Canada has fired its ambassador to China after he made public remarks that appeared sympathetic to the executive from Chinese telecoms group Huawei at the centre of a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday he had asked ambassador John McCallum to resign, a day after the diplomat said it would be “great for Canada” if Washington dropped its request for the extradition of detained executive Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer.

Mr McCallum made that comment after he had already been forced to apologise for remarks on the case of Ms Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder and former People’s Liberation Army officer Ren Zhengfei. She is under arrest in one of her Vancouver man-sions, pending hearings that could see her sent to the US on charges of financial fraud.