By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A third Canadian has been detained in China following the arrest of a Chinese technology executive in Vancouver, a Canadian government official said on Wednesday amid a diplomatic dispute also involving the United States.
The detentions of the Canadians followed the Dec. 1 arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd., at the request of the United States, which is engaged in a trade war with Canada.
The Canadian official, who spoke on the condition of not being identified, said there is no reason to believe the latest detention is linked to the previous arrests. The official gave no details of the latest incident.
Last week two Canadians - former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor - were detained by China amid the diplomatic quarrel triggered by Meng's arrest.
The Canadian government has said several times it saw no explicit link between the arrest of Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor. But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they believed the detentions were a "tit-for-tat" reprisal by China.
Meng is accused by the United States of misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions. She was released on bail in Vancouver, where she owns two homes, while waiting to learn if she will be extradited to the United States. She is due in court on Feb. 6.
If extradited to the United States, Meng would face charges of conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions, with a maximum sentence of 30 years for each charge.
U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters last week he might intervene in the case if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.
The comments upset Canada, which warned the United States against politicizing extradition cases.
China has protested Meng's arrest to the U.S. ambassador and said Washington should withdraw its arrest warrant. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the detention of the first two Canadians unlawful and called for their release.
Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of telecoms network equipment and second biggest smartphone seller. The United States has been looking since at least 2016 into whether Huawei shipped U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws, Reuters reported in April.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard, Philip Wen and Christian Shepherd in Beijing, Allison Martell in Toronto and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Alistair Bell)