Chinese state media attacks Canada for sacking outspoken ambassador
- Nationalist tabloid Global Times leads charge against Canadian government’s demand that John McCallum resign
- Former envoy had said it would be ‘great’ if charges against Sabrina Meng Wanzhou were dropped
Chinese state-run media on Monday decried the sacking of Canada’s ambassador to Beijing, who was fired after he suggested that it would be “great” for Ottawa to release the detained Huawei executive Sabrina Meng Wanzhou.
The former envoy, John McCallum, had raised eyebrows over a series of remarks regarding the case of Huawei’s chief financial officer whose arrest has sparked a diplomatic row between Beijing and Ottawa.
The resignation, at the request of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “reveals political interference”, the nationalist tabloid Global Times said in an editorial.
Ottawa is now as “sensitive as a frightened bird”, the newspaper said, noting the visceral political reactions to McCallum’s comments.
“The truth is that they knew the geopolitics in the case from the very beginning, but were afraid to point them out,” it said.
“As a Chinese folk saying goes, ‘You cannot live the life of a whore and expect a monument to your chastity’,” the Global Times wrote.