BEIJING—A third Canadian has been detained in China but the incident does not appear to be linked to the detention of two other citizens over the last week, a Canadian government official in Ottawa said on Wednesday.
The official said Canadian authorities were aware of the detention but gave no details.
“There is no reason to believe that this case is linked to the recent cases of Canadians detained in China,” said the official, who spoke on the grounds they not be identified.
Two Canadians—former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor—were detained last week by China amid a diplomatic row between the two nations, triggered by Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou.
Although the Canadian government has said several times it saw no explicit link between Meng’s arrest and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor, Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they believed the detentions were a form of “tit-for-tat” reprisal by China.
