Canadian businessman Michael Kovrig who spent 1,019 days in Chinese prison on espionage charges reveals why he never let them see him cry

A man has detailed how he was kept captive for 1,019 days by the Chinese government.

Michael Kovrig, 52, was detained in December 2018 on espionage charges in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. She was seized on a US extradition request. 

Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat, had been working as an adviser and analyst for the International Crisis Group at the time, working out of the group's headquarters in Hong Kong.

He was apprehended in Beijing after having dinner with his then-pregnant wife, who went on to give birth during his first five months in solitary confinement.

Three years removed from his release as part of a deal for the release of Wanzhou, he told CTV News: 'They grabbed me and in front of my pregnant girlfriend, dragged me into a black SUV, stuffed me into the back seat, put a set of handcuffs on me.'

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They proceeded to blindfold him, he told Anchor Omar Sachedina - before '[driving] off into the night.'

The almost three years of incarceration that ensued was hell, he said - describing how he was first kept in solitude for months in a room with blackout blinds over the windows.

'You're never actually alone. They've always got guards in there with you, and they're constantly looking at you,' Kovrig told Sachedina of that period and the 13 months that followed - all of which happened before he was formally charged.

'Of course, that sense of confinement combined with constant surveillance really gets into your skull,' he said of the unsavory situation.

'It's psychologically exceedingly difficult to deal with.'

He added: 'You can imagine what that was like for [my girlfriend]. It's an abrupt shock while she's pregnant, and she doesn't know if she's going to see me ever again.'

He went on to recall how he was sat in an interrogation chair and told by Chinese investigators how he was a suspect in a case surrounding a breach in China's national security, for which fellow Canadian Michael Spavor was arrested as well.

Their detention was widely considered to be in retaliation for Meng's arrest as neither even knew each other,  and quickly garnered international headlines.

At the time, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau panned the Chinese Communist Party's case against the pair, saying they were arrested on 'trumped-up charges' to 'pressure' Meng's release.

If so, the move worked, with Kovrig returned to his native Canada on September 23, 2021.

There, he met with his girlfriend - now wife - Vina Nadjibulla and their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Clara for the very first time - a reunion captured by countless cameras deployed to the tarmac in Toronto.

'I could finally hold my daughter, and she's such a happy, friendly little kid,' Kovrig recounted to Sachedina, in one of several interviews he embarked on this week to speak on what he endured during his forced stay.  

'I was worried. Is she going to be, "Who's this weird guy?" She wasn't like that at all,' he said, as photos showed him in good spirits despite being visibly emaciated. 

He went on to return to his role as senior adviser for Asia at Crisis Group, a non-profit research firm focused on conflict prevention.

Kovrig made an appearance on Bloomberg Business in this capacity, where he warned that China is becoming an 'uninvestable.'

'If you are able to … take your ball and bat and go somewhere else,' he said of the country that has seen a slump in foreign investment in recent years, amid rising geopolitical tensions that has caused some companies to reduce their exposure.

That, coupled with advents like the rapid shift to electric vehicles that caught foreign car firms off-guard, spurred Kovrig to say: 'If you can invest elsewhere just as easily you should be prioritizing other markets. 

'If you have to be in China then you need an exit strategy,' he added.

But the interview with Sachedina - as was the case with one given to CBC News Monday as well - focused on the former diplomat's firsthand experience.

More specifically, it detailed his detention, from the moment he was snatched, to his flight back to Ontario.

It started in solitary confinement, a form of imprisonment that, according to the United Nations, is considered torture if lasting more than 15 days.

Kovrig underwent more than 10 times that, he said - describing how the stint saw Chinese officials use a 'host of psychological manipulation techniques" to try to coerce a confession out of him'

This included cutting his food rations, as well as mind games seemingly designed to break his spirit. 

'They're gaslighting you,' he said. 'They're actually drawing you into a world day after day, minute by minute, hour by hour, in which up is down and black is white and night is day.

'Until you accept all the wrong things that you've done, you're going to continue to be punished,' he claimed. 

When asked how he was able to stay strong during these times, Kovrig coolly replied, 'I had the determination of no choice.'

'I told myself really early on that they're never going to see me cry,' he continued.

'They're not going to see me being weak, because if they do, they'll exploit that.'

So he stayed strong, practicing yoga and meditation to maintain his sanity.

In May 2019, he was transferred to an unspecified pre-trial detention facility, where he said was treated 'like a criminal' and never referred to by name.

Within days, he received a visit from Canada's then-ambassador to China John McCallum, who told him he was being held as a human bargaining chip to blackmail Canada into releasing Meng, he said.

In the months that followed, Kovrig began to realize the scale of the situation at play, as Meng was charged with conspiracy to commit fraud after funneling funds meant for Huawei to an entity claimed to be entirely controlled by the phone manufacturer but said to be dealing with Iran.

This came in defiance of Western sanctions, leading Meng to be arrested at the Vancouver International Airport by Canadian police during a stopover from Hong Kong in December 2018.

Nine days later, Kovrig's incarceration commenced, and after a year-and-a-half, Chinese officials finally aired the charges against him - supposed spying on state secrets and providing intelligence outside the country.

He was hit with the allegations during a private trial, with little notice given to the Canadian government. 

The embassy of Canada in China, moreover, was denied access to the hearing, with the meeting held in private because it was said to involve state secrets.

While awaiting a verdict, he was released on the same day the US Justice Department dropped its extradition request for Meng and returned her to China. 

Asked if Canada did enough to secure his release, Kovrig told CTV: 'There was no lack of effort by the Canadian government.'

He went on to concede that his home country had 'underestimated' how China would respond to the decision to arrest Meng, describing it as 'unprepared.'

Denying the unfounded espionage claims, he concluded: 'They underestimated the Chinese Communist Party, and they underestimated its ruthlessness and its capacity to use any tactic like that.'

They also 'didn't really anticipate' China's response, he said, before warning against financial operations in the country,  

He added: 'I think there are a lot of important lessons to be learned from it. 

'The critical one is simply that it took a long time for the Canadian government to figure out the best way to deal with it, and it may not have used all the leverage and the options that it had available to it because it was such an unusual circumstance.'

He told CBC: 'I still carry a lot of pain around with me and that can be heavy at times.'

The comments serve as the first substantial rundown of Korvig's experience since his release.