China says Canada's order for Hikvision closure 'damages' trade ties

Time of India

5 hours ago

Beijing: Beijing said Monday that Canada's request for Chinese surveillance equipment firm
Hikvision
to close local operations would "damage" bilateral trade, complicating recent efforts to improve ties between the countries.
Canada's industry minister,
Melanie Joly
, announced the move on Friday, writing on X that
Hikvision Canada
Inc. had been ordered to cease all operations due to concerns their continuation would be "injurious" to the country's security.
The statement did not provide details on the alleged threat posed by Hikvision products, which Canadian government departments will now be banned from purchasing or using.
Beijing's commerce ministry responded by accusing Ottawa of "over-generalising national security", stating: "China is strongly dissatisfied".
"This not only undermines the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and affects the confidence of companies from both countries in cooperation, but also disrupts and damages the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and Canada," a statement read.
"China urges Canada to immediately correct its wrong practices," it added.
Hangzhou-based Hikvision is one of the world's leading manufacturers of security cameras and other surveillance products, but it has faced scrutiny abroad for its role in Beijing's alleged rights abuses against the Muslim minority population in the Xinjiang region.
The United States included Hikvision in a 2019 blacklist of Chinese entities it said were implicated in such violations.
The latest disagreement represents an early test for China-Canada relations after Prime Minister Mark Carney surged to electoral victory in April.
China said in response to the election result that Beijing was willing to improve ties with Ottawa -- a relationship rocked in recent years by a range of thorny issues.
The arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive on a US warrant in Vancouver in December 2018 and Beijing's retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges plunged relations into a deep freeze.
Ties were further strained over allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021, charges Beijing has denied.
Joly's statement Friday said that the decision to ban Hikvision had been reached following a "multi-step review" of information provided by the Canadian security and intelligence community.
Her statement added that the Canadian government "is further conducting a review of existing properties to ensure that legacy Hikvision products are not used going forward".