Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Canadian embassy in Beijing.

A second Canadian is missing in China after alerting Global Affairs Canada that he was being questioned by Chinese authorities, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday.

The information comes mere days after the Beijing Bureau of State Security rounded up a Canadian diplomat, who is on a leave from his job, in a move that escalated a tense diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

Freeland told reporters Wednesday the government has been unable to make contact with the second Canadian since he raised concerns with officials. She said the government doesn't know his whereabouts and that she has raised the case with Chinese authorities.

Freeland added that Ottawa is in touch with the missing man's family, but declined to say anything more about his situation.

"It's a situation that's, perhaps, delicate," she said in French. "And I want to respect this individual and his family."

On Monday, China took Michael Kovrig into custody after Beijing warned Ottawa of severe consequences for its recent arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of tech giant Huawei. Meng was arrested in Canada earlier this month at the request of the United States, which is hoping to have her extradited over allegations she tried to bypass American trade sanctions on Iran and lied to U.S. banks about her actions.

A senior government official said China confirmed to Canada very early Wednesday that the Beijing Bureau of State Security had detained Kovrig. Ottawa, however, doesn't know what the allegations against him are nor does it know where he is, the official said.

The Beijing News has reported that Kovrig "was suspected of engaging in activities that endanger China's national security."

"The thing that keeps you up at night, that you wake up in the middle of the night worrying about, is Canadian consular cases," Freeland said — when Canadians are held by foreign governments. "It is agonizing when a Canadian is detained outside Canada... The fact that Mr. Kovrig is an employee of my department means that a lot of us know him and that adds another layer to the concern."

A former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, who was Kovrig's boss in China, said he would have been under the close watch of Chinese authorities years ago as he travelled the country and talked to dissidents on behalf of Canada's government.

Kovrig took on political-reporting assignments on highly sensitive subjects, Guy Saint-Jacques said in an interview.

Saint-Jacques said Kovrig tried to "get the pulse" of many groups, such as displaced Tibetans scattered around China and Muslim minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where Beijing has been accused by the international community — including Canada — of mass detentions.

"He went to remote locations trying to meet with people from these communities to try and understand what they were going through, in terms of the challenges they faced, protecting their cultures," Saint-Jacques said in an interview. "So, all of this, obviously, would have attracted the attention of security people."

The former ambassador added that Chinese authorities have extensive files on all diplomats in China, especially those, like Kovrig, who speak fluent Mandarin.

Kovrig gave up diplomatic immunity when he took an unpaid leave of absence from Global Affairs Canada in late 2016 at the end of his posting. A senior government official, briefing reporters Wednesday on condition of anonymity before Freeland spoke, said he remains a federal government employee.