China has rejected accusations from Canada that it is arbitrarily applying a death sentence to a Canadian convicted of drug smuggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The foreign ministry told Canadian PM Justin Trudeau to “stop making such irresponsible remarks”, accusing Canada of “double standards”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was initially given a 15-year jail term in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But on Monday a court increased this to the death penalty, saying the original sentence was too lenient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling is likely to worsen a diplomatic row between the countries, which has been escalating since Canada arrested an official of China’s Huawei telecoms giant last month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
China has expressed anger at the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, on suspicion of using a subsidiary company to evade US sanctions on Iran between 2009 and 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was detained at the request of the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ms Meng, 46, denies the charges. She was granted bail shortly after her arrest, but remains under constant surveillance and must wear an electronic ankle tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Denying that Beijing had politicised Schellenberg’s case in response to Ms Meng’s arrest, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying urged Canada to “respect China’s judicial sovereignty”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The comments from the Canadian government are full of double standards,” Ms Hua said, adding: “The Canadians are the ones who have arbitrarily arrested somebody,” in an apparent reference to Ms Meng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters on Tuesday that Canada had formally appealed for clemency for Schellenberg. She also struck a softer tone when she spoke of the “very important and long-standing ties” between both countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is true that this is a difficult moment,” she told a news conference in Quebec. “The best thing for both Canada and China… is to get past these current difficulties.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Canadian, who is believed to be 36, was arrested in 2014 and accused of planning to smuggle almost 500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine from China to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schellenberg, who has previous drugs-related convictions in Canada, has denied the charges against him, saying he entered China as a tourist and was framed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Trudeau has condemned the latest ruling, saying: “It is of extreme concern to us… that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drug dealing is punishable by death in China, and at least\u00a0a dozen foreigners have been executed\u00a0for drug-related offenses. Many more are on death row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the execution of Westerners is less common. One of the most high-profile cases involved\u00a0British man Akmal Shaikh, who was executed in 2009\u00a0despite claims he was mentally ill and an appeal for clemency from the UK prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His family said that Shaikh had never received a mental health assessment and that judges at an appeal hearing laughed openly at Shaikh as he pleaded for his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China has argued that Schellenberg’s death sentence was not political.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, some analysts have argued that both the timing, and the publicity given to Schellenberg’s retrial has been unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took a Chinese court two and a half years to hand down Schellenberg’s initial sentence of 15 years – but the retrial lasted just a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China also worked hard to push Schellenberg’s case to international prominence, taking the highly unusual step of inviting foreign journalists into the court, the BBC’s John Sudworth in Beijing reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Clarke, a specialist in Chinese law at George Washington University, said that Schellenberg’s death sentence appeared to be “an unprecedented step in China’s diplomacy”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To continue reading, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China has rejected accusations from Canada that it is arbitrarily applying a death sentence to a Canadian convicted of drug smuggling. The foreign ministry told Canadian PM Justin Trudeau to “stop making such irresponsible remarks”, accusing Canada of “double standards”. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was initially given a 15-year jail term in November. But on Monday a court increased this to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2924,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923\/revisions\/2924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}