Four Canadians convicted of drug offenses were executed in China sparking condemnation from Ottawa.

“We strongly condemn the executions that did happen against Canadians in China,” Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters in Canada’s capital.

China defended the executions in a statement sent to the Globe and Mail newspaper.

“Drug-related crime is a severe crime recognized worldwide as extremely harmful to the society,” the embassyw statement sent to the Globe said.

“China always imposes severe penalties on drug-related crimes and maintains a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude towards the drug problem.”

Joly said that she and former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who left office last week, had asked China for leniency.

The executions come amid tense relations between Beijing and Ottawa since the arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive on a United States warrant in Vancouver in December 2018.

Beijing’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges plunged relations into a deep freeze.

Ties were strained further over allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021, charges Beijing has denied.

Joly in 2023 expelled a Chinese diplomat accused of targeting a Canadian opposition lawmaker who has been a vocal critic of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing, as well as his family.

Ottawa also has criticized a security crackdown in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.