OTTAWA-Chinese Premier Li Keqiang defended China’s use of the death penalty when asked about an extradition treaty with Canada during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sept 22.
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CHINA has signed a treaty with Canada to recover stolen money taken overseas, the first such agreement inked by Beijing in the republic’s ongoing global hunt for corrupt officials that have fled the country.
Two of the Prime Minister’s top aides have chose to pay back a portion of some $200,000 in moving expenses.
The premier is the first Chinese leader to visit Canada in six years and both he and Trudeau said it would be the first of yearly meetings between the two of them, all aimed at strengthening economic ties.
Li, who is on a four-day official visit to Canada following the United Nations General Assembly meeting in NY, said the deal reflected China’s goodwill to Canadian canola farmers.
After the United States, China stands to be the second largest trading partner of Canada, with trade exceeding $85 billion Canadian dollars a year ago.
Trudeau says Canada would never approve the extradition of anyone facing the death penalty.
“The fact is, Canada has extraordinarily high standards for extradition treaties, and those will always be upheld with anyone around the world”, he said.
“We recognize that Canada and China have different systems of law and order and different approaches”, Trudeau said.
China, which has said it was concerned about the foreign material spreading a crop disease called blackleg, had meant to change its standard on September 1 before agreeing to continue negotiations with Canada leading up to meetings in Ottawa.
“It is consistent with our national condition”, the Chinese leader said.
At this month’s G20, the two sides did announce the creation of annual meetings between the two sides to discuss security issues, as well as and economics. Relations cooled in 2006 after Harper criticized China’s human-rights record, telling reporters that promoting trade shouldn’t require the government “to sell out important Canadian values”.
The statement has been posted on a website said last week his national security adviser went to Beijing to held discussion on an extradition agreement as part of a security dialogue.
On Wednesday, Li Keqiang, Chinese Premier is arriving in Canada to initiate three-day trip.
Outside, on the lawns in front of Parliament, hundreds of yellow-clad Falun Gong members – a religious and meditation group that is banned in China – held a protest. Trudeau and his wife Sophie entertained their Chinese guests at the prime minister’s country residence at Harrington Lake, Quebec.
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Trudeau, who is forever stealing our hearts, slayed back in March when he famously said: “I’ll keep saying I’m a feminist until there’s no reaction”.
