Cong Peiwu, Chinese Ambassador to Canada. (File Photo)

“The US has been taking advantage of Canada, and the U.S. is the trouble maker of China-Canada relations,” Cong Peiwu, Chinese Ambassador to Canada, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Thursday.

The envoy said the United States is using the case of Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested by Canadian police on a U.S. warrant 18 months ago, to create friction between China and Canada, according to Reuters.

Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, was accused of fraud linked to the alleged violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran. After her arrest she was released on $10 million bail but has been under 24-hour surveillance by a private security company at her Vancouver home.

On May 27, the Canadian British Columbia Supreme Court ruled on the so-called “double criminality” in the case of Meng, holding that the U.S. extradition request against Meng conforms to the principle of “double criminality,” a decision immediately berated by the Chinese Embassy in Canada for abusing their bilateral extradition treaty and gravely violating the lawful rights of Meng.

Asked whether he thought Canada’s judiciary was independent, Cong pointed to comments U.S. President Donald Trump made in December 2018, which he said showed the Meng case was “a political incident rather than a simple judicial case.”

In that interview, Trump said he would intervene with the U.S. Justice Department in the Meng case if it would help secure a trade deal with Beijing.

“We believe that actually this is a grave political incident plotted by the United States to bring down Chinese hi-tech companies,” Cong told Reuters.