‘There’s a human cost to these political situations’: Chinese arrests all too familiar for past Canadian detainees
- Kevin and Julia Garratt were running a coffee shop in northeast China in 2014 when they were seized by state security, becoming pawns in Beijing’s ploy to stop Canada from extraditing businessman Su Bin to the US
- Neither side has directly linked the arrest of Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng in Vancouver with the detention of two Canadians in China, but the Garratts believe it is a tit-for-tat reprisal
When Kevin and Julia Garratt heard that Canada had arrested a top Huawei Technologies executive, an ominous thought sprang to mind: would a Canadian in China go missing in response?
The Garratts speak from experience. The couple had been running a coffee shop in northeast China in 2014 when they were seized by the country’s state security, becoming pawns in a high-stakes ploy by Beijing to prevent Canada from extraditing a millionaire businessman, Su Bin, to the US. Kevin Garratt was imprisoned for more than two years until he was deported as abruptly as he had been snatched. Julia Garratt spent six months in captivity.
So they were not surprised when they learned that China had detained two Canadian citizens on December 10, just nine days after Canada arrested Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of the Chinese telecoms giant’s founder. The arrest was made on behalf of the US, which wants to extradite her.
“We were just so hoping that China would react differently this time,” Julia Garratt said by phone from Mae Sot, Thailand, where the couple is delivering aid to villages along the Myanmar border. “China’s chosen the same strategy, and there’s such a human cost to these political situations.”
Neither China nor Canada have directly linked Meng’s arrest to the two detentions. But to the Garratts, there is no doubt it is a tit-for-tat reprisal. “I’m sure it is,” Kevin Garratt said without hesitation. “And I think China will probably just stretch it out as long as the Huawei case goes on.”
At a Monday briefing, China’s foreign ministry again urged the withdrawal of Meng’s arrest warrant. “It is startling that the US and Canada still claim they followed the rule of law,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.
The Garratts, who recounted their captivity in a book, Two tears on the window, can offer some insight into what the Canadians are enduring. Michael Kovrig, a diplomat on leave to work as a researcher for the International Crisis Group, was arrested the same day as Michael Spavor, a North Korean fixer who ran tours to the reclusive nation from Dandong, the town where the Garratts were living when captured.