OTTAWA—A senior official of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has gone further than the Canadian government in publicly criticizing China’s arrest of two Canadian men and calling for their release.At a Washington news conference after meeting with Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chyrstia Freeland, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China’s arrest of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and of Canadian businessman Michael Spavor was “unlawful” and suggested the U.S. would “work” towards their release.“The unlawful detention of two Canadian citizens is unacceptable; they ought to be returned,” Pompeo said. “The United States has stood for that, whether they are our citizens or citizens of other countries. We ask all nations of the world to treat other citizens properly,” said Pompeo. “And the detention of these two Canadian citizens in China ought to end.”To date, the Canadian government has not formally protested China’s arrest of the men as “unlawful,” nor demanded their immediate release or return to Canada. It has taken a publicly measured approach, while stressing it is “deeply concerned” about their well-being.Earlier Friday John McCallum, Trudeau’s ambassador to China, was granted consular access to one of the men, Kovrig, in Beijing, four days after his arrest, according to a news release by Freeland’s department. Freeland provided no details about Kovrig’s condition, and insisted the government’s priority is still to determine the basis for their detention and to gain consular access to Spavor, whom McCallum has not been allowed to visit. Citing their privacy, Freeland and her department refused to say more.Neither Canada nor China has publicly linked China’s arrest of the Canadians on Monday to Canada’s arrest on Dec. 1 of one of China’s corporate elite — Huawei execu ...
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