Q：On February 15, the Canadian Foreign Minister issued a statement to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations. How do you comment on this?

A：On February 15, the Canadian Foreign Minister issued a statement and hyped up the first anniversary of the so-called Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention, which is totally fact-distorting and ill-intentioned. The Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition over this.

It is well-known that the United States is the culprit in terms of arbitrary detention. The US stops at nothing to achieve specific political goals and has provided the world with textbook examples of arbitrary detention and coercive diplomacy with the Meng Wanzhou incident included. The US and a small group of western countries preach “democracy”, “human rights” and “order”, while engage in dirty activities of undermining democracy, violating human rights and undermining international order. Arbitrary detention, coercive diplomacy, long-arm jurisdiction and unilateral sanction are trully US-made.

Canada is the accomplice in terms of arbitrary detention. On the one hand, the Canadian side claims that it upholds the rule of law and independent justice. On the other hand, it worked by the side of the US and arbitrarily detained the Chinese citizen Meng Wanzhou, who violates no Canadian law at all, for more than two years. This is arbitrary detention in every sense of the term. The act of manipulating and hyping up the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention is no different from a thief shouting to catch a thief. How hypocritical it is! The labels of arbitrary detention and coercive diplomacy fit the US and Canada better than anyone else.

I want to stress that China consistently champions and stands for equality among all countries regardless of their size. We never coerce anyone and take a clear-cut stand to oppose the coercive practices of other countries. Lies repeated a thousand times are still lies. “Megaphone Diplomacy” will not change the facts that US and a few followers are the ones pushing hegemonism and undermining international order. We urge Canada and the US to abandon its Cold War mentality and ideological bias, deeply reflect upon its mistakes, and immediately stop the acts of deceiving and misleading the public and inciting confrontation. We call on the international community to see through the nature of their pursuit of coercion in the name of order and take concrete actions to uphold the international order based on international law.