China says Canadian citizen detained for drug offences

Chinese police have detained a Canadian citizen in relation to a drug case involving students, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday, an incident coming amid a deep chill in relations between the two countries.

Ottawa said on the weekend that a Canadian citizen had been detained in the Chinese city of Yantai in the eastern province of Shandong, but didn’t prove any details.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said Shandong police had recently discovered a case of foreign students, including one Canadian, being involved with drugs.

The case was being processed, he added, without elaborating.

The issue was nothing to do with another drug case involving foreigners in Jiangsu province, Geng said.

The British Embassy said last week that four British citizens had been arrested in Jiangsu.

Relations between China and Canada nosedived last December after police in Vancouver detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, on a U.S. arrest warrant. Beijing is demanding her return.

After Meng’s arrest, China detained two Canadians, accusing them of involvement in stealing state secrets.