Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, who has been in the job for four days, said on Saturday he had pressed his Chinese counterpart about the case of two Canadian citizens jailed in Beijing.
China says the two men are being held on state secrets charges.
Champagne, named to his post in a cabinet shuffle on Wednesday, said he had raised the matter when he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for almost an hour on the sidelines of a Group of 20 meeting in Nagoya, Japan.