Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has fired Canada's ambassador to China after the envoy said it would be "great" if the US dropped its extradition request for a Chinese tech executive arrested in Canada.
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Trudeau said he asked for and accepted John McCallum's resignation on Friday night.
McCallum made the remark to the Toronto Star on Friday, a day after he issued a statement saying he misspoke about the case earlier in the week and regretted saying Meng Wanzhou has a strong case against extradition.
The arrest of the daughter of the founder of Huawei at Vancouver's airport on December 1 severely damaged relations between China and Canada.
The US wants her extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huawei's business dealings in Iran
"Last night I asked for and accepted John McCallum's resignation as Canada's ambassador to China," Trudeau said in a statement.
Trudeau said Jim Nickel, McCallum's deputy in Beijing, would represent his government in China.
He also thanked McCallum, a former minister in Trudeau's cabinet, for his 20 years of public service.
China detained two Canadians shortly after Meng's arrest in an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release her.
A Chinese court also sentenced a Canadian to death in a sudden retrial of a drug case, overturning a 15-year prison term handed down earlier.
McCallum told Chinese media in the Toronto area earlier in the week that the extradition of Meng to the United States "would not be a happy outcome."
Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland have stressed that Canada's government can't interfere politically in the case.
Guy Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said he felt bad for McCallum but said it was the right thing to do.
"What is worse is this is happening in the middle of the crisis when we need all-hands on deck," Saint-Jacques said.
Robert Bothwell, a professor at the University of Toronto, said it is not an ambassador's job to speak out of turn.
"Of course, McCallum can obviously take refuge in arguing that what he said was largely true, but he can't escape the fact that it wasn't his job to say it. It does underline the hazards of sending a politician to do a diplomat's job," Bothwell said.
Meng is out on bail in Vancouver awaiting her extradition proceedings.
Australian Associated Press
