Canada says China executed 4 Canadians this year amid rising tensions between the countries

• Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said China has executed 4 Canadian dual citizens successful caller months.
• Joly said she and erstwhile Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked for clemency successful the drug-related accusations, but Beijing’s embassy noted that China does not admit dual citizenship.
• Relations betwixt China and Canada person been further strained precocious arsenic the countries enforce tariffs connected 1 another's exports amid planetary commercialized tensions.

China executed 4 Canadians successful caller months, Canada's overseas affairs curate said Wednesday. Such executions of Westerners are comparatively rare.

Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said she and erstwhile Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked for clemency successful the drug-related accusations involving the dual citizens.

Beijing’s embassy successful Ottawa said the executions were owed to cause crimes and noted that China does not admit dual citizenship.

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"We powerfully condemn the executions," Joly told reporters successful Ottawa. "I asked personally for leniency ... They were each dual citizens."

Joly said Canada consistently asks for clemency for Canadians facing the decease punishment abroad. She said the families person asked the authorities to withhold details of the individuality of the 4 individuals.

Global Affairs spokeswoman Charlotte MacLeod said they proceed to supply consular assistance to families and requested that the media respect their privacy. She said Ottawa continues to advocator for clemency for Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian who was sentenced to decease for cause smuggling.

Canada's Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said China executed 4 Canadians successful caller months. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

"China ever imposes terrible penalties connected drug-related crimes," a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said. "The facts of the crimes committed by the Canadian nationals progressive successful the cases are clear, and the grounds is coagulated and sufficient."

China is believed to execute much prisoners each twelvemonth than the remainder of the satellite combined, though the full is simply a authorities secret. Executions are traditionally carried retired by gunshot, though lethal injections person been introduced successful caller years.

The embassy spokesperson said Beijing "fully guaranteed the rights and interests of the Canadian nationals concerned," and urged Canada's authorities to "stop making irresponsible remarks."

The 2 countries person immoderate tensions. China imposed retaliatory tariffs connected immoderate Canadian workplace and nutrient imports earlier this month, aft Canada imposed duties successful October connected Chinese-made electrical vehicles and alloy and aluminum products. The tariffs adhd to planetary commercialized tensions amid rounds of tariff announcements by the United States, China, Canada and Mexico.

"China is sending america a connection that we person to instrumentality steps if we privation to spot an betterment successful the relationship," said a erstwhile Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques.

Ian Brodie, a erstwhile main of unit to ex-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, posted connected societal media that it turns retired "agricultural tariffs weren’t the worst portion of the PRC effect to EV tariffs."

And absorption Conservative lawmaker Michael Chong said "executing a fig of Canadians successful abbreviated bid is unprecedented, and is intelligibly a motion that Beijing has nary volition of improving relations with Canada."

China is Canada’s 2nd largest trading partner, but relations person been atrocious since Canadian authorities successful 2018 arrested a erstwhile Huawei enforcement who the U.S. had charged with fraud.

China jailed 2 Canadians soon aft Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the girl of the company’s founder, connected a U.S. extradition request. They were sent backmost to Canada successful 2021, the aforesaid time Meng returned to China aft reaching a woody with U.S. authorities successful her case.

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Many countries called China’s enactment "hostage politics," portion China described the charges against Huawei and Meng arsenic a politically motivated effort to clasp backmost China’s economical and technological development.

Amnesty International condemned the executions and noted that China executed thousands of radical successful 2023.

"These shocking and inhumane executions of Canadian citizens by Chinese authorities should beryllium a wake-up telephone for Canada," the group’s caput for English-speaking Canada, Ketty Nivyabandi, said Wednesday successful a statement.