By Steve Scherer
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Two Canadian men that China had detained for more than 1,000 days until 2021 and who were at the centre of a dispute between Washington and Beijing will attend President Joe Biden’s speech and gala dinner in Ottawa on Friday, a Canadian government source said.
Chinese authorities took the two men, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, into custody in December 2018 shortly after Canadian police detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, on a U.S. warrant.
They were released on the same day the U.S. Justice Department dropped its extradition request for Meng and she returned to China.
Canada and the U.S. say that the detention of the Canadian men – dubbed by the Canadian media as “the two Michaels” in a case followed closely north of the border – was illegal and arbitrary, an accusation that Beijing has denied.
The source had no further details on Spavor and Kovrig’s appearance at the gala. Their presence in Ottawa, first reported by Bloomberg, is likely to be seen as a symbolic gesture that shows Canada and the U.S. are politically aligned on China.
Both countries introduced strategies last year to counter Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific region.
(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Josie Kao)
