The end of the article interested me more, because the rest was just tooting China’s horn:

And what about the case of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, the Canadian schmuck found guilty of drug smuggling by China not long before Meng’s arrest?

Once the Two Michaels had returned to Canada, Canadian media lost all interest in the fate of the poor guy, found guilty of trying to smuggle drugs out of China to Australia, who had his 15-year jail term goosed up to a death sentence to increase the pressure on Canada to release Meng.

A Chinese court rejected Schellenberg’s appeal of his death sentence in 2021.

There doesn’t seem to have been another news report about him since then.

He wasn’t a model citizen, a spy, or a corporate executive. He’s still a Canadian, though. Does anybody give a hoot?

That was the person I knew was just arrested and charged up for dubious political reasons more than the two Michaels. I’d never really followed up on China’s whole espionage allegations because that’s often just a he-said she-said.

He was arrested before the Meng thing happened, so the arrest was not dubiously political. The upgrading to the death sentence, however, was very clearly a pressure tactic of dubious politics.

Also a case of play stupid games, win stupid prizes

Yep. Regardless of what your position is on drugs (and I’m in the “legalize and license most of them” camp), it’s well known that the Chinese government (for very valid, albeit unfortunate, historical reasons) has absolutely no tolerance for the recreational narcotics industry and that this includes the death penalty.

You’d have to be a very special kind of stupid to traffic drugs in China, or any number of other countries with similar policies.