrig’s job had involved gathering information on sensitive subjects, like Taiwan and minority groups, subjects that would have attracted the scrutiny of the Chinese authorities.

“The Chinese would’ve been waiting for the right moment to spring,” he said. “The Meng case provided them the perfect opportunity.”

He said Kovrig was likely being subjected to psychological pressure, detained in a room with the lights left on 24 hours a day. He said China’s accusation that the crisis group was operating illegally in China could be a precursor to filing espionage charges.

Joanna Chiu, deputy bureau chief in Vancouver for The Toronto Star and a friend of Kovrig, said that, as a foreigner and former high-level diplomat, he would have been aware that he was being monitored, but that he was not the paranoid type.

“Working in China you just assume everything can be accessed by the Chinese government,” she said, noting that Kovrig was about 6 feet tall, and stood out in China.

Richard Atwood, chief of policy at the crisis group, said Kovrig was working on a report on China’s relations with North Korea at the time of his detainment.

He stressed that Kovrig had nothing whatsoever to do with the Huawei case. He said Kovrig frequently traveled to Beijing and was a regular guest on Chinese media.

“We are very worried for his well-being and his security,” he said.

Spavor, the other detained Canadian, is a daring adventurer known for his high-level contacts in North Korea.

A self-described consultant, he was based in the Chinese city of Dandong, bordering North Korea, and ran a cultural organization that promotes trips there.

He had also lived in North Korean capital Pyongyang, teaching at a school run by a Canadian nongovernmental organization.

In 2013, Spavor helped facilitate a high-profile visit to North Korea by former NBA star Dennis Rodman.

He told Reuters last year that arranging the trip had been “the most amazing experience I’ve had in my life.” His link with the country’s leader, Kim, was such a point of pride that he used a photograph of the two laughing and shaking hands as a profile picture on social media.

Based in China, Canada and Britain, Spavor’s company, Paektu Cultural Exchange, facilitates sport, culture, tourism and business exchanges with North Korea and touts its ability to connect foreign investors with high-level contacts there.

Yet in his Reuters interview he characterized his involvement in the country as outside the parameters of politics.

“For me, encouraging these sports engagement events, these nonpolitical friendship interactions, promoting these kind of events can show people that Americans and Koreans can get along very well,” he said.

On its Facebook page, Paektu has invited people to a New Years celebration trip in Pyongyang. It also offered tours there in which travelers can ride a trolley bus.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

The Canadians detained in china: an ex-diplomat and a daring 'fixer'

The other was an experienced diplomat and Sinophile who had spent years investigating sensitive subjects like the human rights of minority groups in China.

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