After more than two years in detention in China, Michael Spavor has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for espionage.
The court also said he would be deported, but did not say when.
Western observers say that ambiguity offers room for negotiation. University of Toronto professor Lynette Ong tells me: "From a Chinese perspective, it gives them bargaining power, and from Canadian perspective, it allows us to to expect a more favorable outcome than 11 years."
Spavor was detained since December 2018 alongside Canadian Michael Kovrig on espionage charges and later charged in June last year. Both were arrested after Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, a top executive of the Chinese tech giant Huawei.
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