On October 30th, the Canadian government issued a ban on the Chinese messaging application WeChat on government- owned devices. Canadian authorities cited that, “The Chinese application WeChat poses an unacceptable level of risk to national security and private data protection,” and therefore decided to block the application on government- owned devices. The Canadian government’s move is another result of the growing tension between the two countries. On October 23rd, the Canadian government claimed that China had propagated false information to create disorder and confusion within the Canadian government. Furthermore, in May, both countries proceeded to pronounce the exile of each other’s diplomat. China criticized Canada’s WeChat ban, accusing Canada of unjustly targeting Chinese companies without concrete evidence supporting the accusations. Wang Wenbin, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed this criticism in a press briefing on October 31st. Wang stated that, “Chinese companies engaged in business overseas correspond with local regulations at all times,” and that “the Canadian government has issued this ban on Chinese companies without any verifiable evidence.” Furthermore, Wang emphasized that the Chinese government hopes Canada will provide a fair and nondiscriminatory business environment for Chinese companies in line with the principles of the market economy.