Chinese officials have said that a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry misspoke when it was announced that two Canadians, held for two years over accusations linked to a case against a senior Huawei executive in Canada, had been tried in court.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Hua Chunying said that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been “arrested, indicted and tried”, prompting surprise from Canadian officials. Later that day, however, Chinese officials “confirmed that the confusion was caused by an inaccurate characterization of the process made by the Chinese MFA spokesperson,” according to a statement from Global Affairs Canada.
Kovrig and Spavor were arrested in December 2018, days after Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, an executive at the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei.
