BEIJING — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday expressed “extreme concern” after a Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death in a retrial ordered not long after the arrest in Vancouver of a Chinese technology executive.

A death sentence for Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg complicates an ongoing standoff over the arrest of Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer on U.S. charges and the subsequent detention in China of two Canadians on national security charges.

In his strongest-yet statement on the matter, Trudeau suggested that he sees Schellenberg’s new sentence as a political move.

“It is of extreme concern to us as a government – as it should be to all our international friends and allies – that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply a death penalty,” he told reporters in Ottawa.

Later Monday, Canada’s foreign ministry, Global Affairs Canada, updated its travel advisory for Canadians to include a warning about the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws.” Earlier this month, the State Department issued a similar warning.

The arrest of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou has left Canada caught in the middle of a broader conflict between the United States and China and sent Canada-China ties to new lows.

“Over the years, there have been low points, but nothing compared to this,” said Lynette Ong, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. “This is going to be perceived by the Canadian public as another tit-for-tat strategy. It is going to be particularly bad because this country does not have the death sentence.”

The standoff started with Meng’s Dec. 1 arrest in Canada on U.S. charges related to alleged violations of Iran sanctions.

Days after Meng was apprehended in Vancouver, Chinese authorities detained two Canadians.


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